
Book ♦/l^G-'oG 




^- M'^-^^>-^-*^ .ii^' 




EnJ,t»vi:dby jBI.onJ. 



THE WORKS 



OF 



COWPER AND THOMSON, 



INCLUDING MANY 



>^E]«ER BEFORE PUBLISHED IN THIS COUNTRY. 



JTEW AXD IJf TERESTING MEMOIR 



Mtt Of ^rtiotns^ow. 



COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. 



l^ilatreliJftta: 

J. GRIGG, No. 9, NORTH FOURTH STREET. 
1831. 






jL^iitL^h ^ t"7 /S €-- 






PHILADELPHIA: 
STEREOTYPED BY J. CRISSY AND G. GOODMAN. 



eontentioi. 



Page. 

. Sketch of the Life of William Cowper, Esq. - - 1 

Table Talk, ...■-.--•- 3 

Progress of Error, 10 

Truth, 15 

ExposwUation, 21 

Hope, - 27 

Charity, 34 

Conversation, 40 

Retirement, 4S 

The Task, Book I. Tlie Sofa, 55 

n. The Time-Piece, .... 62 

ffl. The Garden, - - - - - 70 

IV. ThfrWinter Evening, - - - 78 

V. Tlie Winter Morning Walk, - - 85 

VI. The Winter Walk at Noon, - - 93 

Epistle to Josepli Hill, Esq. .■."-■ - - - 102 

Tirocinium ; or, a Review of Schools, . - - 103 

IVnSCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The Yearly Distress, or Tithing Time at Stock, in Essex, 112 

Sonnet to Henry Cowper, Esq. ib. 

Lines addressed to Dr. Darwin, - - - - 113 

On Mrs. Montagu's Feather Hangings, - - - ib 

Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk, - ib. 

On the Promotion of Edward Thurlow, Esq. . - 114 

Ode to Peace, ib. 

Human Frailty, ib. 

The Modern Patriot, - - - - - - - 115 

On observing some names of little note recorded in the 

Biographia Britannica, ib. 

Report of an adjudged case, not to be found in any of the 

boolis, ib. 

On the biurning of Lord Mansfield's library, - . 116 

On the same, , ib. 

The love of the world reproved. ib. 

On the death of Lady Throckmorton's Bulfinch, . ib. 

The Rose, 117 

The Doves, ib. 

A Fable, . - . 118 

A Comparison, ib. 

Another, addressed to a yomig lady, - - - - ib. 

The Poet's New- Year's Gift, ib. 

Ode to Apollo, 119 

Pairing Time anticipated. A fable, .... ib. 

The Dog and the Water Lily, 120 

The Poet, the Oysteii and the Sensitive Plant, . . ib. 
The Shruooery, - . • - . - - .121 

The Winter Nosegay, ib. 

Mutual forbearance necessary to the happiness of the mar- 
ried state, ib. 

The Negro's complaint, 122 

Pity for poor Africans, lb. 

T"he Morning Dream, , 123 

The Nightingale and Glow Worm, . . . . jb. 

On a Goldfinch starved to death in his cage, . - 124 

The Pine-apple and the Bee, ib. 

Horace, Book IL Ode X, - ib. 

A reflection on the foregoing ode, ..... 125 

The Lily and the Rose, ib. 

Idem I^atine Redditum, ib. 

The Poplar field, ib. 

Idem Latine Redditum, 126 

Votnm, ib. 



Page. 

Translation of Prior's Chloe and Euphelia, - - - 126 

The history of John Gilpin, ib. 

Epistle to an afflicted Protestant lady in France, - - 129 

TotlieRev. W. C.Unwin, ib. 

To the Rev. Mr. Newton, 130 

Catharina, ib. 

The Moralizer corrected, ib. 

The Faithful Bird, 131 

The Needless Alarm, ib. 

Boadicea, ......... 133 

Heroism, ib. 

On the receipt of my mother's picture out of Norfolk, 134 

Friendship, - - 135 

On a mischievous Bull, 137 

Amius Memorabilis, 1789, ib. 

Hymn for the use of the Sunday School at OIney, - 138 

Stanzas subjoined to a biU of mortality for the year 1787, ib. 

The same for 1788, 139 

The same for 1789, - - ... - - - ib. 

The same for 1790, 140 

Tlie same for 1792, ib. 

The same for 1793, ib. 

Epitaph on IVD'. Hamilton, 141 

Epitapb on a Hare, ib. 

Epitaphium Alterum, ib. 

Stanzas on the first publication of Sir Charles Grandison, 142 

Address to Miss , on reading the Prayer for Indifference, ib. 

A Tale founded on a fact, 143 

To the Rev. Mr. Newton, on his return from Ramsgate, ib. 

Poetical epistle to Lady Austen, 144 

Song, written at the request of Lady Austen, - - 145 

Verses from a poem entitled Valediction, - - . ib. 

Epitaph on Johnson, ib. 

To Miss C , on her birth-day, ib. 

Gratitude, 145 

The Flatting MiU, - - ib. 

To Mrs. Throckmorton, ib. 

On the late indecent liberties taken with the remains of 

Milton, .147 

To Mrs. King, ib. 

The Judgment of the Poets, ib. 

Epitaph on Mrs. M. Higgins, of Weston, • . . 148 

The Retired Cat, ib. 

To the Nightingale, . -■ 149 

Sonnet to W. Wilberforce, Esq. ib. 

Epigram, ib. 

To Dr. Austin, ib. 

Sonnet, addressed to William Hayley, Esq. . . 150 

Catharina, .ib. 

Sonnet to George Ronmey, Esq. .... ib. 

On receiving Hayley's pictiffe, . - - - - ib. 

On a plant of Virgin's-bower, ..... ib. 

To my cousin, Anne Bodham, 151 

To Mrs. Unwin, ib. 

To WiUiam Hayley, Esq. ib. 

On a Spaniel, called Beau, killing a bird, ... ib. 
Beau's Reply, - - -,- - - - -ib. 

To Mary, ...-.■.... 152 

On the Ice Islands, ib. 

The Castaway, 153 

Translations from Vincent Bourne. 

I. The Glow Worm, - - . ■ • - ib. 

U. The Jackdaw, 154 



CONTENTS. 



m. The Cricket, .... 

IV. The Parrot, 
V. TheThracian, 

VI. Reciprocal Kindness, - 

VIL A Manual, .... 
Vm. An Enigma, 

IX. Sparrows self-domesticated, . 

X Familiarity dangerous, 
• XI. Invitation to the Red-breast, - 
Xn. Strada's Nightingale, - 
Xin. Ode on the death of a Lady, - 
XIV. The Cause Won, 



Page. 

- 154 
ib. 

• 155 

ib. 

•• ib. 

156 

- ib. 
157 

- ib. 
ib. 

. ib. 
158 

XV. The Silk Worm, ib. 

XVI. The Innocent Thief, ib. 

XVII. Denner's Old Woman, 159 

XVm. The Tears of a Painter, . - - .- ib. 

XIX. The Maze, .-.-... ib. 

XX. No Sorrow peculiar to the Sufferer, - - ib. 

XXI. The Snail, • ib. 

The Contrite Heart, - - - • • . - 160 

The Sliining Light, ib. 

Thirsting for God, ib. 

A Tale, " - • • ib. 

Song on Peace, 161 

Sonnet to John Johnson, 162 

Inscription on a grove of Oaks, ..... ib. 

Love Abused, ib. 

Memorial for Ashley Co-\vper, Esq. .... ib. 

To the memoiy of John Thornton, Esq. . . - ib. 
To a Young Friend, ....... 163 

To the memory of Dr. Lloyd, • • - - . ib. 
Epitaph on Fop, a dog, ib. 

LETTERS. 
Letter. 1763. 

1 To Lady Hesketh. • Journals of the House of Lords ; 

reflection on the singular temper of his mind, 

Aug. 9 164 
1765. 

2 To Joseph Hill, Esq. Account of his situation at 

Huntingdon, June 24 ib. 

3 To Lady Hesketh. On his illness and subsequent 

recovery, July 1 165 

4 To the same. Salutary effects of affliction on the hu- 

man mind, July 4 ib. 

5 To the same. Account of Huntingdon; distance 

from his brother, &c. July 5 166 

6 To the same. Newton's Treatise on the Prophecies ; 

reflections of Dr. Young on the truth of Christiani- 
ty, July 12 167 

7 To the same. On the beauty and sublimity of scrip- 

tural language, Aug. 1 ib. 

8 To the same. Pearsall's Meditations; definition of 

faith, Aug. 17 168 

9 To the same. On a particular providence ; experi- 

ence of mercy, &c. Sept. 4 169 

10 To the same. First introduction to the Unwin fami- 

ly ; their characters, Sept. 14 170 

11 To the same. On the thankfulness of the heart, its 

inequalities, &c. Oct. 10 ib. 

12 To the same. Miss Unwin, her character and pie- 

ty, Oct. 18 ib. 

13 To Major Cowper. Situation at Huntingdon; his 

perfect satisfaction, &c- Oct. 18 171 

14 To Joseph Hill, Esq. On those who confine all me- 

rits to their own acquaintance, Oct. 25 172 

1766. 

15 To Lady Hesketh. On solitude; on tlie desertion of 

his friends, March 6 ib. 

16 To Mrs. Cowper. Mrs. Unwin and her son ; his cou- 

sin Martin Madan, March 12 173 



Letter. Page, 

17 To the same. Letters the fruit of friendship; his • 

conversion, April 4 173 

18 To the same. The probability of knowing each other 

in a future state, April 17 174 

19 To the same. On the recollection of earthly affairs 

by departed spirits, April 18 175 

20 To the same. On the same subject; on his own state 

of body and mind, Sept. 3 176 

21 To the same. His manner of living ; reasons for his 

not taking orders, Oct. 20 177 

1767. 

22 To the same. Reflections arising from reading Mar- 

shall, March 11 ib. 

23 To the same. Introduction of Mr. Unwin's son ; 

his gardening ; on Marshall, March 14 178 

24 To the same. On the motive of his introducing Mr. 

Unwin's son to her, April 3 ib. 

25 To the same. Mr. Unwin's death ; doubts concern- 

ing his future abode, July 13 179 

26 To Joseph Hill, Esq. Reflections arising from Mr. 

Unwin's death, July 16 ib. 

1768. 

27 To the same. On the occurrences during his visit at 

St. Alban's, July 16 ib. 

1769. 

28 To the same. On the difference of dispositions ; his 

love of retirement, 180 

29 To Mrs. Cowper. His new situation ; reasons for 

the insufficiency of the world to confer happiness, ib. 

30 To Mrs. Cowper. The consolations of religion on 

the death of her husband, Aug. 31 ib. 

1770. 

31 To the same. Dangerous illness of his brother, 

March 5 181 

32 To the Rev. John Newton. Sickness and death of his 

brother, March 31 ib. 

33 To J. Hill, Esq. Religious sentiments of his bro- 

ther. May 8 182 

34 To Mrs. Cowper. Tlie same subject, June 7 ib. 

35 To J. Hill, Esq. Expression of his gratitude for in- 

stances of friendship, Sept. 25 183 

36 To the Rev. WiUiam Unwin. The same subject; 

of supplicatory letters, &c, June 8 ib. 

1779. 

37 To the same. Johnson's Lives of the Poets, May 26 184 

38 To the same. His hot-house ; tame pigeons ; visit to 

Gayhurst, Sept. 21 ib. 

39 To the same. Johnson's biography ; his treatment 

of Milton, Oct. 31 ib. 

40 To the same. Quick succession of human events ; 

modern patriotism, Dec. 2 185 

1780. 

41 To the same. Burke's speech on the reformation ; 

Nightingale and Glow-worm, Feb. 27 ib. 

42 To the Rev. J. Newton. On the danger of innova- 

tion, March 18 186 

43 To the Rev. W. Unwin. On keeping the Sabbath,- 

Maich 28 ib. 

44 To the same. Pluralities in the Church, April 6 187 

45 To the Rev. J. Newton. Distinction between a travel- 

ed man, and a traveled gentleman, April 16 ib. 

46 To the same. Serioas reflections on rural scenery, 

May 3 188 

47 To J. Hill, Esq. The Chancellor's CT w) illness. 

May 6 ib. 

48 To the Rev. W. Unwin. His passion for landscape 

drawing ; modern politics, May 8 ib. 

49. To Mrs. Cowper. On her brother's death, May 10 189 
50 To the Rev. J. Newton. Pedantry of commenta- 
tors ; Dr. Bentlcy, &c. May 10 190 



CONTENTS. 



Letter. Page. 

51 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Danger of endeavouring 

toe.xcel; versification of a thought, June 8 190 

52 To the Rev. J. Newton. On the riots in 1780 ; dan- 

ger of associations, June 12 191 

53 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Latin verses on do. June 18 ib. 

54 To the same. Robertson's History ; Biographia Bri- 

tannica, June 22 192 

55 To the Rev. J. Newton. Ingenuity of slander ; lace- 

malcers' petition, June 23 ib. 

56 To the Rev. W. Unwin. To touch and retouch, the 

secret of good writing; an epitaph, July 2 193 

57 To .T. Hill, Esq. Recommendation of flie lace-raa- 

■ kera' petition, July 8 194 

53 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Translation of the Latin 

verses on the riots in 1780, July 11 ib. 

59 To Mi^. Cowper. On the insensible progress of age, 

July 20 ib. 

60 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Otaey Bridge, July 27 195 

61 To the Rev. J. Newton. A riddle, July 30 ib. 

62 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Human nature not chan- 

ged ; a modem only an ancient in adifferent dress, 

Aug. 6. 196 

63 To the Rev. J. Newton. Escape of one of his hares, 

Aug. 21 ib. 

64 To Mi-s. Cowper. Lady Cowper's death; age a 

friend to the mind, Aug. 31 197 

65 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Biograpliia ; verses, par- 

son and clerk, Sept. 3 ib. 

66 To the same. On education, Sept. 7 198 

67 To the same. Public schools, _ Sept. 17 199 

68 To the same. On the same subject, Oct. 5 ib, 

69 To Mi-s. Newton. On Rlr. Newton's arrival at Rams- 

gate, Oct. 5 200 

70 To the Rev. W. Unwin. On a goldfinch starved to 

death in a cage, Nov. 9 ib. 

71 To J. Hill, Esq. With the memorable law case be- 

tween nose and eyes, Dec. 25 201 

72 TotlieRev. W. Unwin. With the same, Dec. ib. 

1781. 

73 To J. HiU, Esq. On metrical law cases ; old age, 

Feb. 15 ib. 

74 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Consolations on the asperi- 

. ty of a critic, April 2 202 

75 To the same. Publication of liis first Voltmae, May 1 ib. 

76 To Joseph HiU, Esq. On the composition and pub- 

lication of his first volume. May 9 203 

77 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Reasons for not showing 

his preface to Mr. Unwin, May 10 ib. 

78 To the same. Delay of his pubUcation ; Vincent 

BoiuTie and his poems. May 23 204 

79 To the same. Correction of his proofs ; on his horse- 

manship, May 205 

80 To the same. Mrs. Unwin's criticisms; a distinguish- 

ing providence, June 5 ib. 

81 To the same. On the design of ins poems ; Mr. Un- 

win's bashfulness, Jime 24 206 

82 To the same. Thants for some rugs ; on the fashion 

of wearmg wigs, July 6 207 

83 To the Rev. J. Newton. Li rhyme ; on his poetry, 

July 12 ib. 

84 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Duty of submitting to inju- 

ry ; story of an Abbe, July 29 208 

85 To the same. His poem, Retirement ; Lady Aus- 

ten's settling at Olney, Aug. 25 209 

86 To the same. Brighton amusements ; his projected 

authorship, Oct. 6 ib. 

87 To Mrs. Cowper. His first volmne; death of a 

friend, Oct. 19 210 

88 To the Rev. W. Unv^in. Brighton dissipation ; edu- 

cation of young Unwin, ■ Nov. 5 211 



Letter. Page. 

89 To the same. Origin and causes of social feeling, 

Nov. 26 2U 
1782. 

90 To the same. Johnson's characters of Prior and 

Pope, Jan. 5 212 

91 To the saVne. Danger of criticism to the taste; 

young Unwin's education, Jan. 17 213 

92 To the Rev. J. Newton. His intended publication, 

Feb. 2 214 

93 To the Rev. W. Unwin. On some verses of Lowth's ; 

on the origin of his correspondence with Lady 
Austen, ■ Feb. 9 215 

94 To the Rev. J. Newton. Pleasures of authorship, 

Feb. 16 216 
Character of Caraccioli, ib. 

95 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Mr. Newton's preface ; the 

dignity of authorehip, Feb. 24 217 

96 To Lord Thmlow. With his first volume of poems, 

Feb. 25 ib. 

97 To the Rev. J. Newton. Thoughts on reproving 

kkigs, Feb. 218 

98 To the same. Past and present politics, March 6 ib. 

99 To the Rev. W. Unwin. On the newspapers, 

March 7 219 

100 To the Rev. J. Newton. Mr. Newton's preface^ and 

Johnson's criticisms, March 14 ib. 

101 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Observations on reUgious 

charactere, 220 

102 To the same. On his own volume of poems ; on his 

letter to tlie chancellor, March 18 221 

103 To the Rev. W. Bull, IMarch 24 ib. 

104 To the Rev. W. Unwin. On the same subject as 

Letter 102, April 1 222 

105 To the same. The dignity of the Latin language ; on 

parenthesis, April 27 ib. 

106 To tlie same. Dr. Franklin's letter ; providential es- 

cape of Captain Cook, May 27 223 

107 To the same. On the anxiety of an author, June 12 224 
lOS To the same. Dispensations of Providence, July 16 ib. 

109 To the same. Account of a viper in the green-house ; 

poems of Madame Guion, Aug. 3 225 

110 To Lady Austen. A billet and verses, Aug. 12 226 

111 To the Rev. W. BuU, Oct. 27. 227 

112 To the Rev. W. Unwin. John Gilpin's feats, Nov. 4 ib. 

113 To the same. On a' charitable donation to the poor 

ofOhiey, Nov. 18 ib. 

114 To the same. Dr. Beattie's translation of Madame 

Guion's poems, " 228 

lis To the Rev. W. Unwiit Mr. 's charity and be- 
nevolence, Jan. 19 229 

116 To the Rev. X Newton. Nations act under the direc- 

tion of Providence, Feb. 8 ib. 

117 To J. HiU, Esq. Favourable reception given to his 

poems, Feb. 13 & 20 ib. 

118 To the same. Dr. Franklin's letter transcribed, Feb. 20 230 

119 To the same. Nations like ants; etching of the 

Chancellor (Thurlow,) ib. 

120 To the Rev. J. Newton. Reflections on the iUness 

of a friend, April 5 ib. • 

121 To the same. On simplicity in preaching. May 5 231 

122 To the Rev. W. Unwin. On a sennon of Paley's, 

May 12 ib. 

123' To J. Hill, Esq. Loss of friends ; a tax on long life, 

May 26 232 

124 To the Rev. J. Newton. Death of Mrs. C. May 31 lb. 

125 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Character of the Rev. Mr. 
Bidl, Junes ib. 

126 To|he Rev. J. Newton. On his ecclesiastical histo- 
ry ; remarkable mists, . .Tune 12 233 

127 To the same. On religious zeal, June 17 234 



Vl 



CONTENTS. 



Letter. Page. 

128 To the Rev. J. Newton. Translation of Mr. New- 

ton's letter into Dutch, June 19 234 

129 To the same. His love of home ; styles of Robeilson 

and Gibbon, July 27 ib. 

130 To the Rev. W. Bull, Aug. 3 235 

131 To the Rev. W. Unwin. On ballads ; atecdote of 

his goldfinch, Aug. 4 ib. 

132 To the same. Madame Gu ion's poems, Sept. 7 236 

133 To the Rev. J. Newton. On his recovery from a fe- 

ver; story of a clerk in a public office, Sept. 8 237 

134 To tlie same. Description of a visit to Mr. , 

Sept. 23 ib. 

135 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Philosophers happy ; air 

balloons, Sept. 29 238 

136 To the Rev. J. Newton. Tendency of the Gospel to 

promote the happiness of mankind, Oct. 6 239 

137 To the same. On the American loyalists, Oct. 240 

138 To J. Hill, Esq. Comfortsof a winter evening, Oct. 20 241 

139 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Reflections on the unkind 

behaviour of acquaintance, Nov. 10 ib. 

140 To the same. The same subject ; L'Estrange's Jo- 

sephus, Nov. 24 242 

141 To the same. Account of Mr. and Mrs. Throckmor- 

ton, ib. 

17,S4. 

142 To the same. East India Company's Charter, Jan. 3 243 

143 To the Rev. J. Newton. Departure of the old year, 

Jan. 18 244 

144 To the Rev. W. Unwin. State of departed spirits, Jan. 245 

145 To the Rev. J. Newton. On East India affairs ; Lines 

of Dr. Jortin translated, • Jan. 25 246 

146 To the same. Title and motto for a work of Mr. 

Newton's, Feb. ib. 

147 To the same. Our forefathers not nervous; Adam, 

as he appeared in a dream, Feb. 10 247 

148 To the Rev. W. Bull, Feb. 22 248 

149 To the Rev. J. Newton. Secret charity at Olney ; 

parliamentary debates, Feb. ib. 

150 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Difficulty in writing to 

strangers, Feb. 29 ib. 

151 To the Rev. J. Newton. On the Theological Miscel- 

lany; Caraccioli, March 8 ai9 

152. To the same. Style and spirit of Mr. Newton's Apo- 
logy ; East India patronage, March 11 ib, 

153 To the same. Works of Caraccioli, March 19 250 

154 To the same. Visit of a Candidate, March 29 ib. 

155 To the same. Danger of trifling with our Maker; 

earthquake in Calabria, April 251 

156 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Beattie and Blair; origin 

of language, April 5 252 

1.57 To the same. Observations on Blair's Lectures, April 25 253 

158 To the Rev. J. Newton. Difference of style between 

Beattie and Blair, April 26 ib. 

159 To the Rev. W. Unwin. On face-painting, jMay 3 254 

160 To the same. Declines writing a sequel to John Gil- 

pin, May 8 255 

101 To the Rev. J. Newton. Dr. Johnson's favoiu-able 

opinion of his poems, May 22 256 

' 162 To the same. Same subject, June 5 ib. 

103 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Tax en candles, July 3 ib. 
Mythology of the ancients ; 

July 5 257 
Vincent Bourne ; Hume's 

July 12 258 
Madness sometimes Im- 



164 To the Rev. J. Newton. 

new taxes, 

165 To the Rev. W. Unwin. 

Essay on Suicide, 

166 To the Rev. J. Newton. 

morous and sometimes whimsical, July 19 259 

167 To the same. Pleasant situation of Lymington ; Mr. 

Gilpin, Jul)* 23 ib. 

168 To the Rev. W. Unwin. On the inliabitants of the 

islands in the Pacific Ocean, Aug. 14 260 



Letter. p^gg, 

169 To the Rev. J. Newton. Captain Cook's last voyage, 

Aug. 16 260 

170 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Publication of the Task, 

Sept. 11 261 

171 To J. Hill, Esq. Dr. Cotton truly a philosopher, 

Sept. 11 262 

172 To the Rev. J. Newton. Effect of sounds, Sept. 18 ib. 

173 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Punctuation of blank verse, 

Oct. 2 263 

174 To file Rev. J. Newton. On unconnected thoughts; 

death of Captain Cook, Oct. 9 ib. 

175 To the Rev. W. Unwin, The tendency of tlie Task, 

and of all his writings, Oct. 10 264 

176 To the same. On his poem, Tirocinium, Oct. 20 265 

177 To the Rev. J. Newton. Sandwich islanders, Oct. 30 266 

178 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Reasons why an author 

may wish lo keep his works secret, Nov. 1 267 

179 To the Rev. W. Bull, Nov. 8 ib. 

180 To Joseph Hill, Esq. On the death of his mother, Nov. 268 
181' To the Rev. J. Newton. His poems, the Task and 

Tirocinium, Nov. 27 ib. 

182 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Tirocinium, 1784, 269 

1S3 To the same. His poems; pictm-eof Limardi, 

Nov. 29 ib. 

184 To the Rev. J. Newton. On the titles to the difierent 

books of the Task, Dec. 13 270 

185 To tlifi Rev. W. Unwin. . Inscription of Tirocinium ; 

compliment to Bishop Bagot, Dec. 18 271 

186 To the Rev. J. Newton. On his poem being called 

the Task, Dec. 24 ib. 

1785. 

187 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Death of Dr. Johnson, and 

an epitaph on him, Jan. 15 272 

188 To the Rev. W. Unwin. On two small poems, the 

Poplar Field and the Rose, Feb. 7 273 

189 To the same. Reflections on the impatience of au- 

thors, March 20 ib. 

190 To the same. Celebrity of Jolm Gilpin, April 30 274 

191 To J. Hill, Esq. Description of his boudoir at Ol- 

ney, June 25 275 

192 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Account of a violent thun- 

der storm, July 27 ib. 

193 To the same. Dr. .Johnson's Journal, Aug. 27 276 

194 To Lady Hesketh. On her return to England, Oct, 12 277 

195 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Translation of Homer, 

Oct. 22 278 

196 To Lady Hesketh. Obligations to a friend not irk- 

some ; some account of his affairs, Nov. 9 ib. 

197 To the same. Disinterestedness of his afiections, 230 

198 To tlie Rev. Walter Bagot. Bishop Bagot's charge, 

Nov. 9 ib. 

199 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Publishuig his Homer by 

subscription, Dec. 24 lb. 

200 To J. Hill, Esq. Same subject, Dec. 24 281 

201 To the Rev. W. Unwin. Same subject; anecdotes 
of the poor at Ohiey, Dec. 31 ib. 

1786. 

202 To Lady Hesketh. Con-ecting his poems, Jan. 10 282 

203 To the Rev. W. Unwin." On his visiting Lady Hes- 
keth ; on Homer, Jan. 14 ib. 

204 To the Rev. W. Bagot. TranslationofHomer, Jan. 15 283 

205 To the same. Dr. Maty's opinion of the Task, Jan. 23 ib. 

206 To Lady Hesketh. On receiving a snuff-box with 

portraits of his three hares, Jan. 31 284 

207 To the same. On her promised visit to Olney, Feb. 9 285 

208 To the same. Vexations attendant on a variety of 

criticisms ; the Chancellor's promise, Feb. 11 ib. 

209 To the same. On their expected meeting at Olney, 

Feb. 19 286 

210 To the Rev. W. Bagot.' Death of Mrs. Bagot, Feb. 27 287 



CONTENTS. 



TU 



letter. Page. 

211 To Lady Hesketh. Elisioiis hi some instances allowa- 

ble, March 6 287 

212 To the Rev. W. Unwin. On the translation of Ho- 

mer, March 13 288 

213 To J. Hill; Esq. Same subject, April 5 289 

214 To Lady Hesketh. On her postponing her visit ; de 

scription of the vicarage, April 17 ib. 

215 To the same. Her letters his comfort, April 24 290 

216 To the same. i)r. Maty's critique on his Homer; 

description of his own feelings, May 8 ib, 

217 To the same. Pain and pleasiure on the sight of a 

long-absent friend, May 15 292 

218 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Submission to the will of 

God ; Horace's advice to authors, May 20 293 

219 To Lady Hesketh. Gives up meeting her at New- 

port ; lines in the Task ; state of his nerves, May 25 294 

220 To the same. Beauties of the spring ; his spirits less 

depressed, Jlay 29 295 

221 To the same. His feelings on her expected arrival 

Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton, June 4 and 5 296 

222 To J. HiU, Esq. His time much occupied by Ho- 

mer ; the Chancellor's illness, June 9 297 

223 To the same. Lady Hesketh's visit, and the village 

of Weston, June 19 ib. 

224 To the Rev. W. Unwin. The arrival of Lady Hes- 

keth ; residence in Ohiey ; Latin books for young 
readers, July 3 ib. 

225 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Revisal of his Homer, July 4 298 

226 To the Rev. W. Unwin. On his Homer, Aug. 24 299 

227 To the same. On his compositions, ib. 

228 To the same. His state of mind; verses to Miss C. 

on her birth-day, 300 

229 To the same. On declining to write on a subject pro- 

posed to him, ib, 

230 Letter-vpriting, illustrated by a simile m rhyme ; state 

of the nation, 301 

231 To the same. On his poem of the Lily and the Rose, ib, 

232 To the same. The poet Churchill, ib, 

233 To the same. First poetry, a translated elegy of Ti- 

buUus, -302 

234 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Milton's blank verse, and 

revisal of his Homer, , Aug. 31 303 

235 To J. Hill, Esq. Mischance that happened to part 

of his translation of Homer, Oct. 6 ib. 

236 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Changeofhabitation, Nov. 17 ib. 

237 To Lady Hesketh. A poet's hermitage, Nov. 26 304 

238 To the same. On the death of Mr. Unwin, Dec. 4 305 

239 To Robert Smith, Esq. (the present Lord Carrington.) 

On the same subject, Dec. 9 ib. 

240 To Lady Hesketh. On the same subject, Dec. 9 306 

241 To J. Hill, Esq. On the same subject, 

242 To Lady Hesketh. On praise to a poet, 

1787. 

243 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Homer's description of 

slaughter ; praise of the author and Mr. Unwin, 

Jan. 3 

244 To Lady Hesketh. On Homer, and his song of the 

Rose, Jan. 8 ib. 

245 To the same. Obliged by indisposition to suspend 

his Homer ; on dreams, and a visit from Mr. Rose, 

Jem. 18 308 

246 To Samuel Rose, Esq. His indisposition; Burns' 

Poems, July 24 309 

247 To the same. On his reviving health; Barclay's 

Argenis and Bnms, Aug. 27 ib. 

248 To Lady Hesketh. On the family at Weston HaU, 

Aug. 30 310 

249 To the same. Books he had read, Sept. 4 ib. 

250 To the same. On a lady whom he met at the HaU, 

Sept. 15 ib. 



Dec. 9 ib. 
Dec. 21 307 



ib. 



Letter. pagg. 

251 To the same. On the Memoirs of Baron de Tott, 

Sept. 29 311 

252 To S. Rose, Esq. On leaving the country after the 

dealli of his father, Oct. 19 ib, 

253 To Lady Hesketh, On a kitten and a leech, Nov. 10 312 

254 To J. Hill, Esq. On his own studies, Nov. 16 ib. 

255 To Lady Hesketh. Beauties of Weston ; the clerk of 

Northamptoji; on a paper in tlie Mirror; anec- 
dote of a beggar, . Nov. 27 ib. 

256 To the same. On his neighbours, Dec. 4 313 

257 To the Rev. W. Bagot. On his Homer, and Bishop 

Bagot, Dec. 6 ib. 

258 To Lady Hesketh. On a ball, and liis translation, 

Dec. 10 314 

259 To S. Rose, Esq. On his Homer; talents given by 

nature, Dec. 13- ib. 

1788. 
2C0 To Lady Hesketh. On verses by IMr; Merry ; inocu- 
lation, Jan. 1 315 

261 To the Rev. W. Bagot. On Bishop Bagot, and his 

Homer, Jan. 5 316 

262 To Lady Hesketh. Reasons for writing few occa- 

sional poems ; on a print of Bunbury's, Jan. 19 ib. 

263 To the same. On his own anxiety, Jan. 30 317 

264 To the same. On trouble as the portion of mortali- 

ty ; on reading a book of his Iliad to Mi-. Great- 
heed, Feb. 1 ib. 

265 To. S. Rose, Esq. Improvement of time ; on the re- 

flection of Glaucus, Feb. 14 318 

266 To Lady Hesketh. On his own melancholy; Han- ' 

nah More, and Hastings's trial, Feb. 16 319 

267 To the same. On Burke's invective, Feb. 22 ib. 

268 To the same. A fox chase, IMarch 3 320 

269 To the same. On the book entitled, "The Manners 

of the Great," March 12 ib. 

270 To General Cowper. On his poem upon the slave 

trade ; the Morning Dream, a ballad. 321 

271 To the Rev. W. Bagot. On "The Manners of the 

Great," and his Homer, March 19 ib. 

272 To S. Rose, E^q. Depression of spirits ; Dr. Clarke, 

March 29 322 
273. To Lady Hesketh. On his poem upon the slave 

trade, March 31 ib. 

274 To the same. Smollett's Don Quixote ; on his friend 

Mr. Rowley, May 6 323 

275 To J. Hill, Esq. Books that he had lost, May 8 ib. 

276 To Lady Hesketh. On Mrs. Montague, May 12 ib. 

277 To J. HiU, Esq. On two prints. Crazy Kate and the 

. Lace-maker ; bust of Paris, Blay 24 324 

278 To Lady Hesketh. Same subject ; IMrs. Montague, 

May 27 ib. 

279 To the same. Sufferings from the east wind ; extra- 

ordinary advertisement of a dancing-master, June3 325 

280 To J. HiU, Esq. Death of AsMey Cowper, Esq. June 8 ib. 

281 To Lady Hesketh. On the same subject, June 10 ib. 

282 To the same. On the same subject, June 15 326 

283 To the Rev. W. Bagot. On scenes of horror, 

June 17 ib. 

284 To S. Rose, Esq. On a dry season, June 23 327 

285 To Lady Hesketh. On his own expectations ; anec- 
dote of his dog Beau, June 27 ib. 

286 To tlie same. On the Lime Walk at Weston ; ac- 
count of Uving authors, July 28 328 

287 To the same. Favourable reception of the Task ; 
IVIr. Bacon, the sculptor, Aug. 9 ib. 

To S. Rose, Esq. Solicitude for a friend, Aug. 18 329 

289 To the same. On the oak caUed Judith ; on impro- 

per fears, Sept. 11 ib. 

290 To the same. A riddle ; on finishing the Hiad ; 

death of a bullfinch, • Sept. 25 330 



Vlll 



CONTENTS, 



Letter. Page. 

291 To S, Rose, Esq. Vincent Bourne ; invitation to his 

friend, Nov. 30 330 

292 To. J. Hill, Esq. Introductionof INIr. Rose, Dec. 2 331 

293 To Robert Smith, Esq. Dec. 20 ib. 

1789. 

294 To S. Rose, Esq. On memorg; Sir J. Hawkins, 

Jan. 19 ib. 

295 To the same. On accidents, Jan. 24 ib. 

296 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Progress in Homer, Jan. 29 332 

297 To S. Rose, Esq. On Hawkins Brown, May 20 ib. 

298 To the same. Cuckow clocks; BosweU's Tour, 

June 5 ib. 

299 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Compliments on the mar- 

riage of his friend, June 16 333 

300 To S. Rose, Esq. On Hawkins and BosvyeU, June 20 ib. 

301 To Mrs. Throckmorton. Poetical talents of a friend ; 

incidents at the Hall, July 18 ib. 

302 To S. Rose, Esq. Improvement of time in early life, 

July 23 334 

303 To the same. Mrs. Piozzi's Travels, Aug. 8 ib. 

304 To the same. Variations in our summers; remark 

on Mr. J , Sept. 24 ib. 

305 To the same. On receiving several presents , a spor- 

tive imitation of the Odyssey, Oct. 4 335 

306 To J. Hill, Esq. French revolution, Dec. 18 ib. 

307 To the Rev. W. Bagot. On ViUoison's Homer, ib. 

308 To the same. The same subject, 336 

1790. 

309 To S. Rose, Esq. On his health ; remarks on a pas- 

sage in Homer, Jan. 3 ib. 

310 To Lady Hesketh. On his kinsman's poem ; expec- 

tation of the critics on his Homer, Jan. 23 337 

311 To S. Rose, Esq. Bentley'a remarks on Homer, 

Feb. 2 ib. 

312 To Lady Hesketh. Verses to IWi-s. Throckmorton, 

Feb. 9 ib. 

313 To Mr. Johnson. Remarks of Mr. Fuseli on his po- 

em, Feb. 11 333 

314 To Lady Hesketh. Anxiety for a female relation ; 

on receiving his mother's picture, Feb. 26 ib. 

315 To Mrs, Bodham. . On his mother's picture, Feb. 27 ib. 

316 To John Johnson, Esq. Praise of Mrs. Bodham ; 

invitation to Weston, Feb. 28 339 

317 To Lady Hesketh. On the Test Act, March 8 340 

318 To S. Rose, Esq. Solicitude for his friend's health, ■ 

March 11 ib. 

319 To Mrs. Throckmorton. On a lady's remarks on his 

Homer, March 21 341 

320 To Lady Hesketh. On the style he introduced in his 

translation of Homer, March 22 ib. 

321 ToJ. Johnson, Esq. Remarks on Longinus, March 23 342 

322 To the same. On Lavater ; particular studies recom- 

mended, April 17 ib. 

323 To Lady Hesketh. Completion of his Uanslation, 

April 19 343 

324 To the same. On pictures of both his parents, Apri 1 30 ib. 

325 To Mrs. Tlirockmorton: Village incidents. May 10 ib. 

326 To Lady Hesketli, May 28 344 

327 To the same. On a poetical application, June 3 ib. 
32S To .L Johnson, Esq. On pal^icular studies, June 7 ib. 

329 ToS. Rose, Esq. On early marriages; a riddle, June 8 345 

330 To Lady Hesketh. Reflections on seeing an old wo- 

man ; inscriptions for a grove of oaks, June 17 ib. 

331 To the Rev. W. Bagot. African serpents and ants; 

on Bishop Bagot's removal, June 22 346 

a32 To Mrs. Bodham. On letter-writing, Jimo 29 ib. 

333 To Lady Hesketh. Mrs. Unwin's illness; on the 

French revolution, • July 7 347 

331 To J. Johnson, Esq. Danger of muac engrossing 

too much time, July 8 ib. 



Letter. page, 

335 To the same. Cautions against an heedless inatten- 

tion to friends, July 31 347 

336 To Mr. Johnson. Mr. Fuseli's strictures on his Ho- 

mer, Sept. 7 348 

337 To Mrs. Bodham. Mr. Johnson's carrying his Ho- 

mer to London, Sept. 9 ib. 

338 To S. Rose, Esq. On his marriage ; preface to Ho- 

mer, Sept 13 ib. 

339 To Mr. Johnson. Mr. Newton's preface, &c. Oct. 3 349 

340 To Mrs. Bodham. On Uie joys and sorrows of infan- 

cy, Nov. 21 ib. 

341 To J. Johnson, Esq. Visit from the Dowager Lady 

Spencer, Nov. 26 ib. 

342 To S. Rose, Esq. Prediction of future emmence in 

his profession, Nov. 30 350 

343 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Translation of Homer ; on 

the office of Poet Laureat, Dec. 1 ib. 

344 To J. Johnson, Esq. King's College subscription; 

family of the Donnes, Dec. 18 351 

1791. 

345 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Long and short syllables in 

the Englisb language, Jan. 4 ib. 

346 To Mr. Johnson. On a line in one of hia poems hav- 

ing been tampered with, ib. 

347 To J. Johnson, Esq. Playful remarks on his charac- 

ter, . Jan. 21 352 

348 To S. Rose, Esq. His present of Pope's Homer, 

Feb. 5 ib. 

349 To Lady Hesketh. Fame not an empty breath, Feb. 13 353 

350 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Blank verse the English he- 

roic, Feb. 26 ib. 

351 To J. Johnson, Esq. On the subscriptions from Cam- 

bridge, Oxford, and the Scotch OTiivereities, 

Feb. 27 ib. 

352 To .J. Hill, Esq. Preface to the translation of Ho- 

mer, March 6 354' 

353 To the Rev. Mr. Hurdis. Livitation to Weston ; Sir 

Thomas More, March 6 'ib. 

354 To J. Hill, Esq. Achilles in the attitude of a dancing- 

• master, March 10 ib. 

355 To the Rev. W. Bagot. On the critical talents of Dr. 

Johnson, March 18 ib. 

356 To J. Johnson, Esq. On the poems of the Norwich 

maiden, March 19 355 

357 To S. Rose, Esq. His Homer calculated at less than 

the 7th part of a farthing per line, March 24 ib. 

358 To Lady Hesketh. God no more a respecter of wit 

than he is of persons, March 25 356 

359 To Mrs. Throckmorton. Little success of applica- 

tion to tlie University of Oxford, April 1 ib. 

360 To J. Johnson, Esq. Brilliant collection of names 

from Cambridge, April 6 357 

361 To S. Rose, Esq. General success of the subscrip- 

tion, April 29 ib. 

362 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Mr. Bagot ; Milton's Poems, 

May 2 ib. 

363 To the Rev. Mr. Buchanan, May 11 358 

364 To Lady Hesketh. Letter from Dr. Cogswell, from 

New York, May 18 ib. 

365 To J. Johnson, Esq. Translation of the Frogs and 

Mice, May 23 ib. 

366 To Lady Hesketh. Delays of printers; confidence in 

government. May 27 ib. 

367 To J. Johnson, Esq. On his procuring himthe Cam- 

bridge subscriptions to liis Homer, June 1 359 

368 To the Rev. Mr. Ilnrdis. On the time of the publi- 

cation of his Homer, June 13 ib. 

309 To S. Rose, Esq. Man an ungrateful animal, June 15 360 
370 To Dr. James Cogswell. On the Task, and his other 

poems, June 15 ib. 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



Letter. Page. 

371 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Lady Bagot's visit to Wes- 

ton, Aug. 2 361 

372 To the Rev. Mr. Hiu'dis. On his mode of study at 

Weston, Aug. 9 ib. 

373 To J. Joluison, Esq. On the subject of a new work, 

Aug. 9 362 

374 To S. Rose, Esq. Translation of Milton's Italian and 

Latin Poems, Sept. 14 ib. 

375 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Milton's Elegy on the death 

of the Bishop of Wincliester, Sept. 21 ib. 

376 To llie same. Upon a poem of Lord Bagot's, Oct. 25 363 

377 To J. Jolmson, Esq. On his sister's recovery, Oct. 31 ib. 
373 To J. Hill, Esq. On the antipathy to compomid epi- 
thets, Nov. 14 ib. 

379 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Translation of Homer and 

Milton, Dec. 5 364 

380 To the Rev. Mr. Htirdis. On original composition 

and translation, Dec. 10 ib. 

381 To S. Rose, Esq. Mrs. Unwin's illness, .Dec. 21 365 

1792. 

382 To the Rev. W. Bagot. On his children's recove- 

ry, Fob. 14 ib. 

383 To the Lord Thurlow. On his translation of Homer, 3C6 
To William Cowper, Esq. from Lord Thmlow. On 

rhyme; on translation; his lordship's version of 
the speech of Achilles to Phiiliix, ib, 

3S4 To the Lord Thurlow. On the same subject, • ib. 

385 To the same. His satisfaction at his lordship's being 

pleased with his translation, 367 

To William Cowper Esq. from Lord Tliurlow. Blank 
verse fittest for a translation of Homer, 368 

386 To the Rev. iVL.'. Hm'dis. Acknowledgment of his 

friendly remarks on Homer, Feb. 21 ib. 

387 To the same. Continuation of the same, Mai'ch 2 ib. 
3S8 To J. Johnson, Esq. Milctaess of the Spring, March 11 369 

389 To the Rev. IVL:. Hurdis. On his ttagedy of Sir Tho- 

mas More, Blarch 23 ib. 

390 To Lady Hesketli. On receiving the first letter from 

BIr. Hayley, March 25 ib. 

391 To S. Rose, Esq. On a poem of Mr. Park's, MaixhSO 370 

392 To the same. . Printers tnesome, April 5 ib. 

393 To W. Hayley, Esq. Livitationto Weston ; charac- 

ter of Mrs. Unwin, April 6 ib. 

394 To the Rev. Mr. Hurdis. Comparison of his unan- 

swered letters with the leaves in autumn, - AprU 8 371 

395 To Lady Throckmorton. On appropriating the pro- 

ductions of others to ourselves ; on calumniation ; 
sonnet to Mr. Wilberforce, April 16 ib. 

396 To the Rev. J. JekyU Rye. Abhon'ence of the slave 

trade, April 16 372 

397 To Lady Hesketh. With some lines to Warren Has- 

tings, May 5 ib. 

398 To J. Jolmson, Esq. On the subject of his ordina- 

tion. May 20 373 

399 To Lady Hesketh. Mrs. Unwin's second attack. 

May 24 ib. 

400 To the same. The same subject, Blay 26 374 

401 To Mrs. Bodham. On the subject of early ordina- 

tion, June 4 ib. 

402 To WiUiam Hayley, Esq. OnMrs. Unwin's amend- 

ed health, June 4 ib. 

403 To the same. Same subject, June 5 ib. 

404 To the same. His attachment to Mr. Hayley, and 

his own melancholy, June 7 375 

405 To the same. Resignation of Mrs. Unwin ; a poem 

to Dr. Darwin, June 10 ib. 

406 To Lady Hesketh. Mrs. Unwin's gradual recoveiy, 

June 11 376 
4C7 To W. Hayley, Esq. On the projected visit to Eaitli- 

am, June 19 ib. 



Letter. Page. 

408 To the same. Same subject ; lines to Catharina, 

June 27 376 

409 To the same. Upon the life of Milton, July 4 377 

410 To the same. On Abbott's picture of him, July 15 ib, 

411 To the same. The day fixed for their journey to 

Eartham, July 22 ib, 

412 To the same. Fears and distresses beforesetting out ; 

liis picture finished, July 29 378 

413 To the Rev. Mr. Greatheed. Description of Earth- 

am; the journey thither, Aug. 6 ib. 

414 To Mrs. Courtenay. Same subject, Aug. 12 379 

415 To S. Rose, Esq. Wishes him at Eaitham, Aug. 14 ib. 

416 To tlie same. Same subject, Aug. 18 380 

417 To Mrs. Courtenay. Manner of spending his time 

at Eartliam ; epitaph on Fop, Aug. 25 ib. 

418 To Lady Hesketh. Lnprovement in his health ; his 

portrait by Romney, Aug. 26 ib. 

419 To the Rev. ]\Ir. Hurdis. On the death of his sister ; 

invitation to' Eartham, Aug. 26 381 

420 To the same. On tlie beautiful scenery of Eartham ; 

regrets on leaving it, Sept. 9 ib. 

421 To W. Hayley, Esq. Account of his journey, Sept. 18 382 

422 To tte same. Same subject, Sept. 21 ib, 

423 To the same. His spirits sink on the approach of 

winter, Oct. 2 ib. 

424 To the same. Full of affectionate regard ; on Hay- 

ley's verses to Dr. Austin, Oct, 13 383 

425 To J. Johnson, Esq. Regret for his absence ; sonnet 

to Romney, Oct. 19 ib. 

426 To the same Moral reflection on sitting for a pic- 

ture, Oct. 22 ib. 

427 To W. Hayley, Esq. Difficulty of exertion; sonnet 

to Romney, Oct. 28 384 

428 To S. Rose, Esq. Compliment On his professional 

industry ; hopes of future success, Nov. 9 ib. 

429 To J. Johnson, Esq. Difficulty in commencing his 

Milton ; lownes of spirits, Nov. 30 ib. 

430 To W. Hayley, Esq. Same subject, . Nov. 25 385 
4.31 To J. Hill, Esq. Pohtics of theday, Dec. 16 ib. 

432 To W. Hayley, Esq. On his confinement in conse- 

quence of his translating Milton, Dec. 26 ^6 

1793. 

433 To the Rev. W. Hm'dis. On the illness of Miss Hur- 

dis, Jan. 6 ib. 

434 To W. Hayley, Esq. On the an-ival of Mr. Hay ley's , 

picture, Jan. 20 ib. 

435 To the same. On the death of a friend, Jan. 29 387 

436 To S. Rose, Esq. His translation of Homer, Feb. 5 ib. 

437 To Lady Hesketh. Toryism of Lady Hesketh and 

Mi-s. Rose, Feb. 10 ib. 

438 To S. Rose, Esq. On the Analytical Review of his 

Homer, Feb. 17 ib. 

439 To the Rev. Mr. Hurdis. Professorship of poetry; 

discoveries in natural history, Feb. 23 388 

440 To W. Hayley, Esq. His dream respecting Milton, 

Feb. 24 ib. 

441 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Republicans of France, 

March 4 389 

442 To Mr. Tliomas Hayley. On Mr. Thomas Hayley's 

strictures on his Homer, March 14 ib. 

443 To W. Hayley, Esq. Revisal of hisHomer, Mai-chl9 390 

444 To S. Rose, Esq. Revised translation of Homer, 

March 27 ib. 

445 To J. Johnson, Esq. Mr. Johnson's resolution to 

take holy orders, April 11 ib. 

446 To W. Hayley, Esq. On uile notes to his Homer, 

April 23 391 

447 To the Rev. W. Bagot. On the death of those we 

love, IMay 4 ib. 

448 To S, Rose, Esq. On the notes of his Homer, May 5 ib. 



CONTENTS. 



Leiler. Page. 

449 To Lady Hesketh. Toryism of Lady Hesketh, " 

May 7 392 

450 To W. Hayley, Esq. Distribution of his time, May 21 ib. 

451 To Lady Hesketh. Witl\ his verses to a young friend 

on his arrival at Cambridge wet, when no rain liad 
fallen there, June 1 393 

452 To W. Ilayley, Esq. Ontlie proposal of a joint com- 

position, June 29 ib. 

453 To the siime. On liis projected poem of the Four 

Ages^ July 7 ib. 

454 To the Rev. Mr. Greatheed. On Mr. Greatheed's in- 

vitation, July 23 394 

455 To W. Hayley, Esq. Improvements in his garden, 

July 24 ib. 

456 To Mrs. Cliarlotte Smith. July 25 395 

457 To Lady Hesketh. On lus lines and acknowledg- 

ments to IWiss Fanshaw, . Aug. 11 ib. 

458 To W. Hayley, Esq. On his new buildings and im- 

provements, Aug. 15 ib 

459 To Mrs. Courtenay. The treatment of Bob Archer 

by a roguish fiddler, Aug. 20 396 

460 To S. Rose, Esq. Notes to his Homer, Aug. 22 ib. 

461 To W. Hayley, Esq. On Flaxman's monument to 

Lord Mansfield, Aug. 27 397 

462 To Lady Hesketh. On Lady Hesketh's visit to Wes- 

ton, Aug. 29 ib. 

463 To the Rev. Jolm Johnson. ISIr. Johnson's present 

of a sun-dial, Sept. 6 398 

461 To W. Hayley, Esq. On his affected mirth and real 

melancholy, Sept. 8 ib. 



Letter. page. 

465 To Mrs. Courtenay. On Mr. Johnson's present of a 

sun-dial, Sept, 15 ib. 

466 To the Rev. J. Jolmson. On Mr. Johnson's visit to 

Weston, Sept. 29 399 

467 To W. Hayley, Esq. On the visits ^nd civilities 

wliich wasted his time, Oct. 5 ib. 

468 To the same. On Mr. Hayley and his son's visit to 

Weston, Oct. IS 400 

469 To the Rev. J. Jekyll Rye. On Mr. Hurdis's election 

to the Professorship of poetry at Oxford, Nov. 3 ib. 

470 To Mrs. Courtenay. Mr. Hayley's visit, Nov. 4 ib. 

471 To J. Hill, Esq. Beauties of Weston, Nov. 5 401 

472 To the Rev. W. Bagot. Reflections on the French 

Revolution, Nov. 10 ib. 

473 To the Rev. Mr. Hurdis. On Hayley's Life of Mil- 

ton, his own commentary, Nov. 24 ib. 

474 To S. Rase, Esq. Subjects for painting recommend- 

ed ; idea of a joint work with Hayley, Nov. 29 402 

475 To the same. Thanking him for hooks; Jonathan 

Wild; Man as he is, Dec. 8 ib. 

476 To W. Hayley, Esq. Uneasy at not Iiearing from 

him ; plan of continuing the Four Ages, Dec. 8 ib. 

477 To the same. Criticism on the address of Hector to 

his son, Dec. 17 403 



1794. 
478 To the same. Same subject, 



1798. 



479 To Lady Hesketh, 



Jan. 5 ib. 

i 
Oct. 13 404 1 



SKETCH 



^mM ©SF waiLMiiSE ©®w!?a2B9 sssk 



OF THE INNER TEMPLE. 



William Cowper was born at Berkliamstead, 
Herts, November 26, 1731. His father, the rec- 
tor of the parish, was the reverend John Cowper, 
D. D., son of Spencer Cowper, one of the justices 
of the common pleas, a younger brother of the lord 
chancellor Cowper. He received his early educa- 
tion at a school in his native county, whence he 
was removed to that of Westminster. Here he 
adquired a competent portion of classical know- 
ledge; but, from the dehcacy of his temperament, 
and the timid shyness of his disposition, he seems 
to have endured a species of martyrdorh from the 
rudeness and tyranny of his more robust compan- 
ions, and to have received, indelibly, the impres- 
sions that subsequently produced liis Tirocinium, 
in which poem his dislike to the system of pubUc 
education in England is very strongly stated. On 
leaving Westminster, he was articled, for three 
years, to an eminent attorney, during which time 
he appears to have paid very little attention to his 
profession; nor did he alter on this point after his 
entry at the Temple, in order to qualify himself 
for the honourable and lucrative place of clerk to 
the house of lords, which post his family interest 
had secured for him. While he resided in the 
Temple, he appears to have been rather gay and 
social in his intercom-se, numbering among his 
companions Lloyd, ChurcliiU, Thornton and Col- 
man, aU of whom had been his companions at 
Westminster school, and the two latter of whom 
he assisted vnth some papers in the Connoisseur. 
His natural disposition, however, remained timid 
and diffident, and his spirits so constitutionally in- 
firm, that, when the time arrived for his assuming 
the post to which he had been destined, he was 
thrown into such unaccountable terror at the idea 
of maldng his appearance before the assembled 
peerage, that he was not only obliged to resign the 
appointment, but was precipitated, by his agitation 



of spirits, into a state of great mental disorder. 
At this period, he was led into a deep consideration 
of his religious state; and, having imbibed the 
doctrine of election and reprobation in its most ap- 
palling rigor, he was led to a very dismal state of 
apprehension. We are told, "that the terror of 
eternal judgment overpowered and actually disor- 
dered his faculties; and he remained seven months 
in a continual expectation of being instantly plimg- 
ed into eternal misery." In this shocking condi- 
tion, confinement became necessary, and he was 
placed in a receptacle for lunatics, kept by the 
amiable and well-known doctor Cotton of St. Al- 
ban's. At length, his mind recovered a degree of 
serenity, and he retired to Huntingdon, where he 
formed an acquaintance with the family of the 
reverend Mr. Unwin, which ripened into the strict- 
est intimacy. In 1773, he was again assailed, by 
religious despondency, and endured a partial ahen- 
ation of mind for some years, during which afflic- 
tion he was highly indebted to the affectionate care 
of Mrs. Unwin. In 1778, he again recovered ; in 
1780, he was persuaded to translate some of the 
spiritual songs of the celebrated madame Guion. 
In the same and the foUo vsdng year, he was also induc- 
ed to prepare a volume of poems for the press, which 
was printed in 1782. This volume did not attract 
any great degree of public attention. The princi- 
pal topics are. Error, Truth, Expostulation, Hope, 
Charity, Retirement and Conversation; all of which 
are treated with originality, but, at the same time, 
with a portion of rcUgious austerity, which, with- 
out some very striking recommendation, was not, 
at that time, of a nature to acquire popularity. 
They are in rhymed heroics; the style being rather 
strong than poetical, although never flat or insipid. 
A short time before the publication of this volmne, 
Mr. Cowper became acquaiiited with lady Austen, 
widow of sir Robert Austen, who subsequently 



LIFE OF "WILLIAM COWPER. 



resided, for some time, at the parsonage-house at 
Ohiey. To the influence of tliis lady, the world 
is indebted for the exquisitely himiorous ballad of 
John Gilpin, and the author's master-piece, the 
Task. The latter admirable poem cliicfly occupi- 
ed liis second volume, wliich was pubhshcd in 
1785, and rapidly secured universal admiration. 
The Task luiites minute accuracy with great ele- 
gance and picturesque beauty; and, after Thom- 
son, Covq)er is probably the poet who has added 
most to the stock of natural imagery. The moral 
reflections in this poem are also exceedingly im- 
pressive, and its dehneation of character abounds 
in genuine nature. His religious system, too, al- 
though discoverable, is less gloomily exhibited in 
this than in his other productions. Tliis volmne 
also contained his Tirocinium — a piece strongly 
written, and abounding vdth striking observations, 
whatever may be thought of its decision against 
public education. About the year 1784, he began 
his version of Homer, which, after many impedi- 
ments, appeared in July, 1791. This work pos- 
sesses much exactness, as to sense, and is certain- 



ly a more accurate representation of Homer than 
the version of Pope; but EngUsh blank verse can 
not sufficiently sustain the less poetical parts of 
Homer, and the general elTcct is bald and prosaic. 
Disaj)pointcd at the reception of this laborious 
work, he meditated a revision of it, as also the su- 
perintendence of an edition of Milton, and a new 
didactic poem, to be entitled the Four Ages; but, 
although he occasionally wrote a few verses, and 
revised his Odyssey, amidst liis glimmerings of 
reason, those and all other -undertakings finally 
gave way to a relapse of lais malady. His disor- 
der extended, with httle intermission to the close 
of life ; which, melancholy to relate, ended in a 
state of absolute despair. In 1794, a pension of 
300Z. per annum was granted him by the crovm 
In the beginning of 1800, this gifted, but afflicted 
man of genius, exliibited symptoms of dropsy, 
which carried him off on the 25tli of April follow- 
ing. Since Ms death, Cowper has, by the care 
and industry of liis ftiend and biographer. Hay- 
ley, become known to the world, as one of the most 
easy and elegant letter-writers on record. 



OF 

WIIililAM CO^¥PEB, ESQ.. 

OF THE INNER TEMPLE. 



EuUt ^ddU. 



Si te forte meaB gravis uret sarcina cliartas, 
Abjicito Mor. Lib. 1. Epist. 13. 



A. YOU told me, I remember, glory, built 
>0n selfish principles, is shame and guilt; 
The deeds that men admire as half divine. 
Stark naught, because corrupt in their design. 

• Strange doctrine this! that without scruple tears 
The laurel, that the very hghtning spares ; 
Brings down the warrior's trophy to the dust, 
And eats into his bloody sword like rust. 

B. I grant that, men continuing what they are. 
Fierce, avaricious, proud, there must be war; 
And never meant the rule should be applied 

To him, that fights with justice on his side. 

Let laurels drenched in pure Parnassian dews. 
Reward his memory, dear to every muse. 
Who, with a courage of unshaken rOot, 
In Honour's field advancing his firm foot, 
Plants it upon the Une that Justice draws, 
And wiU prevail or perish in her cause. 
'Tis to the virtues of such men, man owes 
His portion in the good that Heaven bestows. 
And when recording History displays 
Feats of renovm, though wrought in ancient days. 
Tells of a few stout hearts, th'at fought and died, 
Where duty placed them, at their country's side; 
The man, that is not moved with what he reads, 
That takes not fire at their heroic deeds. 
Unworthy of the blessings of the brave. 
Is base in kind, and born to be a slave. 

But let eternal infamy pursue 
The wretch to nought but his ambition true. 
Who, for the sake of filling with one blast 
The post-horns of all Europe, lays her waste. 
Think yourself stationed on a towering rock, 
To see a people scattered like a flock. 



Some royal mastiflf panting at their heels. 
With all the savage thirst a tiger feels; 
Then view him self-proclaimed in a gazette 
Chief monster that has plagued the nations yet: 
The globe and sceptre in such hands misplaced, 
Those ensigns of dominion, how disgraced ! 
The glass, that bids man mark the fleeting hour, 
And Death's own scythe would better speak his 

power; 
Then grace the bony phantom in their stead 
With the king's shoulder-knot and gay cockade; 
Clothe the twin brethren in each other's dress, 
The same their occupation and success. 

A. 'Tis your belief the world was made for man ; 
Kings do but reason on the self-same plan : 
Maintaining yours, you cannot theirs condemn, 
Who think, or seem to think, man made for them. 

B. Seldom, alas! the power of logic reigns 
With much sufficiency in royal brains ; 
Such reasoning falls like an inverted cone, 
Wanting its proper base to stand upon. 
Man made for kings! those optics are but dim, 
That tell you so — say, rather, they for him. 
That were indeed a king-ennobling thought. 
Could they, or would they, reason as they ought. 
The diadem, with mighty projects lined. 

To catch renovrai by ruining mankind. 
Is worth, with all its gold and gUttering store, 
Just what the toy will sell for, and no more. 
Oh ! bright occasions of dispensing good. 
How seldom used, how Httle miderstood ! 
To pour in Virtue's lap her just reward; 
Keep Vice restrained behind a double guard; 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



To quell the faction, that afironts the throne, 

By silent magnanimity alone; 

To nurse with tender care the thriving arts; 

Watch every beam Philosophy imparts; 

To give Religion her unbridled scope, 

Nor judge by statute a bcUever's hope; 

With close fidchty and love unfeigned. 

To keep the matrimonial bond unstained ; 

Covetous only of a virtuous praise; 

His life a lesson to the land he sways ; 

To touch the sword with conscientious awe, 

Nor draw it but when duty bids him draw; 

To sheathe it in the peace-restoring close, 

With joy beyond what victory bestows; — 

Blest country, where these kingly glories shine! 

Blest England, if this happiness be thine ! 

A. Guard what you say, the patriotic tribe 
Will sneer, and charge you with a bribe — 

B. A bribe 1 

The worth of his three kingdoms I defy, 
To lure me to the baseness of a lie : 
And, of all lies (be that one poet's boast,) 
The he that flatters I abhor the most. 
Those arts be theirs, who hate his gentle reign; 
But he that loves him has no need to feign. 

A. Your smooth eulogium to one crown addrest, 
Seems to imply a censure on the rest. 

B. Cluevedo, as he tells his sober tale, 
Asked, when in hell, to see the royal jail; 
Approved their method in all other tilings: 

But where, good sir, do you confine your kings'? 

There — said his guide — the group is full in view. 

Indeed 1 — repHed the don — there are but few. 

His black interpreter the charge disdained — 

Few, fellow 1 — there are all that ever reigned. 

Wit, undistinguishing, is apt to strike 

The guilty and not guilty both alike: 

I grant the sarcasm is too severe, 

And we can readily refute it here ; 

While Alfred's name, the father of his age, 

And the sixth Edward's grace th' historic page. 

A. Kings then, at last, have but the lot of all : 
By their own conduct they must stand or fall. 

B. True. While they live, the courtly laureat 
pays 

His quitrent ode, his peppercorn of praise; 
And many a dunce, whose fingers itch to write, 
Adds, as he can, his tributary mite. 
A subject's faults a subject may proclaim, 
A monarch's errors are forbidden game ! 
Thus, free from censure, overawed by fear, 
And praised for virtues that they scorn to wear, 
The fleeting forms of majesty engage 
Respect, wliile stalking o'er life's narrow stage; 
Then leave their crimes for history to scan, 
And ask, with busy scorn, was tliis the man? 

I pity kings, whom Worshi[) waits upon 
Obsequious from the cradle to tlie throne; 



Before whose infant eyes the flatterer bows, 
And binds a WTeath about their baby brows; 
Whom Education stiffens into state, 
And Death awakens from that dream too late. 
Oh ! if Servility, with supple knees, 
Whose trade it is to smile, to crouch, to please; 
If smooth Dissimvdation, sidlled to grace 
A devil's purpose with an angel's face; 
If smiling peeresses, and simpering peers, 
Encompassing his throne a few short years; 
If the gilt carriage and the pampered steed, 
That wants no driving, and disdains the lead; 
If guards, mechanically formed in ranks, 
Playing, at beat of drum, their martial pranks. 
Shouldering and standing as if struck to stone. 
While condescending majesty looks on ! 
If monarchy consist in such base tilings, 
Sighing, I say again, I pity kings ! 

To be suspected, thwarted, and withstood. 
E'en when he labours for his country's good; 
To see a band called patriot for no cause. 
But that they catch at popular applause. 
Careless of all th' anxiety he feels, 
Hook disappointment on the public wheels; 
With all their flippant fluency of tongue, 
Most confident when palpably most wrong; 
If this be Idngly, then farewell for me 
AU kingship ; and may I be poor and free ! 
To be the table talk of clubs up-stairs, 
To which th' unwashed artificer repairs, 
T' indulge his genius after long fatigue, 
By diving into cabinet intrigue ; 
(For what kings deem a toil, as well they may, 
To him is relaxation and mere play;) 
To wdn no praise when well- wrought plans prevail, 
But to be rudely censured when they fail; 
To doubt the love his favourites may pretend,- 
And in reality to find no friend; 
If he indulge a cultivated taste, 
His galleries with the works of art well graced. 
To hear it called extravagance and waste; 
If these attendants, and if such as these, 
Must foUow royalty, then welcome ease; 
However humbled and confined the sphere, 
Happy the state that has not these to fear. 

A. Thus men, whose thoughts contemplative 
have dwelt 
On situations that they never felt, 
Start up sagacious, covered with the dust, ' 
Of dreaming study and pedantic rust, 
And prate and preach about what others prove. 
As if the world and they were hand and glove. 
Leave kingly backs to cope with kingly cares ; 
They have their weight to carry, subjects theirs; 
Poets, of all men, ever least regret 
Increasing taxes and the nation's debt. 
Could you contrive the payment, and rehearse 
The mighty plan, oracular, in verse, 



TABLE TALK. 



No bard, howe'cr majestic, old or new. 
Should claim my fixed attention more than you. 
B. Not Brindley nor Bridgewater would essay 
To turn the course of Helicon that way; 
Nor would the Nine consent the sacred tide 
Should purl amidst the traffic of Cheapside, 
Or tinkle in 'Change Alley, to amuse 
The leathern ears of stockjobbers and Jews. 

A. Vouchsafe, at least, to pitch the key of rhyme 
To themes more pertment, if less sublime. 
When ministers and ministerial arts; 
Patriots, who love good places at their hearts; 
When admirals, extolled for standing still, 

Or doing nothing with a deal of skill; 

Gen'rals, who will not conquer when they may. 

Firm friends to peace, to pleasure, and good pay; 

When Freedom, wounded almost to despair. 

Though Discontent alone can find out where; 

When themes like these employ the poet's tongue, 

I hear as mute as if a syren sung. 

Or tell me, if you can, what power maintains, 

A Briton's scorn of arbitrary chains: 

That were a theme might animate the dead. 

And move the lips of poets cast in lead. 

B. The cause, tho' worth the search, may yet 
elude 

Conjecture and remark, however shrewd. 
They take perhaps a well-directed aim. 
Who seek it in his cUmate and his frame. 
Liberal in all. things else, yet Nature here 
With stern severity deals out the year. 
Winter invades the spring, and often pours 
A chilling fiood on summer's drooping flowers; 
Unwelcome vapours quench autumnal beams, 
Ungenial blasts attending curl the streams : 
The peasants urge their harvest, ply the fork 
With double toil, and shiver at their work ; 
Thus with a rigour for his good designed. 
She rears her favourite man of all mankind. 
His form robust and of elastic tone. 
Proportioned well, half muscle and half bone, 
Supphes with warm activity and force 
A mind well lodged, and masculine of course. 
Hence Liberty, sweet Liberty inspires 
And keeps alive his fierce but noble fires. 
Patient of constitutional control, 
He bears it with meek manliness of soul; 
But if Authority grow wanton, wo 
To him that treads upon his free-bom toe; 
One step beyond the boundary of the laws 
Fires him at once in Freedom's glorious cause. 
Thus proud Prerogative, not much revered. 
Is seldom felt, though sometimes seen and heard ; 
And in liis cage, like parrot fine and gay, 
Is kept to strut, look big, and talk away. 
Born in a climate softer far than ours. 
Not formed, like us, with such Herculean powers. 
The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk, 
Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk, 



Is alwas happy, reign whoever may, 
And laughs the sense of misery far away. 
He drinks liis simple beverage with a gust; 
And, feasting on an onion and a crust, 
We never feel th' alacrity and joy 
With which he shouts and carols Vive la Roi, 
Filled with as much true merriment and glee, 
As if he heard his king say — Slave, be free. 

Thus happiness depends, as Nature shows, 
Less on exterior tilings than most suppose, 
Vigilant over all that he has made. 
Kind Providence attends with gracious aid ; 
Bids cqmty throughout liis works prevail. 
And weighs the nations m an even scale ; 
He can encourage Slavery to a smile. 
And fill with discontent a British isle. 

A. Freeman, and slave then, if the case be such, 
Stand on a level; and you prove too much; 

If all men indiscriminately share 

His fostering power, and tutelary care. 

As well be yoked by Despotism's hand, 

As dwell at large in Britain's chartered land. 

B. No. Freedom has a thousand charms to 
show. 

That slaves, howe'er contented, never know. 

The mind attains beneath her happy reign. 

The growth, that Nature meant she should attain; 

The varied fields of science, ever new, 

Opening and voider opening on her view. 

She ventures onward vrith a' prosperous force, 

WTiile no base fear impedes her in her course. 

Religion, richest favour of the skies, 

Stands most revealed before the freeman's eyes ; 

No shades of superstition blot the day. 

Liberty chases all that gloom away: 

The soul emancipated, unopprest, 

Free to prove all things, and hold fast the best. 

Learns much; and to a thousand listening minds 

Communicates with joy the good she finds : 

Courage in arms, and ever prompt to show 

His manly forehead to the fiercest foe ; 

Glorious in war, but for the sake of peace, 

His spirits rising as his toils increase. 

Guards well what arts and industry have won, 

And Freedom claims him for her first-bom son. 

Slaves fight for what were better cast away — 

The chains that binds them, and a tyrant's sway ; 

But they that fight for freedom, undertake 

The noblest cause mankind can have at stake : — 

Religion, virtue, truth, whate'er we call 

A blessing — freedom is the pledge of all. 

O Liberty 1 the prisoner's pleasing dream, 

The poet's muse, his passion, and his theme ; 

Genius is thine, and thou art Fancy's nurse; 

Lost without th' ennobling powers of verse; 

Heroic song from thy free touch acqilires 

Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires: 

Place me where Winter breathes his keenest air. 

And I will sing, if Liberty be there ; 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



And I will sing at Liberty's dear feet, 

In Afric's torrid cliuie, or India's fiercest heat. 

A. Sing where you please; in such a cause I 
grant 

An English poet's privilege to rant; 
But is not Freedom — at least is not ours 
Too apt to play the wanton with her powers, 
Grow freakish, and, o'erlcaping every mound, 
Spread anarchy and terror all around'? 

B. Agreed. But would you sell or slay your 
horse 

For bounding and cun'eting in his course'? 
Or if, when ridden with a careless rein, 
He break away, and seek the distant plain'? 
No. His high mettle, under good control, 
Gives him Olympic speed, and shoots him to the 
goal. 

Let discipline employ her wholesome arts ; . 
Let magistrates alert perform their parts; 
Not skulk or put on a prudential mask. 
As if their duty were a desperate task; 
Let active laws apply the needful curb, 
To guard the peace that Riot would disturb ; 
And Liberty, preserved from wild excess, 
Shall raise no feuds for armies to suppress. 
When Tumult lately burst his prison-door, 
And set plebeian thousands in a roar ; 
When he usurped Authority's just place 
And dared to look liis master in the face 
When the rude rabble's watch-word was — De- 
stroy, 
And blazing London seemed a second Troy ; 
Liberty blushed and hung her drooping head, 
Beheld their progress with the deepest dread; 
Blushed, that effects like these she should pro- 
duce, 
Worse than the deeds of galley-slaves broke loose. 
She loses in such storms her very name, 
And fierce Licentiousness should bear the blame. 

Incomparable gem! thy worth untold; 
Cheap though blood-bought, and thrown away 

when sold; 
May no foes ravish thee, and no false friend 
Betray thee, while professing to defend ! 
Prize it, ye ministers; ye monarchs, spare; 
Ye Patriots, guard it with a miser's care. 

A. Patriots, alas ! the few that have been found 
Where most they flourish, upon English ground. 
The country's need have scantily supplied. 

And the last left the scene, when Chatham died. 

B. Not so — the virtue still adorns our age, 
Though the chief actor died upon the stage. 
In him Demosthenes was heard again ; 
Liberty taught Ima her Athenian strain; 
She clothed him with authority and awe, 
Spoke from his lips, and in liis looks gave law. 
His speech, his form, his action, full of grace, 
And all his country lieaming in his face. 



He stood, as some inimitable hand 

Would strive to make a Paul or TuUy stand. 

No sycophant or slave, that dared oppose 

Her sacred cause, but trembled when he rose; 

And every venal stickler for the yoke 

Felt himself crushed at the first word he spoke 

Such men arc raised to station and command, 
When Providence means mercy to a land. 
He speaks, and they appear; to him they owe 
Skill to direct, and strength to strike the blow; 
To manage with address, to seize with power 
The crisis of a dark decisive hour; 
So Gideon earned a victory not his own ; 
Subserviency his praise, and that alone. 

Poor England ! thou art a devoted deer, . . 
Beset with every ill but that of fear. • • 

The nations limit; all mark thee for a prey; 
They swarm around thee, and thou stand'st at 

bay, 
Undaunted still, though wearied and perplexed; 
Once Chatham saved thee ; but who saves thee nextl 
Alas ! the tide of pleasure sweeps along 
All, that should be the boast of British song. 
'Tis not the wreath, that once adorned thy brow, 
The prize of happier times, will scn'e thee now 
Our ancestry, a gallant, chieftain race. 
Patterns of every virtue; every grace. 
Confessed a God; they kneeled before they fought, 
And praised him in the victories he wrought. 
Now from the dust of ancient days bring forth 
Their sober zeal, integrity, and worth; 
Courage, imgraced by these, affronts the skies, 
Is but the fire without the sacrifice. 
The stream, that feeds the wellspring of the heart 
Not more mvigorates hfe's noblest part. 
Than virtue quickens, vnth a warmth divine. 
The powers, that Sin has brought to a decline. 

A. Th' inestunable Estimate of Brovpn 
Rose like a paper kite, and charmed the town ; 
But measures, planned and executed well. 
Shifted the wind that raised it, and it fell. 

He trod the very self-same ground you tread, 
And victory refiited all he said. 

B. And yet liis judgment was not framed amiss; 
Its error, if it erred, was merely tliis — 

He thought the dying hoxu" already come, 
And a complete recovery struck him dumb. 

But that eflieminacy, folly, lust. 
Enervate and enfeeble, and needs must ; 
And that a nation shamefully debased. 
Will be despised and trampled on at last. 
Unless sweet Penitence her powers renew; 
Is truth, if liistory itself be true. 
There is a time, and Justice marks the date. 
For long-forbearing Clemency to wait; 
That hour elapsed, the incurable revolt 
Is punished, and down comes the thunderbolt. 
If Mercy then put by the threat'ning blow, 
Must she perform the same kind office now? 



TABLE TALK. 



May she! and, if offended Heaven be still 
Accessible, and prayer prevail, she will. 
'Tis not, however, insolence and noise, 
The tempest of tumultuary joys. 
Nor is it yet despondence and dismay 
Will win her visits, or engage her stay ; 
Prayer only, and the penitential tear. 
Can call her smiling down, and fix her here. 

But when a country (one that I could name) 
In prostitution sinks the sense of shame: 
When infamous Venality, grown bold, 
Writes on his bosom, to he let or sold ; 
When Peijury, that Heaven-defying vice. 
Sells oaths by tale, and at the lowest price; 
Stamps God's own name- upon a Ue just made, 
To turn a penny in the way of trade ; 
When Avarice starves (and never hides his face) 
Two or three millions of the human race. 
And not a tongue inquires, how, where, or when. 
Though conscience will have tmnges now and 

then; 
When profanation of the sacred cause 
In all its parts, times, ministry, and laws, 
Bespeaks a land, once Christian, fallen and lost, 
In all, that wars against the title most; 
What follows next let cities of great name, 
And regions long since desolate proclaim. 
Nineveh, Babylon, and ancient Rome, 
Speak to the present time, and times to come; 
They cry aloud, in every careless ear. 
Stop, while ye may; suspend your mad career; 
O learn from our example and- our fate, 
Learn wisdom and repentance, ere too late. 

Not only Vice disposes and prepares 
The mind, that slumbers sweetly in her snares, 
To stoop to Tyranny's usurped command, 
And bend her polished neck beneath his hand, 
(A dire effect, by one of Nature's laws, 
Unchangeably comiected with its cause;) 
But Providence himself will intervene, 
To throw his dark displeasure o'er the scene. 
All are his instrmnents; each form of war, 
What burns at home, or threatens from afar. 
Nature in arms, her elements at strife. 
The storms, that overset the joys of Ufe, 
Are but the rods to scourge a guilty land. 
And waste it at the bidding of his hand. 
He gives his word, and Mutiny soon roars 
In all her gates, and shakes her distant shores ; 
The standards of all nations are unfurled ; 
She has one foe, and that one foe the world : 
And, if he doom that people with a frown. 
And mark them with a seal. of wrath pressed down. 
Obduracy takes place ; callous and tough. 
The reprobated race grows judgment-proof: 
Earth shakes beneath them, and Heaven roars 

above; 
But nothing scares them from the course they love. 
2 



To the lascivious pipe and wanton song, 
That charm down fear, they froUc it along, 
With mad rapidity and unconcern, 
Down to the gulf, from which is no return. 
They trust in navies, and their navies fail — 
God's curse can cast away ten thousand sail ! 
They trust in armies, and their courage dies; 
In wisdom, wealth, in fortune, and in lies; 
But all they trust in withers, as it must, 
When He commands, in whom they place no trust. 
Vengeance at last pours down upon their coast 
A long despised, but now victorious host; 
Tyranny sends the chain that must abridge 
The noble sweep of all their privilege; 
Gives liberty the last, the mortal shock; 
SUps the slave's collar on, and snaps the lock. 

A. Such lofty strains embeUish what you teach; 
Mean you to prophesy, or but to preach 1 

B. I know the muid, that feels indeed the fire 
The muse imparts, and can command the lyre, 
Acts with a force, aiid kindles with a zeal, 
Whate'er the theme, that others never feel. 

If human woes her soft attention claim, 

A tender sympathy pervades the frame ; 

She pours a sensibihty divine 

Along the nerve of every feeling line. 

But if a deed, not tamely to be borne. 

Fire indignation and a sense of scorn. 

The strmgs are swept with a power, so loud, 

The storm of music shakes the astonished crowd. 

So, when remote futurity is brought 

Before the keen inquiry of her thought, 

A terrible sagacity informs 

The poet's heart; he looks to distant storms; 

He hears the thunder ere the tempest lowers; 

And, armed with strength surpassing human 

powers. 
Seizes events as yet unknown to man, 
And darts his soul into the dawning plan. 
Hence, in a Roman mouth, the graceful name 
Of prophet and of poet was the same; 
Hence British poets too the priesthood shared, 
And every hallowed druid was a bard. 
But no prophetic fires to me belong; 
I play with syllables, and sport in song. 

A. At Westmmster, where little poets strive 
To set a distich upon six and five, 
Where discipline helps th' opening buds of sense, ' 
And makes his pupils proud with silver pence, 
I was a poet too ; but modern taste 
Is so refined, and delicate, and chaste. 
That verse, whatever fire the fancy warms, 
Without a creamy smootlmess has no charms. 
Thus, all success depending on an ear, 
And thinldng I might pivchase it too dear. 
If sentiment were sacrificed to sound, 
And truth cut short to makea period round, 
I judged a man of sense could scarce do worse, 
Than caper in the morris-dance of verse. 



8 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



B. Thus reputation is a spur to wit, 
And some wits flag through fear of losing it. 
Give me tlie hne that ploughs its stately course 
Like a proud swan, conquering the stream by force, 
That, like some cottage beauty, strikes the heart, 
Quite unindebted to the tricks of art. 
When Labour and when Dullness, club in hand, 
Like the two figures at St. Dunstan's stand, 
Beating alternately, in measured time, 
The clock-work tintinabulum of rhyme, 
Exact and regular the sounds will be ; 
But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me. 

From him, who rears a poem lank and long, 
To him who strains his all mto a song; 
Perhaps some bonny Caledonian air. 
All birks and braes, though he was never there;. 
Or, having whelped a prologue with great pains ; 
Feels himself spent, and fumbles for his brains ; 
A prologue interdashed with many a stroke — 
An art contrived to advertise a joke. 
So that the jest is clearly to be seen, 
Not in the words — but in the gap between : 
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ. 
The substitute for genius, sense, and wit. 

To dally much with subjects mean and low 
Proves that the mind is weak, or makes it so. 
Neglected talents rust into decay. 
And every eflbrt ends in pushpin play. 
The man, that means success, should soar above 
A soldier's feather, or a lady's glove ; 
Else, summoning the muse to such a theme. 
The fruit of all her labour is whipped cream. 
As if an eagle flew aloft, and then — 
Stooped from its highest pitch to pounce a wren. 
As if the poet, purposing to wed, 
Should carve himself a wife in gingerbread. . 

Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared; 
And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard. 
To carry nature lengths unknown before. 
To give a Milton birth, asked ages more. 
Thus Genius rose and set at ordered times, 
And shot a dayspring into distant climes. 
Ennobling every region that he chose ; 
He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose: 
And tedious years of Gothic darkness past, 
Emerged, all splendour, in our isle at last. 
Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main. 
Then show far off their shining plumes again. 

A. Is genius only found in epic lays 1 
Prove this, and forfeit all pretence to praise. 
Make their heroic powers your own at once, 
Or candidly confess yourself a dunce. 

B. These were the chief: each interval of night 
Was graced with many an undulating light. 

In less illustrious bards his beauty shone 
A meteor, or a star ; in these tlie sun. 

The nightingale may claim the topmost bough, 
Wliilc the poor grasshojiper must chirp below. 



Like him unnoticed, I, and such as I, 
Spread httle wings, and rather skip than fly ; 
Perched on the meagre produce of the land. 
An ell or two of prospect we command ; 
But never peep beyond the thorny bound 
I Or oaken fence, that hems the paddock round. 
! In Eden, ere yet innocence of heart 
Had faded, poetry was not an art : 
Language, al'ove all teaching, or, if taught, 
; Only by gratitude and glowing thought. 
Elegant as simplicity, and warm 
As ecstacy, unmanacled by form ; 
Not prompted, as in our degenerate days, 
By low ambition and the thirst of praise ; 
Was natural as is the flowing stream, 
And yet magnificent. A God the theme ! 
That theme on earth exhausted, though above 
'Tis found as everlasting as his love. 
Man lavished all his thoughts on human things— 
The feats of heroes, and the wrath of kings ; 
But still, while Virtue kindled his delight. 
The song was moral, and so far was right. 
'Twas thus, till Luxury seduced the mind 
To joys less innocent, as less refined ; 
Then genius danced a bacchanal ; he crowned 
The brimming goblet, seized the thyrsus, boujid 
His brows with ivy, rushed into the field 
Of wild imagination, and there reeled. 
The victim of his own lascivious fires. 
And dizzy with delight, profaned the sacred wires. 
Anacreon, Horace played in Greece and Rome 
This bedlam pail ; and others nearer home. 
When Cromwell fought for power, and while he 

reigned 
The proud protector of the power he gained, 
Religion, harsh, intolerant, austere, 
Parent of manners like herself severe, 
Drew a rough copy of the Christian face, 
Without the smile, the sweetness, or the grace ; 
The dark and sullen humour of the time 
Judged every effort of the muse a crime ; 
Verse, in the finest mould of fancy cast. 
Was lumber in an age so void of taste : 
But when the Second Charles assumed the sway, 
And arts revived l)eneath a softer day; 
Then, like a bow long forced into a curve. 
The mind, released from too constrained a nerve, 
Flew to its first position with a spring. 
That made the vaulted roofs of pleasure ring. 
His court, the dissolute and hateful school 
Of Wantonness, where vice was taught by rule. 
Swarmed with a scribbling herd, as deep inlaid 
With brutal lust as ever Circe made. 
From these a long succession, in the rage 
Of rank obscenity, debauched their age ; 
Nor (•ea.''ed, till, ever anxious to redress 
The abuses of her sacred charge, the press, 
The muse instructed a well-nurtured train 
Of abler votyiics to cleanse the stain, 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



And claim tlie palm for purity of song, 
That Lewdness had usurped and worn so long. 
Then decent Pleasantry and sterling Sense, 
That neither gave, nor would endure offence, 
Whipped out of sight, with satire just and keen, 
The puppy pack, that had defiled the scene. 

In front of these came Addison. In him 
Humour in hohday and sightly trim, 
SubUmity and Attic taste combined, 
To polish, furnish, and. delight the mind. 
Then Pope, as harmony itself exact. 
In verse well disciplined, complete, compact, 
Gave virtue and morality a grace. 
That, quite eclipsing Pleasure's painted face, 
Levied a tax of wonder and applause, 
Even on the fools that trajnplcd on their laws. 
But he (his musical finesse was such. 
So nice his ear, so delicate his touch) 
Made poetry a mere mechanic art ; 
And every warbler has his tune, by heart. 
Nature imparting her satiric gift, 
Her serious mirth, t.o Arbutlinot and Swift, 
With droll sobriety they raised a smile 
At Folly's cost, themselves unmoved the while. 
That constellation set, the world in vain 
Must hope to look upon their lilce again. 

A. Are we then left — B. Notwhollyinthedark; 
Wit now and then, struck smartly, shows a spark, 
Sufiicient to redeeln the modern race 
From total night and absolute disgrace. 
While sei'vile trick and imitative knack 
Confine the milUon in the beaten track, 
Perhaps some courser, who disdains the road, 
Snuffs up the wind, and flings himself abroad. 

Contemporaries all surpassed, see one ; 
Short his career indeed, but ably run ; 
Churchill, himself unconscious of his powers, 
In penury consumed his idle hours ; 
And, like a scattered seed at random sown, 
Was left to spring by vigour of his own. 
Lifted at length, by dignity of thought 
And dint of genius, to an affluent lot. 
He laid his head in Luxury's soft lap. 
And took, too often, there his easy nap. 
If brighter beams than all he threw not forth, 
'Twas negligence in him, not want of worth. 
Surly, and slovenly, and bold, and coarse, 
Too proud for art, and trusting in mere force. 
Spendthrift alike of money and of wit, 
Always at speed, and never drawing bit, 
He struck the lyre in such a careless mood, 
And so disdained the rules he understood. 
The laurel seemed to wait on his command, 
He snatched it rudely from the Muses' hand. 
Nature exerting an unwearied power, 
Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower ; 
Spreads the fresh verdure of the fields, and leads 
The dancing Naiads through the dewv meads : 



She fills profuse ten thousand little throats . 
With music, modulating all their notes ; 
And charms the woodland scenes, and wilds un- 
known. 
With artless airs and concerts of her own ; • 
But seldom (as if fearful of expense) 
Vouchsafes to man a poet's just pretence — 
Fervency, freedom, fluency of thought, 
Harmony, strength, words exquisitely sought; 
Fancy, that, from the bow tliat spans the sky, 
Brings colours, dipped in Heaven, that never die ; 
A soul exalted above Earth, a mind 
Skilled in the characters that form mankind ; 
And, as the Sun in rising beauty drest. 
Looks to the westward from the dappled east, 
And marks, whatever clouds may interpose. 
Ere yet his race begins, its glorious close ; 
An eye like his to catch the distant goal ; 
Or, ere the, wheels of verse begin to roll, 
Like his to shed illuminating rays 
On every scene and subject it surveys : 
Thus graced, the man asserts a poet's name, 
And the world cheerfully admits the claim. 
Pity Rehgion has so seldom found 
A skilful guide into poetic ground ! 
The flowers would spring where'er she deigned to 

stray. 
And every nnise attend her in her way. 
Virtue indeed meets many a rhyming friend , 
And many a compliment politely penned; 
But unattired in that becoming vest 
Religion weaves for her, and half undrest. 
Stands in the desert, shivering and forlorn, 
A wintry figure, like a withered thorn. 
The shelves are full, all other themes are sped ; 
Hackneyed and worn to the laot flimsy thread. 
Satire has long since done his best ; and curst 
And loathsome Ribaldry has done his worst ; 
Fancy has sported all her powers away 
In tales, in trifles, and in children's play ; 
And 'tis the sad complaint, and almost true, 
Whate'er we write, we bring forth nothing new. 
'Twere new indeed to see a bard all fire, 
Touched with a coal from Heaven, assume the 

lyre. 
And tell the world, still kindUng as he sung. 
With more than mortal music on his tongue, 
That He, who died below, and reigns above, 
Inspires the song, and that his name is Love. 

For, after all, if merely to beguile. 
By flowing nimibers and a flowery stye, 
The tsedium that the lazy rich endure, 
Which now and then sweet poetry may cure ; 
Or, if to see the name of idle self. 
Stamped on the well-bound quarto, grace the shelf, 
To float a bubble on the breath of Fame, 
Prompt his endeavour and engage his aim. 
Debased to servile purposes of pride. 
How are the powers of genius misapplied ! 



10 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



The gift, whose office is the Giver's praise, 
To trace him in his word, his works, his ways ! 
Then spread the rich discovery, and invite 
Mankind to share in the divine delight ; 
Distorted from its use and just design, 
To make the pitiful possessor shine. 
To purchase, at the fool-frequented fair 
Of vanity, a wreath for self to wear, 
Is profanation of the basest kind — 
Proof of a trifling and a worthless mmd, 
A. Hail, Sternhold, then ! and Hopkins, hail ! 
B. Amen. 



If flattery, folly, lust, employ the pen; « 

If acrimony, slander, and abuse. 

Give it a charge to blacken and traduce: 

Though Butler's wit, Pope's numbers. Prior's ease, 

With all that fancy can invent to please, 

Adorn the polished periods as they fall, 

One madrigal of theirs is worth them all. 

A. 'Twould tliinthe ranks ofthe poetic tribe, 
To dash the pen through all that you proscribe. 

B. No matter — we could sliift when they were 
not; 

And should, no doubt, if they were all forgot. 



Kfit ^voQvtm of iSvtor* 



Si quid loquar audiendum. Hor. Lib. iv. Od. 2. 



Sing, muse, (if such a theme, so dark, so long, 
May find a muse to grace it with a song,) 
By what unseen and unsuspected arts 
The serpent Error twines round human hearts; 
Tell where she lurks, beneath what flowery shades, 
That not a glimpse of genuine light pervades. 
The poisonous, black, insinuating worm 
Successfully conceals her loathsome form. 
Take, if ye can, ye careless and supine, 
Counsel and caution from a voice lilie mine ! 
Truths, that the theorist could never reach, 
And observation taught me, I would teach. 

Not all, whose eloquence the fancy fills. 
Musical as the cliime of tinkling rills, 
Wealc to perform, though mighty to pretend. 
Can trace her mazy vsdndings to their end ; 
Discern the fraud beneath the specious lure, 
Prevent the danger, or prescribe the cure. 
The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear, 
Falls soporific on the hstless ear; 
Like quicksilver, the rhetoric they display, 
Shines as it runs, but grasped at slips away. 

Placed for his trial on tliis bustling stage, 
From thoughtless youth to ruminating age. 
Free in liis will to choose or to refrise^ 
Man may improve the crisis, or abuse ; 
Else on the fatahst's unrighteous plan. 
Say to what bar amenable were man"? 
With nought in charge, he could betray no trust; 
And, if he fell, would fall because he must; 
If Love reward liim, or if Vengeance strike, 
His recompence in both unjust alike. 
Divine authority within his breast 
Brings every thought, word, action, to the test; • 
Warns him or prompts, approves him or restrains. 
As Reason, or as Passion, takes the reins. 
Heaven from above, and Conscience from within. 
Cries in his startled ear — Abstain from sin ! 
The world around solicits his desire, 
And kindles in his soul a treacherous fire. 



While, all his purposes and steps to guard, 
Peace follows Virtue as its sure reward; 
And Pleasure brings as surely in her train 
Remorse, and Sorrow, and Vindictive Pain. 

Man, thus endued with an elective voice. 
Must be supplied with objects of his choice ; 
Where'er he turns, enjoyment and delight, 
Or present, or in prospect, meet liis sight ; 
Those open on the spot their honeyed store 
These call him loudly to pursuit of more. 
His unexhausted mine the sordid vice 
Avarice shows, and virtue is the price. 
Her various motives his ambition raise — 
Power, pomp, and splendour, and the tliirst of 

praise; 
There beauty woos him with expanded arms ; 
E'en BacchanaHan madness has its charms. 

Nor these alone, whose pleasures less refined, 
Might well alarm the most unguarded mind. 
Seek to supplaht his inexperienced youth. 
Or lead him devious from the path of truth; 
Hourly allurements on his passions press. 
Safe in themselves, but dangerous in th' excess. 

Hark! how it floats upon the dewy air! 
O what a dying, dying close was there! 
'Tis hannony from yon sequestered bower. 
Sweet harmony that soothes the midnight hour ! 
Long ere the charioteer of day had run 
His morning course, th' enchantment was begun; 
And he shall gild yon mountain's. height again, 
Ere yet the pleasing toil becomes a pain. 

Is this the rugged path, the steep ascent, 
That Virtue points to'? Can a life thus spent 
Lead to the IjHss she promises the wise, 
Detach the soul from earth, and speed her to the 

skies'? 
Ye devotees to your adored employ. 
Enthusiasts, drunlt with an unreal joy. 
Love makes the music of the blest above, 
Heaven's harmony is universal love: 



THE PROGRESS OF ERROR. 



II 



And earthly sounds, tho' sweet and well combined, 
And lenient as soft opiates to the mind, 
Leave Vice and Folly unsubdued behind. 

Gray dawn appears ; the sportsman and his train 
Speckle the bosom of the distant plain; 
'Tis he, the Nimrod of the neighbouring lairs; 
Save that his scent is less acute than theirs ; 
For persevering chase, and headlong leaps, 
True beagle as the staunchest hound he keeps. 
Charged with the folly of his life's mad scene. 
He takes oifence, andtwonders what you mean; 
The joy the danger and the toil o'erpays — 
'Tis exercise, and health, and length of days. 
Again impetuous to the field he flies; 
Leaps every fence but one, there falls and dies; 
Like a slain deer, the tumbrel brmgs him home, 
Uimiisscd but by his dogs and by his groom. 

Ye clergy, while your orbit is your place, 
Lights of the world, and stars of human race; 
But if eccentric ye forsake your sphere, 
Prodigies ominous, and viewed with fear; 
The comet's baneful influence is a dream; 
Yours, real and pernicious in th' extreme. 
What then! — are appetites and lusts laid down, 
With the same ease that man puts on his gownl 
Will Avarice and concupiscence give place, 
Charmed by the sounds — Your Reverence, or Your 

Grace 1 • 
No. But hifown engagement binds him fast ; 
Or, if it does not, brands him to the last, 
What atheists call him — a designing knave, 
A mere church juggler, hypocrite, and slave. 
Oh, laugh or mourn vnth me the rueful jest, 
A cassocked huntsman, and a fiddling priest ! 
He firom ItaUan songsters takes his cue : 
Set Paul to music, he shall quote him too. 
He takes the field, the master of the pack 
Cries — Well done, saint! and claps him on the 

back. 
Is tliis the path of sanctity'? Is this 
To stand a waymark in the road to bliss"? 
Himself a wanderer from the narrow way, 
His siOy sheep, what wonder if they stray "? 
Go, cast your orders at your bishop's feet. 
Send your dishonoured govsTi to Monmouth-street ! 
The sacred fimction in your hands is made — 
Sad privilege ! no function, but a trade ! 

Occiduus is a pastor of renown. 
When he has prayed and preached the sabbath 

down, 
With wire and catgut he concludes the day, 
Q.uavering and semiquavering care away 
The full concerto swells upon your ear; 
All elbows shake. Look in, and you would swear 
The Babylonian tyrant wdth a nod 
Had summoned them to serve his golden god. 
So well that thought th' employment seems to suit, 
Psaltery and sackbut, dulcimer and flute. 



O fie ! 'tis evangelical and pure : 
Observe each face, how sober and demure ! 
Ecstacy sets her stamp on every mien; 
Chins fallen, and not an eye-ball to be seen. 
Still I insist, though music heretofore 
Has charmed me much, (not e'en Occiduus more,) 
Love, joy, and peace, make harmony more meet 
For sabbath evenings, and perhaps as sweet. 

Will not the sickliest sheep of every flock 
Resort to this example as a rock; 
There stand, and justify the foul abuse 
Of sabbath-hours with plausible excuse 1 
If apostolic gravity be free 
To play the fool on Sundays, why not wel 
If he the tinkhng harpsichord regards 
As inoflensive, what offence in cards'? 
Strike up the fiddles, let us all be gay, 
Laymen have leave to dance, if parsons play. 

Oh Italy ! — Thy sabbaths will be soon 
Our sabbaths, closed vnth mummery and buffoon. 
Preaching and pranks will share the motley scene, 
Ours parcelled out, as thine have ever been, 
God's worship and the mountebank between. 
What says the prophet "? Let that day be blest 
With holiness and consecrated rest. 
Pastime and business both it should exclude, 
And bar the door the moment they mtrude: 
Nobly distinguished above all the six 
By deeds, in which the world must never mix, 
Hear him again. He calls it a delight, 
A day of luxury observed aright, 
When the glad soul is made Heaven's welcome 

guest. 

Sits banqueting, and God provides the feast. 
But triflers are engaged and can not come; 
Their answer to the call is — Not at home. 

the dear pleasm'es of the velvet plain. 
The painted tablets, dealt and dealt again! 
Cards with what rapture, and the polished die, 
The yawning chasm of indolence supply! 
Then to the dance, and make the sober moon 
Witness of joys that shun the sight of noon. 
Blame, cynic, if you can, quadrille or ball. 
The snug close party, or the splendid hall. 
Where night, down-stooping from her ebon throne, 
Views constellations brighter than her own. 
Tis innocent, and harmless, and refined. 
The balm of care, Elysium of the mind. 
Innocent ! Oh, if venerable Time 
Slain at the foot of Pleasure be no crime, 
Then, with his silver beard and magic wand, 
Let Comus rise archbishop of the land; 
Let him your rubric and your feasts prescribe. 
Grand metropolitan of all the tribe. 

Of manners rough, and coarse athletic cast, 
The rank debauch suits Clodio's filthy taste. 
Rufillus, exquisitely formed by rule. 
Not of the moral but the dancing school, 



13 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Wonders at Clodio's follies, in a tone 

As tragical, as others at his own. 

He can not drink five bottles, bilk the score, 

Then kill a constable, and drink five more ; 

But he can draw a pattern, make a tart. 

And has the ladies' etiquette by heart. 

Go, fool ; and, arm in arm vsdth Clodio, plead 

Your cause before a bar you little dread; 

But know, the law that bids the drunkard die. 

Is far too just to pass the trifler by. 

Both baby-featured, and of infant size, 

Viewed from a distance, and with heedless eyes. 

Folly and Iimocence are so alike, 

The difference, though essential, fails to strike. 

Yet Folly ever has a vacant stare, 

A simpering countenance, and a. trifling air; 

But Innocence, sedate, serene, erect. 

Delights us, by engaging our respect. 

Man, Nature's guest by invitation sweet, 

Receives from her both appetite and treat; 

But, if he play the glutton and exceed, 

His benefactress blushes at the deed; 

For Nature, nice, as liberal to dispense. 

Made nothing but a brute the slave of sense. 

Daniel ate pulse by choice — example rare ! 

Heaven blessed the youth, and made liim fresh and 

fair. 
Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan, 
Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan : 
He snuffs far off th' anticipated joy; 
Turtle and ven'son all his thoughts employ; 
Prepares for meals as jockeys take a sweat, 
Oh, nauseous! — an emetic for a whet! 
Will Providence o'erlook the wasted good 1 
Temperance were no virtue if he could. 

That pleasures, therefore, or what such we call. 
Are hurtful, is a truth confessed by all; 
And some, that seem to threaten virtue less. 
Still hurtful in th' abuse, or by th' excess. 

Is man then only for his torment placed 
The centre of delights he may not taste; 
Like fabled Tantalus, condemned to hear 
The precious stream still purUng in his ear. 
Lip-deep in what he longs for, and yet curst 
With prohibition, and perpetual thirst 1 
No, wrangler — destitute of shame and sense 
The precept, that enjoms him abstinence. 
Forbids him none but the Ucentious joy. 
Whose fruit, though fair, tempts only to destroy. 
Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laid 
In eveiy bosom where her nest is made. 
Hatched by the beams of Truth, denies him rest. 
And proves a raging scorpion in his breast. 
No pleasure! Are domestic comforts dead 7 
Are all the nameless sweets of friendship fled ; 
Has time worn out, or fashion put to shame. 
Good sense, good health, good conscience, and 
good fame 7 



All these belong to virtue, and all prove, 
That virtue has a title to your love. 
Have you no touch of pity, that the poor 
Stand starved at your inhospitable door 1 
Or if yourself too scantily supplied 
Need help, let honest industry provide. 
Earn, if you want; if you abound, impart: 
These both are pleasures to the feeling heart. 
No pleasure 1 Has some sickly eastern waste 
Sent us a wind to parch us at a blast 1 
Can British Paradise no scenes afford 
To please her sated and indifllrent lord 1 
Are sweet philosophy's enjoyments run 
Cluite to the lees 1 And has religion none 1 ' 
Brutes capable would tell you 'tis a lie. 
And judge you from the kennel and the stye. 
Delights like these, ye sensual and profane, 
Ye are bid, begged, besought to entertain ; 
Called to these crystal streams, do ye turn ofi 
Obscene to swill and swallow at a trough 1 
Envy the beast then, on whom Heaven bestows 
Your pleasures, with no curses in the close. 

Pleasure admitted in undue degree 
Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free. 
'Tis not alone the grape's enticing juice 
Unnerves the moral powers, and mars their use ; 
Ambition, avarice, and the lust of fame. 
And woman, lovely woman, does the same. 
The heart, surrendered to the rulin'g power 
Of some ungoverned passion every hour. 
Finds by degrees the truths, that once bore sway, 
And all their deep impressions, wear away ;■ 
So coin grows smooth, in traffic current passed, 
TUl Caesar's image is effaced at last. 

The breach, tho' small at first, soon opening wdde, 
In rushes folly with a full-moon tide, 
Then welcome errors of whatever size, 
To justify it by a thousand lies. 
As creeping ivy cUngs to wood or stone, 
And hides the ruin that it feeds upon. 
So sophistry cleaves close to and protects 
Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects. 
Mortals, whose pleasures are their only care, 
First wish to be imposed on, and then are. 
And, lest the fulsome artifice should fail. 
Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil. 
Not more industrious are the just and true. 
To give to Virtue what is Virtue's due — 
The praise of wisdom, comeUness, and worth, 
And call her charms to public notice forth — 
Than Vice's mean and disingenuous race. 
To hide the shocking features of her face. 
Her form with dress and lotion they repair ; 
Then kiss their idol, and pronounce her fair 

The sacred implement I now employ 
Might prove a miscliief, or at best a toy ; 
A trifle, if it move but to amuse ; 
But, if to wrong the judgment and abuse, 



THE PROGRESS OF ERROR. 



13 



Worse than a poniard in the basest hand, 
It stabs at once the morals of a land. 

Ye writers of what none with safety reads, 
Footing it in the dance that Fancy leads ; 
Ye novelists, who mar what ye would mend, 
Snivelling and drivelhng folly without end ; 
Whose corresponding misses fill the ream, 
With sentimental frippery and dream, 
Caught in a delicate soft silken net 
By some lewd earl, or rakehell baronet: 
Ye pimps, who, under virtue's fair pretence. 
Steal to the closet of young innocence. 
And teach her, unexperienced yet and green, 
To scribble as you scribbled at fifteen ; 
Who Icindling a combustion of desire. 
With some cold moral think to quench the fire ; 
Though all youi- engineering proves in vain, 
The dribbling stream ne'er puts it out again : 
,0 that a verse had power, a^d could command 
Far, far away these llesli-flies of the land ; 
Who fasten vdthout mercy on the fair, 
And suck, and leave a craving maggot there ! 
Howe'er disguised the inflammatory tale. 
And covered with a fine-spun specious veU ; 
Such writers, and such readers, owe the gust 
And relish of their pleasure all to lust. 

But the muse, eagle-pmioned, has in view 
A quarry more important still than you ; 
Down, down the wind she swims, and sails away. 
Now stoops upon it, and now grasps the prey. 

Petronius ! all the muses weep for thee ; 
But every tear shall scald thy memory : 
The graces too, while Virtue at their shrine 
Lay bleeding under that soft hand of thine. 
Felt each a mortal stab in her own breast. 
Abhorred the sacrifice, and cursed the priest. 
Thou pohshed and high-finished foe to truth, 
Graybeard corrupter of our listening youth, 
To purge and skim away the filth of vice. 
That so refined it might the more entice. 
Then pour it on the morals of thy son ; 
To taint his heart, was worthy of thine own ! 
Now, while the poison all high life pervades. 
Write, if thou canst, one letter from the shades ; 
One, and one only, charged with deep regret. 
That thy worse part, thy principles, live yet : 
One sad epistle thence may cure mankind 
Of the plague spread by bundles left behind. 

'Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears. 
Our most important are our earliest years ; 
The mind, impressible and soft, with ease 
Imbibes and copies what she hears and sees. 
And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clew 
That Education gives her, false or true. 
Plants raised with tenderness are seldom strong ; 
Man's coltish disposition asks the thong; 
And without discipUne, the favourite child. 
Like a neglected forester, runs wild. 



But we, as ii" good qualities would grow 
Spontaneous, take but little pains to sow ; 
We give some Latin, and a smatch of Greek ; 
Teach him to fence and figure twice a week ; 
And having done, we think, the best we canj 
Praise his proficiency, and dub him man. 

From school to Cam or Isis, and thence home; 
And thence with all convenient speed to Rome, 
With reverend tutor clad in habit lay. 
To tease for cash, and quarrel with all day ; 
With memorandum-book for every town. 
And every post, and where the chaise broke down; 
His stock, a few French phrases got by heart, 
With much to learn, but nothmg to impart; 
The youth obedient to his sire's commands, 
Sets off a wanderer into foreign lands. 
Surprised at all they meet, the gosling pair. 
With awkward gait, stretched neck, and silly stare, 
Discover huge cathedrals built with stone. 
And steeples towering high much like our own; 
But show peculiar light by many a grin. 
At popish practices observed within. 

Ere long, some bowdng, smirking, smart abbe 
Remarks two loiterers that have lost their way; 
And being always primed with politesse 
For men of their appearance and address,' 
With much compassion undertakes the task. 
To tell them more than they have wit to ask; 
Points to inscriptions wheresoe'er they tread. 
Such as, when legible, were never read. 
But, being cankered now and half worn out. 
Craze antiquarian brains with endless doubt; 
Some headless hero, or some Csesar shows- 
Defective only in his Roman nose; 
Exhibits elevations, drawings, plans. 
Models of Herculanean pots and pans ; 
And sells them medals, which, if neither rare 
Nor ancient, will be so, preserved with care. 
Strange the recital ! from whatever cause 
His great improvement and new fight he draws, 
The squire, once bashfi^l, is shamefaced no more, 
But teems with powers he never felt before: 
Whether increased momentum, and the force, 
With which from chme to clime he sped his course. 
(As axles sometimes kindle as they go) 
Chafed him, and brought dull nature to aglow 
Or whether clearer skies and softer air. 
That make Italian flowers so sweet and fair, 
Freshening his lazy spirits as he ran, 
Unfolded genially and spread the man; 
Returning tie proclaims by many a grace. 
By shrugs and strange contortions of his face, 
How much a dunce, that has been sent to roam. 
Excels a dunce, that has been kept at home. 

Accomplishments have taken virtue's place. 
And wisdom falls before exterior grace: 
We slight the precious kernel of the stone. 
And toil to polish its rough coat alone 



14 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



A just deportment, manners graced with ease, 
Elegant phrase, and figure formed to please, 
Are qualities, that seem to comprehend 
Whatever parents, guardians, schools intend ; 
Hence an unfurnished and a hstless mind, 
Though busy, trifling ; empty, though refined ; 
Hence all that interferes, and dares to clash 
With indolence and luxury, is trash: 
While learning, once the man's exclusive pride. 
Seems verging fast towards the female side. 
Learning itself, received into a mind 
By nature weak, or viciously inchned, 
Sers'es but to lead philosophers astray. 
Where children would with ease discern the way. 
And of all arts sagacious dupes invent. 
To cheat themselves and gain the world's assent. 
The worst is — Scripture warped from its intent. 
The carriage bowls along, and all are pleased 
If Tom be sober, and the wheels well greased; 
But if the rogue have gone a cup too far. 
Left out his linchpin, or forgot his tar. 
It suffers interruption and delay. 
And meets with hindrance in the smoothest way. 
Wlien some hypothesis, absm*d and vain. 
Has filled with all its fumes a critic's brain. 
The text, that sorts not with liis darling whim. 
Though plain to others, is obscure to him. 
The will made subject to a lawless force. 
All is irregular and out of course ; 
And Judgment drunk, and bribed to lose his way. 
Winks hard, and talks of darkness at noonday. 

A critic on the sacred book should be 
Candid and learned, dispassionate and free: 
Free from the wayward bias bigots feel. 
From fancy's influence, and intemperate zeal: 
But, above all, (or let the wi'etch refrain. 
Nor touch the page he can not but profane,) 
Free from the domineering power of lust; 
A lewd interpreter is never just. 

How shall I speak thee, or thy power address. 
Thou god of our idolatry, the Press 1 
By thee religion, liberty, and laws, 
Exert their influence, and advance their cause ; 
By thee worse plagues than Pharaoh's land befel, 
Diffuse, make Earth the vestibule of Hell : 
Thou fountain, at which drinlc the good and wLse ; 
Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies; 
Like Eden's dread probationary tree. 
Knowledge of good and evil is from thee. 
No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest, 
Till half mankind were like himself possessed. 
Philosophers, who darken and put out 
Eternal truth by everlasting doubt; 
Church quacks, with passions under no command. 
Who fill the world with doctrines contraband, 
Dis<:ovcrcrs of they know not what, confined 
Within no bounds — the blind that lead the blind ; 
To streams of popular opinion drawn, 
Deposit in those shallows all their spawn. 



The wriggling fry soon fill the creeks around, 
Poisoning the waters where their swarms abound. 
Scorned by the nobler tenants of the flood. 
Minnows and gudgeons gorge th' unwholsome food. 
The propagated myriads spread so fast, 
E'en Lewenhoeck himself would stand aghast, 
Employed to calculate th' enormous sum, 
And owTi his crab-computing powers o'ercome. 
Is this hyperbole 1 The world well known, 
Your sober thoughts will hardly find it one. 

Fresh confidence the speculatist takes 
From every hair-brained proselyte he makes; 
And therefore prints. Himself but half deceived, 
Till others have the soothing tale beUeved. 
Hence comment after comment, spun as fine 
As bloated spiders draw the flimsy line: 
Hence the same word, that bids our lusts obey, 
Is misapplied to sanctify their sway. 
If stubborn Greek reftise to be his friend, 
Hebrew or Syriac shall be forced to bend : 
If languages and copies all cry. No — 
Somebody proved it centuries ago. 
Like trout pursued, the critic in despair 
Darts to the mud, and finds his safety there. 
Women, whom custom has forbid to fly. 
The scholar's pitch (the scholar best knows why,) 
With all the simple and unlettered poor. 
Admire his learning, and almost adore. 
Whoever errs, the priest can ne'er be wrong, 
With such fine words familiar to his tongue. 
Ye ladies ! (for indifferent in your cause, 
I should deserve to forfeit all applause,) 
Whatever shocks or gives the least offence 
To virtue, dehcacy, truth, or sense, 
Try the criterion, 'tis a faithful guide,) 
Nor has, nor can have, Scriptine on its side. 

None but an author knows an author's cares. 
Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears. 
Committed once into the public arms, 
The baby seems to smile with added charms. 
Lilce something precious ventured far from shore, 
'Tis valued for the danger's sake the more. 
He views it with complacency supreme, 
Solicits kind attention to his dream; 
And daily more enamoured of the cheat, 
Kneels, and asks heaven to bless the dear deceit. 
So one, whose story serves at least to show 
Men loved their own productions long ago, 
Wooed an unfeeling statue for his wife. 
Nor rested till the gods had given it life. 
If some mere driveller suck the sugared fib, 
One that still needs his IcatUng-string and bib. 
And praise his genius, he is soon repaid 
In praise applied to the same part — his head: 
For 'tis a rule that holds for ever true. 
Grant me discernment, and I grant it you. 

Patient of contradiction as a child, 
Affable, humble, diffident, and mild; 



TRUTH. 



15 



Such was Sir Isaac, and such Boyle and Locke: 
Your blunderer is as sturdy as a rock. 
The creature is so sure to kick and bite, 
A muleteer's the man to set him right. 
First Appetite enlists him Truth's sworn foe, 
Then obstinate Self-will confirms him so. 
Tell him he wanders; that his error leads 
To fatal ills; that, though the path he treads 
Be flowery, and he sees no cause of fear, 
Death and the pains of hell attend him there : 
In vain ; the slave of arrogance and pride: 
He has no hearing on the prudent side. 
His still refuted quirks he still repeats; 
New raised objections with new quibbles meets; 
Till sinking in the quicksand he defends. 
He dies disputing, and the contest ends — 
But not the mischiefs; they, still left behind, 
Like thistle-seeds, are sovsoi by eveiy wind. 

Thus men go wrong with an mgenious skill; 
Bend the straight rule to their own crooked will; 
And with a clear and sliining lamp supphed, 
First put it out, then take it for a guide. 
Halting on crutches of unequal size. 
One leg by truth supported, one by lies; 
They sidle to the goal with awkward pace, 
Secure of nothing — but to loose the race. 
Faults in the life breed errors in the brain, 
And these reciprocally those again. 
The mind and conduct mutually imprint 
And stamp their image in each other's mint: 
Each, sire and dam, of an infernal race, 
Begetting and conceiving all that's base. 
None sends his arrow to the mark in view. 
Whose hand is feeble, or his aim untrue. 
For though ere yet, the shaft is on the wing, 
Or when it first forsakes th' elastic string. 
It err but little from the intended line. 
It falls at last far wide of his design : 
So he who seeks a mansion in the sky. 
Must watch his purpose with a. steadfast eye; 
That prize belongs to none but the sincere ; 
The least obliquity is fatal here. « 

With cautious taste the sweet Circean cup : 
He that sips often, at last drinks it up. 



Habits arc soon assumed; but when we strive 
To strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive. 
Called to the temple ofimpurc delight, 
He that abstains, and he alone, does right. 
If a wish wander that way, call it home; 
He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam. 
But, if you pass the threshold you are caught; 
Die then, if power Almighty save you not. 
There hardening by degrees, till double steeled, 
Take leave of nature's God, and God revealed; 
Then laugh at all you trembled at before ; 
And, joining the free-thinker's brutal roar, 
Sv^rallow the two grand nostrums tliey dispense — 
That Scripture lies, and blasphemy is sense: 
If clemency revolted by abuse 
Be damnable, then damned without excuse. 

Some dream that they can silence, when they 
will. 
The storm of passion, and say. Peace, he still; 
But " TAus/'ar and no _/'u?-i/icr," when addressed 
To the wild wave, or wilder human breast, 
Implies authority that never can. 
That never ought to be the lot of man. 

But, muse forbear; long flights forbode a fall; 
Strike on the deep-toned chord the sum of all. 

Hear the just law — the judgment of the skies! 
He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies : 
And he that will be cheated to the last, 
Delusions strong as Hell shall bind him fast. 
But if the wanderer his mistake discern. 
Judge his own ways, and sigh for a return. 
Bewildered once, must he bewail liis loss 
For ever and for ever'? No — the cross! 
There and there only (though the deist rave, 
And atheist, if earth bear so base a slave;) 
There and there only is the power to save. 
There no delusive hope invites despair; 
No mockery meets you, no deception there. 
The spells and charms, that blinded you before, 
All vanish there, and fascinate no more. 

I am no preacher, let this hint suffice — 
The cross once seen is death to every vice : 
Else he that hung there suffered all liis pain, 
Bled, ffroaned, and ajronized, and died, in vain. 



E'ViiiW. 



Pensantur uaitina. Hor. Lib. ii, Epist. 1. 



MAN, on the dubious waves of error tossed. 
His ship half -foundered, and his compass lost, 
Sees, far as human optics may command, 
A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land : 
Spreads all liis canvass, every sinew plies; 
Pants for 't, aims at it, enters it, and dies ! 
Then farewell all self-satisfying schemes, 
His well-built systems, philosophic dreams; 



Deceitftd views of future bhss farewell! — 
He reads his sentence at the flames of Hell. 

Hard lot of man — to toil for the reward 
Of virtue, and yet lose it! Wherefore hardl 
He that would win the race must guide liis horse 
Obedient to the customs of the course ; 
Else, though unequalled to the goal he flies, 
A meaner than himself shall gain the prize. 



16 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Grace leads the right way ; if you choose the wrong, 
Take it and perish; hut restrain your tongue; 
Charge not, with hght sufficient, and left free, 
Your wilful suicide on God's decree. 

O how unlike the complex works of man. 
Heaven's easy, artless, tmincumbered plan! 
No meretricious graces to beguile, 
No clustering ornaments to clog the pile ; 
From ostentation as from weakness free, 
It stands like the cerulean arch we see, 
Majestic in its own simpUcity. 
Inscribed above the portal, from afar 
Conspicuous as the brightness of a star. 
Legible only by the hght they give. 
Stand the soul-quick'ning words — Believeandlive. 
Too many, shocked at what should charm them 

most 
Despire the plain direction, and are lost. 
Heaven on such terms ! (they cry with proud dis- 
dain,) 
Incredible, impossible, and vain I — 
Rebel, because 'tis easy to obey ; 
And scorn, for its own sake, the gracious way. 
These are the sober, in whose cooler brains 
Some thought of iiiunortahty remains ; 
The rest, too busy or too gay to wait 
On the sad theme, their everlasting state. 
Sport for a day, and perish in a night. 
The foam upon the waters not so light. 

Who judged the phariseel What odious cause 
Exposed him to the vengeance of the laws'? 
Had he seduced a virgin, wronged a friend. 
Or stabbed a man to serve some private endl 
Was blasphemy his sin 1 Or did he stray 
From the strict duties of the sacred dayl 
vSit long and late at the carousing board 1 
(Such were the sins with which he charged his 

Lord.) 
No — the man's morals were exact, what then 1 
'Twas his ambition to be seen of men ; 
His virtues were his pride ; and that one vice 
Made all his virtues gewgaws of no price ; 
He wore them as fine trappings for a show, 
A praying, synagogue-frequenting beau. 

The selt-applauding bird, the peacock see — 
Mark what a sumptuous pharisee is he ! 
Meridian sun-beams tempt him to untold 
His radiant glories, azure, green, and gold : 
He treads as if, some solemn music near, 
His measured step were governed by his ear: 
And seems to say — Ye meaner fowl, give place, 
I am all splendour, dignity, and grace ! 

Not so the pheasant on his charms presumes. 
Though he too has a glory in his plumes. 
He, Christian like, retreats with modest mien 
To the close copse, or far-sequestered green. 
And shines without desiring to be seen. 
The plea of works, as arrogant and vain, 
Heaven turns from with abhorrence and disdain ; 



Not more affronted by avowed neglect. 
Than by the mere dissembler's feigned respect. 
What is all righteousness that men devise 1 
What — but a sordid bargain for the skies'? 
But Christ as soon would abdicate his own. 
As stoop from Heaven to sell the proud a throne. 

His dwelling a recess in some rude rock. 
Book, beads, and maple dish, his meagre stock ; 
In shirt of hair, and weeds of canvass, dressed. 
Girt with a bell-rope that the pope has blessed ; 
Adust vnth stripes told out for every crime. 
And sore tormented long before liis time ; 
His prayer preferred to saints that can not aid ; 
His praise postponed, and never to be paid ; 
See the sage hermit, by manMnd admired, 
With all that bigotry adopts inspired. 
Wearing out life in his religious whim. 
Till his rehgious whimsy wears out him. 
His works, his abstinence, liis zeal allowed. 
You tHnk liim hiuuble — God accounts hini proud ^ 
High in demand, though lowly in pretence, ' 
Of all his conduct this the genuine sense — 
My penitential stripes, my streaming blood, 
Have purchased Heaven and prove my title good. 

Turn Eastward now, and Fancy shall apply 
To your weak sight her telescopic eye. 
The bramin kindles on his own bare head 
The sacred fire, self-torturing his trade; 
His voluntary pains, severe and long. 
Would give a barbarous air to British song ; 
No grand inquisitor could worse invent, 
Than he contrives to suffer, well content. 

Which is the saintlier worthy of the two? 
Past all dispute, yon anchorite say you. 
Your sentence and mine differ. What's a name"? 
I say the bramin has the fairer claun. 
If suffermgs, Scriptm'e no where recommend.<?, 
Devised by self to answer selfish ends, 
Give saintship, then all Europe must agree 
Ten starvehng hermits suffer less than he. 

The trutl^is (if the truth may suit your ear, 
And prejudice have left a passage clear,) 
Pride has attained its most luxuriant growth. 
And poisoned every virtue in them both. 
Pride may be pampered while the flesh grows lean; 
Humility may clothe an English dean ; 
That grace was Cowper's — his, confessed by all — 
Though placed ui golden Durham's second stall. 
Not all the plenty of a bishop's board, 
His palace, and his lackeys, and " My Lord," 
More nourish pride, that condescending vice. 
Than abstinence, and beggary, and lice ; 
It thrives in misery, and abundant grows : 
In misery fools upon themselves impose. 

But why before us protestants produce 
An Indian mystic, or a French recluse"? 
Their sin is plain ; but what have we to fear, 
Reformed and well instructed 1 You shall hear. 



TRUTH. 



17 



Yon ancientprude, whose withered features show 
She might be young some forty years ago, 
Her elbows pinioned close upon her hips, 
Her head erect, her fan upon her Ups, 
Her eye-brows arched, her eyes both gone astray 
To watch yon amorous couple in their play. 
With bony and unkerchiefed neck defies 
The rude inclemency of wintry skies. 
And sails with lappet-head and mincing airs 
Duly at chnk of bell to morning prayers. 
To thrift and parsimony much inclined. 
She yet allows herself that boy behind ; 
The shivering urchin, bending as he goes, 
With slipshod heels, and dewdrop at liis nose ; 
His predecessor's coat advanced to wear, 
Which future pages yet are doomed to share, 
Carries her Bible tucked beneath his arm. 
And hides liis hands to keep his fingers warm. 

She, half an angel in her own account. 
Doubts not hereafter with the saints to mount, 
Though not a grace appears on strictest search, 
But that she fasts, and item, goes to church. 
Conscious of age, she recollects her youth, 
And tells, not always with an eye to truth, 
Who spanned her waist, and who, where'er he 

came, 
Scrawled upon glass Miss Bridget's lovely name ; 
Who stole her slipper, filled it with tokay, 
And drank the little bumper every day. 
Of temper as envenomed as an asp. 
Censorious, and her every word a wasp ; 
In faitliful memory she records the crunes, 
Or real or fictitious, of the times ; 
Laughs at the reputations she has torn, 
And holds them dangling at arm's length in scorn. 

Such are the fruits of sanctimonious pride. 
Of malice fed while flesh is mortified : 
Take, Madam, the reward of all your prayers. 
Where hermits and where bramins meet with 

theirs ; 
Your portion is vnth them. — Nay, never frown, 
But, if you please, some fathoms lower down. 

Artist attend — your brushes and your paint — 
Produce them — take a chair — now draw a saint. 
Oh sorrowful and sad ! the streaming tears 
Channel her cheeks — a Niobe appears ! 
Is this a saint 1 Throw tints and all away — 
True piety is cheerful as the day, 
Will weep indeed and heave a pitying groan 
For others' woes, but smiles upon her own. 

Wliat purpose has the King of saints in viewl 
Why falls the Gospel hke a gracious dewl 
To call up plenty from the teeming earth. 
Or curse the desert with a tenfold dearth 1 
Is it that Adam's offspring may be saved 
From servile fear, or be the more enslaved 1 
To loose the links that galled mankind before, 
Or bind them faster on, and add still morel 



The freeborn Christian has no chains to prove, 
Or, if a chain, the golden one of love ; 
No fear attends to quench his glowing fires, 
What fear he feels, his gratitude inspires. 
Shall he, for such deliverance freely wrought, 
Recompense ill 1 He trembles at the thought. 
His Master's interest and his own combined, 
Prompt every movement of his heart and mind : 
Thought, word, and deed his liberty evince, 
His freedom is the freedom of a prince. 
Man's obligations infinite, of course 
His life should prove that he perceives their force; 
His utmost he can render is but small — 
The principle and motive all in all. 
You have two servants — Tom, an arch, sly rogue 
From top to toe the Geta now in vogue. 
Genteel in figure, easy in address, 
Moves without noise, and swift as an express 
Reports a message with a pleasing grace. 
Expert in all the duties of his place ; 
Say, on what hinge does his obedience move? 
Has he a world of gratitude and love '] 
No, not a spark — 'tis all mere sharper's play ; 
He likes your house, your housemaid and your 

pay;_ 

Reduce his wages or get rid of her, 

Tom quits you, with — Your most obedient, Sir. 

The dinner sei-ved, Charles takes his usual stand, 
Watches your eye, anticipates command ; 
Sighs if perhaps your appetite should fail ; 
And, if he but suspects a frown, turns pale ; 
Consults all day your interest and your ease, 
Richly rewarded if he can but please ; 
And, proud to make his firm attachment known, 
To save your life would nobly risk his own. 

Now which stands liighest in your serious thought"; 
Charles, without doubt, say you — and so he ought ; 
One act, that from a thankful heart proceeds, 
Excels ten thousand mercenary deeds. 

Thus Heaven approves, as honest and sincere, 
The work of generous love and filial fear ; 
But with averted eyes th' omniscient Judge 
Scorns the base hirehng, and the slavish drudge. 
Where dwell these matchless saints 1 — old Curio 

cries. 
E'en at your side. Sir, and before your eyes, 
The favoured few — th' enthusiasts you despise. 
And pleased at heart, because on holy ground; 
Sometimes a canting hypocrite is found. 
Reproach a people with his single fall, 
And cast his filthy garment at them all. 
Attend ! — an apt simihtude shall snow. 
Whence spiings the conduct that offends you so. 

See where it smokes along the sounding plain. 
Blown all aslant, a driving, dashing rain. 
Peal upon peal redoubhng all arormd. 
Shakes it again and faster to the ground ; 
Now flashing wide, now glancing as in play. 
Swift beyond thought the lightnings dart away 



18 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Ere yet it came the traveller urged his steed, 

And hurried, but with unsuccessful speed ; 

Now drenched throughout, and hopeless of his case. 

He drops the rein, and leaves luin to his pace. 

Suppose, unlooked-for in a scene so rude, 

Long hid by interposing hill or woodj 

Some mansion, neat and elegantly dressed, 

By some kind hospitable heart possessed, 

Oiler hmi warmth, security, and rest ; 

Think with what pleasure, safe and at his ease, 

He hears the tempest howling in the trees ; 

What glowing thanks his lips and heart employ, 

While danger past is turned to present joy. 

So fares it with the smner, when he feels 

A growing dread of vengeance at his heels ; 

His conscience, lilce a glassy lake before. 

Lashed into foaming waves, begms to roar ; 

The law grown clamorous, though silent long, 

Arraigns him — charges him with every wrong — 

Asserts the rights of his offended Lord, 

And death or restitution is the word : 

The last impossible, he fears the first. 

And, having well deserved, expects the worst. 

Then welcome refuge, and a peaceful home ; 

Oh for a shelter from the wrath to come ! 

Crush me, ye rocks ! ye falling mountains liide. 

Or bury me in ocean's angry tide. 

The scrutiny of those all seeing eyes 

I dare not — And you need not, God rephes ; 

The remedy you want I freely give : 

The Book shall teach you — read, believe, and live ! 

'Tis done — ^thc raging storm is heard no more, 

Mercy receives him on her peaceful shore : 

And Justice, guardian of the dread command. 

Drops the red vengeance from his willing hand. 

A soul redeemed demands a life of praise ; 

Hence the complexion of his future days. 

Hence a demeanour holy and unspecked. 

And the world's hatred, as its sure effect. 

Some lead a life umblamcable and just. 
Their own dear virtue their unshaken trust ; 
They never sin — or if (as all offend) 
Some trivial slips their daily walk attend, 
The poor are near at hand, the charge is small, 
A sHght gratuity atones for all. 
For though the pope has lost his interest here. 
And pardons are not sold as once they were. 
No papist more desirous to compound, 
Than some grave sinners upon English gi'ound. 
That i)lea refuted, other quirks they seek — 
Mercy is infinite, and man is weak; 
The future shall obliterate the past. 
And Heaven no doubt shall be their home at last. 

Come then — a still, small whisper in your ear — 
He has no hope who never had a fear ; 
And he tliat never doubted of his state. 
He may perhaps — perhaps he may — too late. 

The path to bliss abounds with many a snare ; 
Learning is one, and wit, however rare. 



The Frenchman, first in literary fame, 

(Mention him if you please.) Voltaire 1 — The same. 

With spirit, genius, eloquence, suppUed, 

Lived long, wrote much, laughed heartily, and died. 

The Scripture was his jest-book, whence he drew 

Bon mols to gall the Christian and the Jew ; 

An infidel in health, but what when sick 1 

Oh — then a text would touch hun at the quick : 

View Mm at Paris in liis last career, 

SuiTounding throngs the demi-god revere ; 

Exalted on liis pedestal of pride. 

And fumed frankincense on every side. 

He begs their flattery with his latest breath, 

And smothered in 't at last, is praised to death. 

Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door, 
Pillow and bobbins all her little store ; 
Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, 
Shuffling her threads about the livelong day, 
Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night, 
Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light ; 
She, for her humble sphere by nature fit, 
(Has little understanding, and no 'ivit, • 
Receives no praise ; but, though her lot be such, 
Toilsome and indigent) she renders much ; 
Just knows, and knows ho more, her Bible true— 
A truth the brilhant Frenchman never knew; 
And in that charter reads with sparkUng eyes 
Her title to a treasure in the sides. 
Oh happy peasant ! Oh unhappy bard ! 
His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward ; 
He praised perhaps for ages yet to come. 
She never heard of half a mile from home : 
He lost in en-ors his vain heart prefers. 
She safe in the simphcity of hers. 

Not many wise, rich, noble, or profound 
In science, win one inch of heavenly ground. 
And is it not a mortifying thought 
The poor should gain it, and the rich should not 1 
No — the voluptuaries, who ne'er forget 
One pleasure lost, lose Heaven without regret ; 
Regret would rouse them, and give birth to prayer; 
Pra3rer would add faith, and faith would fix them 
there. 

Not that the Former of us all, in this. 
Or aught he does, is governed by caprice ; 
The supposition is replete with sin, 
And bears the brand of blasphemy burnt in. 
Not so — the silver trumpet's heavenly call 
Sounds for the poor, but sounds alike for all : 
Kings are invited, and would kings obey. 
No slaves on earth more welcome were than they : 
But royalty, nobility, and state, 
Are such a dead preponderating weight. 
That endless bUss (how strange soe'er it seem) 
In counterpoise, flies up and kicks the beam. 
'Tis open, and ye can not enter — why 1 
Because ye will not, Conycrs would reply — 
And he says much that many may dispute, 
And cavil at with ease, but none refute. 



TRUTH. 



19 



O blessed effect of penury and want ; 
The seed sown there how vigorous is the plant ! 
No soil like poverty for growth divine, 
As leanest land supplies the richest wine. 
Earth gives too httle, giving only bread, 
To nourish pride, or turn the weakest head : 
To them the sounding jargon of the schools 
Seems what it is — a cap and bells for fools : 
The light they wallied by, kindled front above, 
Shows them the- shortest way to life and love : 
They, strangers to the controversial field. 
Where deists, always foiled, yet scorn to yield, 
And never checked by what impedes the wise. 
Believe, rush forward, and possess the prize. 

Envy, ye great, the dull unlettered small : 
Ye have much cause for envy — but not all. 
We boast some rich ones whom the Gospel sways, 
And one who wears a coronet and prays ; 
Like gleanings of an olive-tree they show. 
Here and there one upon the topmost bough. 

How readily upon the Gospel plan, 
That question has its answer — What is man 1 
Sinful and weak, in every sense a wretch ; 
An instrument, whose chords upon the stretch. 
And strained to the last screw that he can bear. 
Yield only discord in his Maker's ear : 
Once'the blest residence of truth divine. 
Glorious as Solyma's interior shrine. 
Where, in his own oracular abode, 
Dwelt visibly the hght-creating God ; 
But made long since, lilie Babylon of old, 
A den of mischiefs never to be told : 
And she, once mistress of the realms around, 
Now scattered wide, and no where to be found, 
As soon shall rise and reascend the throne, 
By native power and energy her own. 
As Nature, at her own pecuhar cost, 
Restore to man the glories he has lost. 
Go — ^bid the winter cease to chill the year. 
Replace the wand'ring comet in his sphere. 
Then boast (but wait for that unhoped-for hour) 
The self-restoring arm of human power; 
But what is man in his own proud esteem 1 
Hear him — himself the poet and the theme : 
A monarch clothed with majesty and awe. 
His mind his kmgdom, and his will his law, 
Grace in his mien, and glory in his eyes, 
Supreme on earth, and worthy of the skies, 
Strength in his heart, dominion in his nod, 
And, thunderbolts excepted, quite a God! 
So sings he, charmed with his own mind and form, 
The song magnificent — the theme a worm ! 
Himself so much the source of his delight. 
His Maker has no beauty in his sight. 
See where he sits, contemplative and fixed. 
Pleasure and wonder in his features mixed. 
His passions tamed and all at his control 
How perfect the composure of his soul ! 



Complacency has breathed a gentle gale 
O'er all liis thoughts, and swelled liis easy sail : 
His books well trimmed and in the gayest style, 
Like regimental coxcombs, rank and file, 
Adorn his intellects as well as shelves. 
And teach him notions splendid as themselves: 
The Bible only stands neglected there. 
Though that of all most worthy of his care; 
And, like an infant troublesome awake. 
Is left to sleep for peace and quiet's sake. 

What shall the man deserve of human Idnd, 
Whose happy skill and industry combined 
Shall prove (what argument could never yet) 
The Bible an imposture and a cheat '? 
The praises of the libertine professed. 
The worst of men, and curses of the best. 
Where should the living, weeping o'er his woes ; 
The dying, trembling at the awful close; 
Where the betrayed, forsalicn, and oppressed, 
The thousands whom the world forbids to rest; 
Where should they find (those comforts at an end 
The Scripture yields,) or hope to find, a friend 7 
Sorrow might muse herself to madness then, 
And, seeking exile from the sight of men. 
Bury herself in sohtude profound, 
Grow fraafec with her pangs, and bite the ground. 
Thus often UnbeUef, grown sick of life. 
Flies to the tempting pool, or felon knife. 
The jury meet, the coroner is short, 
And lunacy the verdict of the court : 
Reverse the sentence, let the truth be known. 
Such lunacy is ignorance alone; 
They knew not, what some bishops may not know, 
That Scripture is the only cure of wo; 
That field of promise, how it flings abroad 
Its odour o'er the Christian's thorny road ! 
The soul, reposing on assured rehef. 
Feels herself happy amidst all her grief, 
Forgets her labour as she toils along, 
Weeps tears of joy, a:nd bursts into a song. 

But the same word, that, like the polished share, 
Ploughs up the roots of a believer's care, 
KiUs too the flow'ry weeds, where'er they grow. 
That bmd the sinner's Bacchanalian brow. 
Oh that unwelcome voice of heavenly love. 
Sad messenger of mercy from above ! 
How does it grate upon his thankless ear, 
Crippling his pleasures vsdth the cramp of fear ! 
His will and judgment at continual strife. 
That civil war imbitters all his fife : 
In vain he points his powers against the skies. 
In vain he closes or averts his eyes. 
Truth will intrude — she bids him yet beware ; 
And shakes the sceptic in the scomer's chair. 

Though various foes against the truth combine, 
Pride above all opposes her design; 
Pride, of a growth superior to the rest. 
The subtlest serpent with the loftiest crest, 



20 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Swells al the thought, and, kindling into rage, 
Would hiss the cherub Mercy from the stage. 

And is the soul indeed so losf? — she cries, 
Fallen from her glory, and too weak to rise"? 
Torpid undduU beneath a frozen zone, 
Has she no spark that may be deemed her own? 
Grant lier indebted to what zealots call 
Grace undeserved, yet surely not for all — 
Some beams of rectitude she yet displays. 
Some love of virtue, and some power to praise; 
Can Uft herself above corporeal things, 
And, soaring on her own unborrowed wings. 
Possess herself of all that's good or true, 
Assert the skies, and vindicate her due. 
Past indiscretion is a venial crime. 
And if the youth, unmellowed yet by time, 
Bore on his branch, luxuriant then and rude. 
Fruits of a blighted size, austere and crude, 
Maturer years shall happier stores produce, 
And meliorate the well-concocted juice. 
Then, conscious of her meritorious zeal, 
To justice she may make her bold appeal, 
And leave to mercy, with a tranquil mind. 
The worthless and unfruitful of manldnd. 
Hear then how mercy, slighted and defied, 
Retorts the affront against the crown of Pride. 

Perish the ^^rtuc, as it ought, abhorred. 
And the fool with it, who insults Ms Lord. 
The atonement, a Redeemer's love has wrought, 
Is not for you — the righteous need it not. 
Seest thou yon harlot, wooing all she meets. 
The worn-out nuisance of the public streets. 
Herself from morn to night, from night to morn, 
Her own abhorrence, and as much your scorn ; 
The gracious shower, unlimited and free. 
Shall fall on her, when heaven denies it thee. 
Of all that wisdom dictates, this the drift. 
That man is dead in sin, and hfe a gift. 

Is virtue, then, unless of Christian growth, 
Mere fallacy, or foolishness, or bothi 
Ten thousand sages lost in endless wo. 
For ignorance of what they could not know 1 
That speech betrays at once a bigot's tongue, 
Charge not a God with such outrageous wrong. 
Truly not I — the partial light men have. 
My creed persuades me, well-employed, may save : 
While he that scorns the noonday beam, perverse. 
Shall find the blessing unimproved a curse. 
Let heathen worthies, whose exalted mind 
Left scnsuaUty and dross behind, 
Possess for me their undisputed lot. 
And take unenvied the reward they sought : 
But still in virtue of a Saviour's plea, 
JNot blind by choice, but destined not to see. 
Their fortitude and wisdom were a flame 
Celestial, though they knew not whence it came. 
Derived from the same source of light and grace. 
That guides the Christian in his swifter race; 



Their judge was conscience, and her rule their law, 
That rule, pursued with reverence and with awe, 
Led them, however faltering, faint, and slow. 
From what they knew, to what they wished to 

know. 
But let not him, that shares a brighter day, 
Traduce the splendour of a noontide ray, 
Prefer the twilight of a darker time. 
And deerft his base stupidity no crime : 
The wretch, who slights the bounties of the skies, 
And sinks, wliile favoured viith the means to rise. 
Shall find them rated at their full amount; 
The good he scorned all carried to account. 

Marshaling all his terrors as he came, 
Thunder, and earthquake, and devouring flame, 
From Sinai's top Jehovah gave the law, 
Life for obedience, death for everj' flaw. 
When the great Sovereign would his will express, 
He gives a perfect rule; what can he lessl 
And guards it with a sanction as severe 
As vengeance can inflict, or sinners fear: 
Else Ms own glorious rights he would disclaim. 
And man might safely trifle with his name. 
He bids Mm glow vnth unremitting love 
To all on earth, and to himself above; 
Condemns the injurious deed, the sland'rous 

tongue, 
The thought that meditates a brother's wrong: 
Brings not alone the more conspicuous part. 
His conduct, to the test, but tries his heart. 

Hark ! universal nature shook and groaned, 
'Twas the last trumpet — see the judge enthroned; 
Rouse all your courage at your utmost need, 
Now summon eveiy virtue, stand and plead. 
What! silent? Is your boasting heard no more"? 
That self-renouncing vidsdom, learned before, 
Had shed immortal glories on your brow. 
That all your virtues can not purchase now. 

All joy to the believer ! He can speak — 
Trembling yet happy, confident yet meek. 

Since the dear hour, that brought me to thy foot, 
And cut up all my follies by the root, 
I never trusted in an arm but thine, 
Nor hoped, but in thy righteousness divine: 
My prayers and alms, imperfect and defiled. 
Were but the feeble efl!brts of a child; 
Howe'er performed, it was their brightest part, 
That they proceeded from a grateful heart: 
Cleansed in thine own all purifying blood, 
Forgive their evil, and accept their good; 
I cast them at thy feet — my only plea 
Is what it was, dependence upon thee; 
While struggling in the vale of tears below, 
That never failed, nor shall it fail me now. 

Angelic gratulations rend the skies. 
Pride falls unpitied, never more to rise. 
Humility is crowned, and Faith receives the prize 



EXPOSTULATION. 



21 



^VPOtitniutimi. 



Tantane tarn patiens, nullo certamine tolli 
Dona sines7 Vir^. Mn. Lib. V. 



Why weeps the muse for England 1 What ap- 
pears 
In England's case, to move the muse to tears'? 
From side to side of her dehghtful isle 
Is she not clothed with a perpetual smile 1 
Can nature add a charm, or art confer 
A new-found luxury not seen in herl 
. Where under heaven is pleasure more pursued, 
Or where does cold reflection less intrude 1 
Her fields a rich expanse of wavy corn, 
Poured out from plenty's overflowing horn; 
Ambrosial gardens, in wliich art supplies 
The fervour and the force of Indian skies; 
Her peaceful shores, where busy commerce waits 
To pour Ills golden tide through all her gates; 
Whom fiery suns, that scorch the russet spice 
Of eastern groves, and oceans floored with ice, 
Forbid m vain to push his daring way 
To darker climes, or climes of brighter day; 
Whom the winds waft where'er the billows roll,. 
From the world's girdle to the frozen pole; 
The chariots bounding in her wheel-worn streets, 
Her vaults below, where every vintage meets ; 
Her theatres, her revels, and her sports; 
The scenes to wliich not youth alone resorts, 
But age, m spite of weakness and of pain, 
Still haunts, in hope to dream of youth again; 
All spealc her happy : let the Muse look romid 
From East to West, no sorrow can be found ; 
Or only what, in cottages confined, 
Sighs unregarded to the passing wind. 
Then wherefore weep for England! What ap- 
pears 
In England's case to move the muse to tears'? 

The prophet wept for Israel ; wished his eyes 
Were fountains fed with infinite suppUes; 
For Israel dealt in robbery and WTrong; 
There were the scorner's and the slanderer's 

tongue. 
Oaths, used as playthings or convenient tools. 
As interest bias'd knaves, or fashion fools; 
Adultery, neighing at his neighbour's door; 
Oppression, lab'ring hard to grind the poor; 
The partial balance, and deceitful weight ; 
The treacherous smile, a mask for secret hate; 
Hypocrisy, formality in prayer, 
And the dull service of the lip were there. 
Her vi'omen, insolent and self-caressed, 
By Vanity's unwearied finger dressed, 



Forgot the blush, that virgin fears impart 

To modest checks, and borrowed one from art; 

Were just such trifles, without worth or use, 

As silly pride and idleness produce; 

Curled, scented, furbclowed, and flounced around, 

With feet too delicate to touch the ground. 

They stretched the neck, and rolled the wanton eye, 

And sighed for every fool that fluttered by. 

He saw his people slaves to every lust. 
Lewd, avaricious, arrogant, unjust; 
He heard the wheels of an avenging God 
Groan heavily along the distant road ; 
Saw Babylon set wide her two-leaved brass 
To let the mihtary deluge pass; 
Jerusalem a prey, her glory soiled, 
Her princes captive, and her treasures spoiled; 
Wept till all Israel heard his bitter cry, 
Stamped with his foot, and smote upon his thigh: 
But wept, and stamped, and smote Ms thigh in vain; 
Pleasure is deaf when told of future pain. 
And sounds prophetic are too rough to suit 
Ears long accustomed to the pleasing lute ; 
Thejr scorned his inspiration and his theme 
Pronoujiced him fi-antic, and his fears a dream; 
With self-indulgence winged the fleeting hours, 
Till the foe found them, and down fell their towers. 

Long time Assyria bound them in her chain, . 
Till penitence had purged the public stain, 
And Cyrus, with relenting pity moved, 
Returned them happy to the land they loved; 
There, proof against prosperity, a while 
They stood the test of her ensnaring smile, 
And had the grace in scenes of peace to show 
The virtue they had learned in scenes of wo. 
But man is frail, and can but ill sustain 
A long immunity from grief and pain ; 
And after all the joys that Plenty leads. 
With tiptoe step Vice silently succeeds. 

When he that ruled them with a shepherd's rod. 
In form a man, in dignity a God, 
Came, not expected in that humble guise. 
To sifl and search them with unerring eyes, 
He found, concealed beneath a fair outside, 
The filth of rottenness, and worm of pride; , 
Their piety a system of deceit. 
Scripture emploj^ed to sanctify the cheat ; 
The Pharisee the dupe of his own art, 
Self-idoUzed, and yet a knave at heart. 

When nations are to perish in their sins, 
'Tis in the chiurch the leprosy begins; 



22 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



The priest, whose office is with zeal sincere 
To watch the fountain, and preserve it clear, 
Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink, 
Willie others poison what the flock must drink ; 
Or, waldng at the call of lust alone, 
Infuses lies and errors of his own: 
His unsuspecting sheep believe it pure; 
And, tainted by the very means of cure. 
Catch from each other a contagious spot, 
The foul fore-runner of a general rot. 
Then Truth is hushed, that Heresy may preach: 
And all is trash, that Reason can not reach : 
Then God's own image on the soul impressed, 
Becomes a mock'ry, and a standing jest; 
And faith, the root whence only can arise 
The graces of a life that wms the skies. 
Loses at once all value and esteem, 
Pronounced by gray-beards a pernicious dream; 
Then Ceremony leads her bigots forth. 
Prepared to fight for shadows of no worth; 
While truths, on wliich eternal things depend. 
Find not, or hardly find, a single friend ; 
As soldiers watch the signal of command, 
They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand ; 
Happy to fill Religion's vacant place 
With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace. 

>Such, when the Teacher of his church was there. 
People and priest, the sons of Israel were; 
Stiff in the letter, lax in the design 
And unport of their oracles divine ; 
Their learning legendary, false, absurd. 
And yet exalted above God's own word; 
They drew a curse from an intended good. 
Puffed up with gifts they never understood. 
He judged them with as terrible a frown. 
As if not love, but wrath, had brought him down: 
Yet he was gentle as soft summer airs, 
Had grace for others' sins, but none for theirs; 
Through all he spoke a noble plainness ran — 
Rhet'ric is artifice, the work of man ; 
And tricks and turns, that fancy may devise. 
Are far too mean for Him that rules the skies. 
Th' astonished vulgar trembled while he tore 
The mask from faces never seen before; 
He stripped th' impostors in the noonday sun. 
Showed that they followed all they seemed to shun ; 
Their pray'rs made public, their excesses kept 
As private as tlie chambers where they slept ; 
The temple and its holy rites profaned 
By rnumm'ries he that dwelt in it disdained ; 
Uplifted hands, that at convenient times 
Could act extortion and the worst of crimes. 
Washed with a neatness scrupulously nice, 
And free from every taint but that of vice. 
Judgment, however tardy, mends her pace 
. When Obstinacy once has conquered Grace. 
They saw distemper healed and life restored, 
In answer to the fiat of his word; 



Confessed the wonder, and with daring tongue 
Blasphemed th' authority from which it sprung. 
They knew by sure prognostics seen on high, 
The future tone and temper of the sky; 
But, grave dissemblers could not understand 
That Sin let loose speaks punisliment at hand 

Ask now of liistory's authentic page, 
And call up evidence from ev'ry age ; 
Display with busy and laborious hand 
The blessings of the most indebted land; 
What nation will you find vfhose annals prove 
So rich an interest in almighty love 1 
Where dwell they now, where dwelt in ancient day 
A people planted, watered, blest as they"? 
Let Egypt's plagues and Canaan's w^oes proclaim 
The favours poured upon the Jewish name; 
Their freedom purchased for them at the cost 
Of all their hard oppressors valued most ; 
Their title to a country not their own. 
Made sure by prodigies till then unknown ; 
For them the states they left, made waste and void ; 
For them tjie states to which thc*^ went, destroyed ; 
A cloud to measure out their m^ch by day. 
By night a fire to cheer the gloomy way ; 
That moving signal summonmg, when best. 
Their host to move, and when it stayed to rest. ' 
For them the rocks dissolved into a flood. 
The dews condensed into angehc food. 
Their very garments sacred, old yet new, 
And Tune forbid to touch them as he flew; 
Streams, swelled above the bank, enjoined to stand, 
While they passed through to their appointed land ; 
Their leader armed with meekness, zeal, and love, 
And graced with clear credentials from above ; 
Themselves secured beneath th' Ahnighty wing! 
Their God their captain,* lawgiver, and king; 
Crowned with a thousand vict'rics, and at last 
Lords of the conquered soil, there rooted fast, 
In peace possessing what they won by war. 
Their name far published, and revered as far; 
Where will you find a race lilte theirs, endowed 
With all that man e'er wished or Heav'n bestow- 
ed 1 

They, and they only, amongst all mankind. 
Received the transcript of th' eternal mind ; 
Were trusted with his own engraven laws, 
And constituted guardians of his cause; 
Theirs were the prophets, theirs the priestly call; 
And theirs by birth the Saviour of us all. 
In vain the nations, that had seen them rise 
With fierce and envious yet admiring eyes. 
Had sought to crush them, guarded as they were 
By power divine, and skill that could not err. 
Had they maintained allegiance firm and sure, 
And kept the faith immaculate and pure. 
Then the proud eagles of all-conqueruig Rome 
Had found one city not to be o'crcome; 

• Vide Joshua v. M. 



EXPOSTULATION. 



23 



And the twelve standards of the tribes unfurled 
Had bid defiance to the warring world. 
But grace abused brings forth the foulest deeds, 
As richest soil the most luxuriant weeds. 
Cured of the golden calves, their father's sin, 
They set up self, that idol god within ; 
Viewed a Dcliv'rer with disdain and hate. 
Who left them still a tributary state ; 
Seized fast his hand, held out to set them ftee 
From a worse yoke, and nailed it to the tree: 
There was the consummation and the crown, 
The flower of Israel's infamy full blown ; 
Thence date their sad declension and their fall. 
Their woes, not yet repealed, thence date them all. 

Thus fell the best instructed in her day. 
And the most favoured land, look where we may. 
Philosophy indeed on Grecian eyes 
Had poured the day, and cleared the Roman skies: 
In other climes perhaps creative art, 
With power surj^assing theirs, performed her part, 
Might give more life to marble, or might fill 
The glovdng tablets with a juster skill. 
Might sliine in fable, and grace idle themes 
With all th' embroidery of poetic dreams ; 
'Twas theirs alone to dive into the plan, 
That truth and mercy had revealed to man; 
And while the world beside, that plan unknown, 
Deified useless wood, or senseless stone, 
They breathed in faith their well-directed prayers. 
And the true God, the God of truth, was theirs. 

Their glory faded, and their race dispersed, 
The last of nations now, though once the first ; 
They warn and teach the proudest, would they 

learn. 
Keep wisdom, or meet vengeance in your tiurn ; 
If we escaped not, if Heaven spared not us. 
Peeled, scattered, and exterminated thus ; 
If vice received her retribution due, 
When we were visited, what hope for you 1 
When God arises with an awful frown 
To punish lust, or pluck presumption down ; 
When gifts perverted, or not duly prized. 
Pleasures o'ervalued, and his grace despised. 
Provoke the vengeance of his righteous hand. 
To pour down wrath upon a thankless land ; 
He will be found impartially severe. 
Too just to vnnk, or speak the guilty clear. 

Oh Israel, of all nations most undone ! 
Thy diadem displaced, thy sceptre gone ; 
Thy temple, once thy glory, fallen and rased. 
And thou a worshipper e'en where thou mayst ; 
Thy services, once holy, without a spot. 
Mere shadows now, their ancient pomp forgot; 
Thy Levites, once a consecrated host. 
No longer Levites, and their lineage lost, 
And thou thyself o'er country sown, 
With none on earth that thou canst call thine 



Cry aloud, thou that sittest in the dust. 
Cry to the proud, the cruel, and unjust ; 
Knock at the gates of nations, rouse their fears 
Say wrath is coming, and the storm appears; 
But raise the shrillest cry in British ears. 

What ails thee, restless as the waves that roar, 
And fling their foam against thy chalky shore 1 
Mistress, at least while Providence shall please, 
And trident-bearing queen of the wide seas — 
Why, having kept good faith, and often shown 
Friendship and truth to others, find'st thou none? 
Thou that hast set the persecuted free, 
None interposes now to succour thee. 
Countries indebted to thy power, that shine 
With light derived from thee, would smother 

thine ; 
Thy very cliildren watch for thy disgrace — 
A lawless brood, and curse thee to thy face. 
Thy rulers load thy credit, year by year, 
With sums Peruvian mines could never clear ; 
As if, like arches built with skilful hand, 
The more 'twere pressed the firmer it wo\dd stand. 

The cry in all thy ships is still the same, 
Speed us away to battle and to fame. 
Thy mariners explore the wild expanse, 
Impatient to descry the flags of France ; 
But, though they fight as thine have ever fought, 
Return ashamed without the wreaths they sought. 
Thy senate is a scene of ci-vil jar, 
Chaos of contrarieties at war ; 
Where sharp and solid, phlegmatic and light. 
Discordant atoms meet, ferment, and fight ; 
Where Obstinacy takes his sturdy stand, 
To disconcert what Policy has planned ; 
Where Pohcy is busied all night long 
In setting right what Faction has set wrong ; 
Where flails of oratory thrash the floor, 
That yields them chaiF and dust, and nothing 

more. 
Thy racked inhabitants repine, complain, 
Taxed till the brow of Labour sweats in vain, 
War lays a burden on the reeling state. 
And peace does nothuig to relieve the weight; 
Successive loads succeeding broils impose, 
And sighing millions prophesy the close. 

Is adverse Providence, when pondered well, 
So dimly writ, or difficult to spell. 
Thou canst not read with readiness and ease 
Providence adverse in events hke these 1 
Know then that heavenly wisdom on this ball 
Creates, gives birth to, guides, consummates all 
That while laborious and quick-thoughted man 
Snuffs up the praise of what he seems to plan, 
He first conceives, then perfects his design. 
As a mere instrument in hands divine: 
Blind to the working of that secret power, 
That balances the wings of every hour. 
The busy trifler dreams himself alone. 
Frames many a purpose, and God works his own. 



24 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



States thrive or wither as moons wax and wane, 
Even as his will and his decrees ordain; 
While honour, virtue, piety, bear sway. 
They flourish; and as these decline, decay; 
In just resentment of his injured laws. 
He, pours contempt on thera and on their cause ; 
Strikes the rough thread of error right athwart 
The web of every scheme they have at heart; 
Bids rottenness invade and bring to dust 
The pillars of support, in which they trust. 
And do his errand of (hsgrace and shame 
On the cMef strength and glory of the frame. 
None ever yet impeded what he wrought, 
None bars him out from Iiis most secret thought : 
Darkness itself before his eye is light, 
And hell's close mischief naked in his sight. 

Stand now and judge thyself— Hast thou in- 
curred 
His anger, who can waste thee with a word, 
Who poises and proportions sea and land, 
Weighing them in the hollow of his hand, 
And in whose awful sight all nations seem. 
As grasshoppers, as dust, a drop, a dream? 
Hast thou (a sacrilege his soul abhors) 
Claimed aU the glory of thy prosperous wars'? 
Proud of thy fleets and armies, stolen the gem 
Of his just praise, to lavish it on theml 
Hast thou not learned, what thou art often told, 
A truth still sacred, and believed of old, 
That no success attends on spears and swords 
Unblest, and that the battle is the Lord's "? 
That courage is his creature; and dismay 
The post, that at liis bidding speeds away. 
Ghastly in feature, and liis stanmaering tongue 
With doleful humour and sad presage hung. 
To quell the valour of the stoutest heart. 
And teach the combatant a woman's parf? 
That he bids thousands fly when none pursue, 
Saves as he will by many or by fevsr. 
And claims for ever, as his royal right. 
The event and sure decision of the fight 1 

Hast thou, though suckled at fair Freedom's 
breast, 
Exported slavery to the conquered East] 
Pulled down the tjTrants India served with dread. 
And raised thyself, a greater, in their stead 1 
Gone tliither armed and hungry, returned full. 
Fed from the richest veins of the Mogul, 
A despot big with power obtained by wealth. 
And that obtained by rapine and by stealth ? 
With Asiatic vices stored thy mind, 
But left their virtues and thine own behind 1 
And, having trucked thy soul, brought home the 

fee, 
To tempt the poor to sell himself to theel 

Hast thou by statute shoved from its design 
The Saviour's feast, his own blest bread and wine. 
And made the symbols of atoning grace 
An office-key, a picklock to a place. 



That uifidels may prove their title good 
By an oath dipped in sacramental blood'? 
A blot that will be still a blot, m spite 
Of all that grave apologists may write ; 
And though a bishop toil to cleanse the stain, 
He wipes and scours the silver cup in vain. 
And hast thou sworn on every slight pretence, 
Till perjuries are common as bad pence, 
While thousands, careless of the damning sin, 
Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er looked within 

Hast thou, when Heaven has clothed thee with 

disgrace, 
(And, long provoked, repaid thee to thy face. 
For thou hast known echpses, and endured 
Dhnness and anguish, all thy beams obscured, 
When sin had shed dishonour on thy brow; 
And never of a sabler hue than now,) 
Hast thou, with heart perverse and conscience 

seared. 
Despising all rebuke, stiU persevered, 
And having chosen evil, scorned the voice 
That cried. Repent '? — and gloried in thy choice'? 
Thy fastings, when calamity at last 
Suggests the expedient of a yearly fast, 
What mean they'? Canst thou dream there is a 

power 
In lighter diet at a later hour. 
To charm to sleep the threatening of the skies, 
And hide past folly from all-seeing eyes 1 
The fast, that wins deliverance, and suspends 
The stroke, that a vindictive God intends, 
Is to renounce hypocrisy; to draw 
Thy hfe upon the pattern of the law ; 
To war with pleasure, idolized before; 
To vanquish lust, and wear its yoke no more. 
All fasting else, whate'er be the pretence. 
Is wooing mercy by renewed offence. 

Hast thouwitliin the sin, that in old time 
Brought fire from Heaven, the sex-abusing crime, 
Whose horrid perpetration stamps disgrace. 
Baboons are free from, upon human race "? 
Tliink on the fruitful and well-watered spot. 
That fed the flocks and herds of wealthy Lot, 
Where Paradise seemed still vouchsafed on earth, 
Burnmg and scorched into perpetual dearth, 
Or, in Iris words who damned the base desire, 
Suffering the vengeance of eternal fire: 
Then nature injured, scandalized, defiled, 
Unveiled her blushing cheek, looked on, and 

smiled; 
Beheld with joy the lovely scene defaced, 
And praised the wrath, that laid her beauties waste. 

Far be the thought from any verse of mine. 
And farther still the formed and fixed design, 
To thrust the charge of deeds that I detest, 
Against an innocent, unconscious breast, 
The man that dares traduce, because he can 
With safety to himself, is not a man : 



EXPOSTULATION. 



25 



An individual is a sacred mark, 
Not to be pierced in play, or in the dark ; 
But public censure speaks a public foe, 
Unless a zeal for virtue guide the blow. 

The priestly brotherhood, devout, sincere. 
From mean self-interest and ambition clear, 
Their hope in heaven, servihty their scorn, 
Prompt to persuade, expostulate, and warn, 
Their wisdom pure, and given them from above, 
Their usefulness ensured by zeal and love. 
As meek as the man Moses, and withal 
As bold as in Agrippa's presence Paul, 
Should fly the world's contaminatmg touch, 
Holy and unpolluted : — are thine such 1 
Except a few with Eh's spirit blest, 
Hophm and Phineas may describe the rest. 

Where shall a teacher look, in days hke these, 
For ears and hearts, that he can hope to please 1 
Look to the poor — the suuple and the plain 
Will hear perhaps thy salutary strain : 
Humility is gentle, apt to leani. 
Speak but the word, will Ustea and return. 
Alas, not so ! the poorest of the flock 
Are proud, and set their faces as a rock ; 
Denied that earthly opulence they choose, 
God's better gift they scoff at and refuse. 
The rich, the produce of a nobler stem. 
Are more intelligent at least — try them. 
Oh vain inquiry ! they without remorse 
Are altogether gone a devious course ; 
Where beck'ning Pleasure leads them, wildly stray; 
Have burst the bands, and cast the yoke away. 

Now borne upon the wings of truth subhme, 
Review thy dim origuial and prime. 
This island, spot of unreclaimed rude earth, 
The cradle that received thee at thy birth, 
Was rocked by many a rough Norwegian blast, 
And Danish howluigs scared thee as they passed ; 
For thou wast bom amid the din of arms, 
And sucked a breast that panted with alarms. 
While yet thou wast a g#veling puling chit. 
Thy bones not fashioned, and thy joints not knit, 
The Roman taught thy stubborn knee to bow. 
Though twice a Csesar could not bend thee now. 
His victory was that of orient light, 
When the sun's shafts disperse the gloom of night. 
Thy language at this distant moment shows 
How much the country to the conqueror owes ; 
Expressive, energetic, and refined. 
It sparkles with the gems he left behind ; 
He brought thy land a blessing when he came, 
He found thee savage, and he left thee tame ; 
Taught thee to clothe thy pinkedand painted hide. 
And grace thy figure with a soldier's pride. 
He sowed the seeds of order where he went. 
Improved thee far beyond his own intent. 
And, while he ruled thee by the sword alone, 
Made thee at last a warrior like his own. 



Religion, if in heavenly truths attired. 
Needs only to be seen to be admired ; 
But thine, as dark as witcheries of the night. 
Was formed to harden hearts and shock the sight ; 
Thy Druids struck the well-hung harps they bore 
With fingers deeply died in human gore ; 
And while the victim slowly bled to death. 
Upon the rolling chords rung out his dying breath. 
Who brought the lamp, that with awakening 
beams 
Dispelled thy gloom, and broke away thy dreams, 
Tradition, now decrepit and worn out. 
Babbler of ancient fables, leaves a doubt : 
But still hght reached thee ; and those gods of thine, 
Woden and Thor, each tottering in his shrine, 
Fell broken and defaced at his own door, 
As Dagon in Pliihstia long before. 
B lit Rome, with sorceries and magic wand, 
Soon raised a cloud that darkened every land ; 
And thuie was smothered in the stench and fog 
Of Tiber's marshes and the papal bog. ^ 

Then priests, with bulls and briefs, and shaven 

crowns. 
And griping fists, and unrelenting frowns. 
Legates and delegates with powers from hell. 
Though heavenly in pretension, fleeced thee well ; 
And to tliis hour, to keep it fresh in mind, 
Some twigs of that old scourge are left behind.* 
The soldiery, the Pope's well-managed pack, 
Were trained beneath his lash, and Itnew the smack; 
And, when he laid them on the scent of blood. 
Would hunt a Saracen through fire and flood. 
Lavish of life to win an empty tomb. 
That proved a mint of wealth, a mine to Rome, 
They left their bones beneath unfriendly skies, 
His worthless absolution all the prize. 
Thou wast the veriest slave in days of yore. 
That ever dragged a chain or tugged an oar; 
Thy monarchs, arbitrary, fierce, unjust. 
Themselves the slaves of bigotry or lust. 
Disdained thy counsels, only in distress 
Fomid thee a goodly sponge for power to press. 
Thy chiefs, the lords of many a petty fee. 
Provoked and harassed, in return plagued thee ; 
Called thee away from peaceable employ. 
Domestic happiness and rmral joy, 
To waste thy life in arms, or lay it down 
In causeless feuds and bickerings of their own. 
Thy parliaments adored on bended knees 
The sovereignty they were convened to please ; 
Whate'er was asked, too timid to resist, 
Comphed with, and were graciously dismissed ; 
And if some Spartan soul a doubt expressed, 
And, blushing at the tameness of the rest. 
Dared to suppose the subject had a choice. 
He was a traitor by the general voice. 



* Which may be found at Doctors' Commons. 



26 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



O slave ! witli powers thou didst not dare exert, 
Verse can not stoop so low as thy desert ; 
It shakes the sides of splenetic Disdain, 
Thou self-entitled ruler of the main, 
To trace thee to the date when yon fair sea, 
That clips thy shores, had no such charms for thee ; 
When other nations flew from coast to coast, ■ 
And thou hadst neither fleet nor flag to boast. 

Kneel now, and lay thy forehead in the dust ; 
Blush, if thou canst ; not petrified, thou must : 
Act but an honest and a faithful part ; 
Compare what then thou wast with what thou art ; 
And God's disposing providence confessed, 
Obduracy itself must yield the rest — 
Then thou art bound to serve him, and to prove. 
Hour after hour, thy gratitude and love. 

Has he not bid thee, and thy favoured land. 
For ages safe beneath Ms sheltering hand. 
Given thee his blessing on the clearest proof, 
Bid nations leagued against thee stand aloof, 
And charged Hostility and Hate to roar 
Where else they would, but not upon thy shore 1 
His power secured thee, when presumptuous Spain 
Baptized her fleet invincible in vain ; 
Her gloomy moiiarch, doubtful and resigned 
To every pang that racks an anxious mind, 
Asked of the waves, that broke upon his coast. 
What tidings 1 and the surge replied — All lost ! 
And when the Stuart leaning on the Scot, 
Then too much feared, and now too much forgot. 
Pierced to the very centre of the realm, 
And hoped to seize his abdicated helm, 
'Twas but to prove how quickly with a frown 
He that had raised thee coidd have pluck'd thee down. 
Peculiar is the grace by thee possessed, 
Thy foes implacable, thy land at rest ; 
Thy thunders travel over earth and seas. 
And all at home is pleasure, wealth, and ease. 
'Tis thus, extending his tempestuous arm. 
Thy Maker fills the nations with alarm. 
While his own Heaven surveys the troubled scene, 
And feels no change, unshaken and serene. 
Freedom, in other lands scarce known to shine, 
Pours out a flood of splendour upon thine ; 
Thou hast as bright an interest in her rays 
As ever Roman had in Rome's best days. 
True freedom is where no restraint is known. 
That Scripture, justice, and good sense disown. 
Where only vice and injury arc tied. 
And all from shore to shore is free beside. 
Such freedom is — and Windsor's hoary towers 
Stood trembling at the boldness of thy powers. 
That won a mnnph on that immortal plain 
Like her the fabled Phoebus wooed in vain ; 
He found the laurel only — happier you 
Th' unfading laurel, and the virgin too !* 



" Alluding to the grant of Magna Charta, which wa.s e.v- 
lortcfi from King John by the barons at Runnymede neai" 
Windsor. 



Now think, if Pleasure have a thought to spare: 
If God himself be not beneath her care ; 
If business, constant as the wheels of time, 
Can pause an hour te read a serious rhyme; 
If the new mail thy merchants now receive, 
Or expectation of the next, give leave; 
Oh think! if chargeable with deep arrears 
For such indulgence gilding all thy years, 
How much, though long neglected, shining yet, 
The beams of heavenly truth have swelled the 

debt. 
When persecuting zeal made royal sport 
With tortured innocence in Mary's court, 
And Bonner, blithe as shepherd at a wake, 
Enjoyed the show, and danced about the stake 
The sacred Book, its value understood. 
Received the seal of martyrdom in blood. 
Those holy men, so full of truth and grace, 
Seem to reflection of a different race ; 
Meek, modest, venerable, wise, sincere. 
In such a cause they could not dare to fear; 
They could not purchase earth with such a prize, 
Or spare a Ufe too short to reach the skies. 
From them to thee conveyed along the tide, 
Their streaming hearts poured freely when they 

died ; 
Those truths, which neither use nor years impair. 
Invite thee, woo thee, to the bUss they share. 
What dotage will not vanity maintain % 
What web too weak to catch a modern brain 1 
The moles and bats in fiill assembly find, 
On special search, the keen eyed eagle blind. 
And did they dream, and art thou wiser now? 
Prove it — if better, I submit and bow. 
Wisdom and goodness are twin-bom, one heart 
Must hold both sisters, never seen apart. 
So then — as darkness overspread the deep, 
Ere Nature rose from her eternal sleep. 
And this delightful earth, and that fair sky. 
Leaped out of nothing, called by the Most High; 
By such a change thy dferkness is made light. 
Thy chaos order, and thy weakness might; 
And He, whose power mere nullity obeys. 
Who found thee nothing, formed thee for his praise. 
To praise him is to serve him, and fulfil. 
Doing and suflfering, his unquestioned ^vill; 
'Tis to believe what men inspired of old, 
Faithful, and faithfully informed, unfold ; 
Candid and just, with no false aim in view. 
To take for truth, what can not be but true; 
To learn in God s own school the Christian part. 
And bind the task assigned thee to thine heart: 
Happy the man there seeking and there found, 
Happy the nation where such men abound. 

How shall a verse impress thee? by what name 
Shall I adjure thee not to court thy shame? 
By theirs, whose bright example imimpeached, 
Directs thee to that eminence they reached, 



EXPOSTULATION. 



27 



Heroes and worthies of days past, thy sires? 
Or his, who touched their hearts with hallowed fires 
Their names, alas ! in vain reproach an age, 
Whom all the vanities they scorned engage ! 
And His, that seraphs tremble at, is hung 
Disgracefully on eveiy trifler's tongue, 
Or serves the champion in forensic war, 
To flourish and parade with at the bar. 
Pleasure herself perhaps suggests a plea, 
If interest move thee, to persuade e'en thee; 
By every charm that smiles upon her face. 
By joys possessed, and joys still held in chase, 
If dear society be worth a thought, 
And if the feast of freedom cloy thee not, 
Reflect that these, and all that seem thine own. 
Held by the tenure of his wiU alone. 
Like angels in the service of their Lord, 
Remain with thee, or leave thee at Ms word; 
That gratitude and temperance in our use 
Of what he gives, unsparing and profuse, 
Secure the favour, and enhance the joy. 
That thankless waste and wild abuse destroy. 
But above all reflect, how cheap soe'er 
Those rights, that millions envy thee, appear, 
And, though resolved to risk them, and swim down 
-The tide of pleasure, heedless of His frown. 
That blessings truly sacred, and when given 
Marked with the signature and stamp of Heaven, 
The word of prophecy, those truths divine. 
Which make that Heaven, if thou desire it, thine, 
(Awful alternative ! believed, beloved, 
Thy glory, and thy shame if imimproved,) 
Are never long vouchsafed, if pushed aside 
With cold disgust or philosophic pride ! 
And that, judicially withdrawn, disgrace, 
Error, and darkness occupy their place. 

A world is up in arms, and thou, a spot 
Not quickly found, if negligently sought, 



Thy soul as ample as thy bounds are small. 
Endures the brunt, and darest defy them all. 
And wilt shou join to this bold enterprise 
A bolder still, a contest with the slues "? 
Remember, if He guard thee and secure, 
Whoe'er assails thee, thy success is sure ; 
But if He leave thee, though the skill and power 
Of nations sworn to spoil thee and devour, 
Were all collected in thy single arm. 
And thou couldst laugh away the fear of harm. 
That strength would fail, opposed against the push 
And feeble onset of a pigmy rush. 

Say not (and if the thouglit of such defence 
Should spring within thy bosom, drive it thence) 
What nation amongst all my foes is free 
From crimes as base as any charged on me 1 
Their measure filled, they too shall pay the debt, 
Which God, though long forborne, will not forget. 
But know what vrrath divine, when most severe, 
Makes justice still the guide of his career. 
And will not punish, in one mingled crowd, 
Them vrithout light, and thee without a cloud. 

Muse, hang this harp upon yon aged beach. 
Still murmuring with the solemn truths I teach; 
And while at intervals a cold blast sings 
Through the dry leaves, and pants upon the strings, 
My soul shall sigh in secret, and lament 
A nation scourged, yet tardy to repent. 
I know the warning song is sung in vain; 
That few will hear, and fewer heed the strain ; 
But if a sweeter voice, and one designed 
A blessing to my country and mankind. 
Reclaim the wandering thousands, and biing home 
A flock so scattered and so wont to roam, 
Then place it once again between my knees; 
The sound of truth will then be sm-e to please: 
And truth alone, where'er my life be cast, 
In scenes of plenty, or the pining waste. 
Shall be my chosen theme, my glory to the last. 



m^pt. 



. doceas iter, et sacra ostia pandas. Virg. JEn. 6. 



Ask what is human life — the sage replies, 
With disappointment lowering in his eyes, 
A painful passage o'er a restless flood, 
A vain piHsuit of ftigitive false good, ' 
A scene of fancied bliss and heart-felt care. 
Closing at last in darkness and despair. 
The poor inured to drudgery and distress, 
Act without aim, think little, and feel less. 
And no where, but in feigned Arcadian scenes. 
Taste happiness, or know what pleasure means. 
Riches are passed away fi'om hand to hand, 
As fortune, vice, or folly may command; 



As in a dance the pair that take the lead 

Turn downward, and the lowest pair succeed. 

So shifting and so various is the plan, 

By which Heaven rules the mixed affairs of man ; 

Vicissitude wheels round the motley crowd, 

The rich grow poor, the poor become purse-proud; 

Business is labour, and man's weakness such, 

Pleasure is labour too, and tires as much. 

The very sense of it foregoes its use, 

By repetition palled, by age obtuse. 

Youth lost in dissipation we deplore. 

Through life's sad remnant, what no sighs restore; 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Our years, a fruitless race without a prize, 
Too many, yet too few to make us wise. 

Dangling his cane about, and taking snuff, 
Lothario cries. What pliilosophic stuff— 
O querulous and weak! — whose useless brain 
Once thought of notliing, and now thinks in vain ; 
Whose eyes reverted weeps o'er all the past. 
Whose prospect shows thee a disheartening waste; 
Would age in thee resign his wintiy reign, 
And youth invigorate that frame again, 
Renewed desire would grace with other speech, 
Joys always prized, when placed within our reach. 

For Uft thy palsied head, shake off the gloom 
That overhangs the borders of thy tomb. 
See Nature gay, as when she first began, 
With smiles alluring her admirer man ; 
She spreads the morning over eastern hills, 
Earth ghtters with the drops the night distils; 
The Sun obedient at her call appears. 
To fling his glories o'er the robe she wears ; 
Banks clothed with flowers, groves filled with 

sprightly sounds, 
The yellow tilth, green meads, rocks, rising 

grounds, 
Streams edged with osiers, fattening every field, 
Wliere'er they flow, now seen and now concealed ; 
From the blue rim, where skies and mountains meet, 
Down to the very turf beneath thy feet, 
Ten thousand charms, that only fools despise. 
Or pride can look at with indifferent eyes, 
All speak one language, all with one sweet voice 
Cry to her universal realm, Rejoice! 
Man feels the spur of passions and desires, 
And she gives largely more than he requires; 
Not that his hours devoted all to Care, 
Hollow-eyed Abstinence, and lean Despair, 
The vsTretch may pine, while to liis smell, taste, 

sight, 
She holds a paradise of rich delight; 
But gently to rebuke liis awkward.fear. 
To prove that what she gives, she gives sincere ; 
To banish hesitation, and proclaim 
His happiness, her dear, her only aun. 
'Tis grave philosophy's absurdest dream, 
That Heaven's intentions are not what they seem. 
That only shadows are dispensed below. 
And earth has no reality but wo. 

Thus things terrestrial wear a different hue, 
As youth or age persuades ; and neither true. 
So Flora's wreath through coloured crystal seen, 
The rose or lily appears blue or green, 
But still th' imputed tints are those alone 
The medium represents, and not their own. 

To rise at noon, sit slipshod and midresscd. 
To read the news, or fiddle, as seems best. 
Till half the world comes rattling at his door, 
To fill the dull vacuity till four; 
And, just when evening turns the blue vault gray. 
To spend two hours in dressing for the day; 



To make the sun a bauble without use, 

Save for the fruits his heavenly beams produce; 

Gluite to forget, or deem it worth no thought. 

Who bids him shine, or if he shine or not; 

Through mere necessity to close his eyes 

Just when the larks and when the shepherds risej 

Is such a Ufe, so tediously the same, 

So void of all utility or aim. 

That poor Jonquil, witli almost every breath 

Sighs for his exit, vulgarly called death ; 

For he, with all liis follies, has a mind 

Not yet so blank, or fasloionably bUnd, 

But now and then perhaps a feeble ray 

Of distant wisdom shoots across his way. 

By which he reads, that hfe without a plan, 

As useless as the moment it began, 

Serves merely as a soil for discontent 

To thrive in; an encumbrance ere half spent 

Oh weariness beyond what asses feel, 

That tread ths circuit of the cistern wheel ; 

A dull rotation, never at a stay. 

Yesterday's face twin image of to-day; 

While conversation, an exhausted stock, 

Grows drowsy as the clicking of a clock. 

No need, he cries, of gravity stuffed out 

With academic dignity devout, 

To read wise lectures, vanity the text : 

Proclaim the remedy, ye learned, next; 

For truth self-evident, with pomp impressed, 

Is vanity surpassmg all the rest. 

That remedy, not hid in deeps profound, 
Yet seldom sought where only to be found, 
While poison turns aside from its due scope 
Th' inqmrer's aim, that remedy is hope. 
Life is His gift, fi'om whom whate'er Ufe needs, 
With every good and perfect gift, proceeds ; 
Bestowed on man, like all that we partake, 
Royally, freely, for his bomity's sake; 
Transient indeed, as is the fleeting hour, 
And yet the seed of an iuunortal flower; 
Designed in honour of Ms endless love; 
To fill with fragrance his abode above; 
No trifle, howsoever short it seem. 
And, howsoever shadowy, no dream! 
Its value, what no thought can ascertain, 
Nor all an angel's eloquence explain; 
Men deal with life as children with their play, 
Who first misuse, then cast their toys away; 
Live to no sober purpose, and contend 
That their Creator had no serious end. 
"Wlien God and man stand opposite in view, 
Man's disappointment must of course ensue. 
The just Creator condescends to ^VTite, 
In beauLS of inextinguishable Ught, 
His names of wisdom, goodness, power, and love, 
On all that blooms below, or sliincs above ; 
To catch the wandering notice of manliind, 
And teach the world, if not perversely blind. 



HOPE. 



29 



His gracious attributes, and prove the share 
His offspring hold in liis paternal care. 
If, led from earthly things to things divine. 
His creature thwart not his august design, 
Then praise is heard instead of reasoning pride. 
And captious cavil and complaint subside. 
Nature, employed in her allotted place. 
Is hand-maid to the purposes of Grace; 
By good vouchsafed makes known superior good. 
And bliss not seen by blessings understood : 
That bliss, revealed in Scripture, with a glow 
Bright as the covenant-ensuring bow, 
Fires all liis feelings with a noble scorn 
Of sensual evil, and thus Hope is born. 

Hope sets the stamp of vanity on all 
That men have deemed substantial since the fall, 
Yet has the wondrous virtue to educe 
From emptiness itself a real use ; 
And while she takes, as at a father's hand. 
What health and sober appetite demand. 
From fading good derives, with chymic art, 
That lasting happiness, a thankful heart. 
Hope, with upUfted foot set free from earth, 
Pants for the place of her ethereal birth. 
On steady wings sails through th' immense abyss. 
Plucks amaranthine joys from bowers of bliss. 
And crowns the soul, while yet a mourner here, 
With wreaths like those triumphant spirits wear. 
Hope, as an anchor firm and sure, holds fast 
The Christian vessel, and defies the blast. 
Hope! nothing else can nourish and secure 
His new-born Airtues, and preserve him pure. 
Hope! let the vnretch, once conscious of the joy, 
Whom now despairing agonies destroy. 
Speak, for he can, and none so well as he, 
What treasures centre, what deUghts in thee. 
Had he the gems, the spices, and the land 
That boasts the treasure, all at his command ; 
The fragrant grove, th' inestimable mine, 
Were light, when weighed agamst one smUe of 
thine. 

Though, clasped and cradled in his nurse's arms. 
He shines with all a cherub's artless channs, 
Man is the genuine offspring of revolt, 
Stubborn and sturdy, as a wild ass' colt; 
His passions, like the watery stores that sleep 
Beneath the smiUng surface of the deep, 
Wait but the lashes of a wintry storm. 
To firovTO and roar, and shake his feeble form. 
From infancy through childhood's giddy maze, 
Froward at school, and fretful in his plays. 
The puny tyi'ant burns to subjugate 
The free republic of the whip-gig state. 
If one, liis equal in athletic frame, 
Or, more provoking still, of nobler name, ■ 
Dare step across his arbitrary views. 
An Iliad, only not in verse, ensues; 
The Uttle Greeks look trembling at the scales, 
Till the best tongue, or heaviest hand, prevails. 



Now see him launched into the world at large; 
If priest, supinely droning o'er his charge. 
Their llccce his pillow, and his weekly drawl. 
Though short, too long, the price he pays for all. 
If lawyer, loud, whatever cause he plead. 
But proudest of the worst, if that succeed. 
Perhaps a grave physician, gathering fees, 
Punctually paid for lengthening out disease; 
No Cotton, whose humanity shods rays, 
That make superior skill his second praise. 
If arms engage liim, he devotes to sport 
His date of life, so likely to be short; 
A soldier may be any thing, if brave. 
So may a tradesman, if not quite a knave. 
Such stufi'the world is made of; and mankind 
To passion, interest, pleasure, whim resigned, 
Insist on, as if each were his own pope, 
Forgiveness, and the privilege of hope. 
But Conscience, in some awful silent hour. 
When captivating lusts have lost their power, 
Perhaps when sickness, or some fearful dream, 
Reminds him of religion, hated theme ! 
Starts from the down, on wliich she lately slept, 
And tells of laws despised, at least not kept: 
Shows with a pointing finger, but no noise, 
A pale procession of past sinful joys, 
AU witnesses ofblessings foully scorned. 
And life abused, and not to be suborned. 
Mark these, she says ; these summoned from afar, 
Begin their march to meet thee at the bar; 
There find a Judge inexorably just. 
And perish there, as all presumption must. 

Peace be to those (such peace as Earth can give) 
Who five in pleasure, dead e'en while they live; 
Born capable indeed of heavenly truth; 
But down to latest age, from earliest youth 
Their mind a wilderness through w^ant of care, 
The plough of wisdom never entering there. 
Peace, (if in sensibility may claim 
A right to the meek honours of her name) 
To men of pedigree, their noble race. 
Emulous always of the nearest place 
To any throne, except the throne of Grace. 
Let cottagers and unerJightened swains 
Revere the laws they dream that Heaven ordains: 
Resort on Sundays to the house of prayer. 
And ask, and fancy they find blessings there. 
Themselves, perhaps, when weary they retreat 
T' enjoy cool nature in a country seat, 
T' exchange the centre of a thousand trades, 
For clumps, and lavsms, and temples, and cascades, 
May now and then their velvet cushions take, 
And seem to pray for good example's sake; 
Judging, in charity no doubt, the tovra 
Pious enough, and having need of none. 
Kind souls ! to teach their tenantry to prize 
What they themselves, without remorse, despise : 
Nor hope have they, nor fear, of aught to come, 
As well for them had prophecy been dumb; 



30 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



They could have held tlie conduct they pursue, 
Had Paul of Tarsus lived and died a Jew; 
And truth, proposed to reasoners wise as they, 
Is a pearl cast — completely cast away. 

They die — Death lends them, pleased, and as in 
sport, 
All the grim honours of his ghastly court. 
Far other paintings grace tlie chamber now, . 
Where late we saw the mimic landscape glow: 
The busy heralds hang the sable scene 
With mournful 'scutcheons, and dim lamps be- 
tween ; 
Proclaim their titles to the crowd around, 
But they that wore them move not at the sound; 
The coronet, placed idly at their head. 
Adds nothing now to the degraded dead ; 
And e'en the star, that glitters on the bier, 
Can only say — Nobility lies here. 
Peace to all such — 'twere pity to offend, 
By useless censure, whom we can not mend ; 
Life without hope can close but in despair, 
'Twas there we found them, and must leave them 
there. 
As, when two pilgrims in a forest stray. 
Both may be lost, yet each in his own way; 
So fares it with the multitudes beguiled 
In vain Opinion's waste and dangerous wild ; 
Ten thousand rove the brakes and thorns among, 
Some eastward, and somewestward, and all wrong. 
But here, alas ! the fatal difference hes. 
Each man's behef is right in his own eyes ; 
And he that blames what they have blindly chose, 
Incurs resentment for the love he shows. 
■ Say, botanist, within whose province fall 
The cedar and the hyssop on the wall. 
Of all that deck the lanes, the fields, the bowers. 
What parts the kindred tribes of weeds and 

flowers'? ? 
Sweet scent, or lovely form, or both combined, 
Distinguish every cultivated kind; 
The want of both denotes a meaner breed. 
And Chloe firom her garland picks the weed. 
Thus hopes of every sort, whatever sect 
Esteem them, sow them, rear them, and protect, 
If wild in nature, and not duly found, 
Gethsemane ! in thy dear hallowed ground. 
That can not bear the blaze of Scripture light, 
Nor cheer the spirit, nor refresh the sight. 
Nor animate the soul to Christian deeds, 
(Oh cast them from thee!) are weeds, arrant 
weeds. 
Ethelrcd's house, the centre of si.x ways, 
Diverging each from each, like equal rays. 
Himself as bountiful as April rains. 
Lord paramount of the surrounding plains. 
Would give relief of bed and board to none 
But guests that sought it in th' appointed One; 
A nd they might enter at his open door. 
E'en till liis spacious hall would hold no more. 



He sent a servant forth by every road. 

To sound his horn, and publish it abroad. 

That all might mark — knight, menial, high, ajjd 

low. 
An ordinance it concerned them all to know. 
If, after all, some headstrong hardy lout 
Would disobey, though sure to be shut out. 
Could he with reason murmur at his case, 
Himself sole author of liis own disgrace 1 
No! the decree was just and without flaw; 
And he, that made, had right to make, the law; 
His sovereign power and pleasure unrestrained, 
The wrong was liis who vsTongfuUy complained. 

Yet half mankind maintain a churlish strife 
With Him, the donor of eternal life. 
Because the deed, by wliich his love confirms 
The largess he bestows, prescribes the terms. 
Comphance with his will your lot ensures, 
Accept it only, and the boon is yours. 
And sure it is as kind to smile and give, 
As with a frown to say. Do this, and live. 
Love is not pedler's trumpery bought and sold : 
He will give freely, or he will withhold ; 
His soul abhors a mercenary thought. 
And him as deeply who abhors it not ; 
He stipulates indeed, but merely this. 
That man wOI Ireely take an unbought bliss. 
Will trust him for a faithful generous part. 
Nor set a price upon a willing heart. 
Of all the ways that seems to promise fair, 
To place you where liis saints liis presence share, 
This ordy can ; for this plain cause, expressed 
In terms as plain. Himself has shut the rest. 
But oh the strife, the bickering, and debate. 
The tidings of unpurchased Heaven create I 
The flirted fan, the bridle, and the toss, 
All speakers, yet all language at a loss. 
From stuccoed walls smart argument rebound ; 
And beaux, adepts in every thing profoited. 
Die of disdain, or whistle off" the sound. 
Such is the clamour of rooks, daws, and kites, 
Th' explosion of the levelled tube excites, 
Where mouldering abbey-walls o'erhang the glade, 
And oaks coeval spread a mournful shade ; 
The screaming nations, hovering in mid air. 
Loudly resent the stranger's freedom there, 
And seem to warn him never to repeat 
His bold intrusion on their dark retreat. 

Adieu, Vinosa cries, ere yet he sips 
The purple bumper trembling at his lips; 
Adieu to all morality ! if Grace 
Make works a vain ingredient in the case. 
The Christian hope is — Waiter, draw the cork — 
If I mistake not — Blockhead! with a fork! 
Without good works, whatever some may boast. 
Mere folly and delusion — Sir, your toast. 
My firm persuasion is, at least sometimes, 
That Heaven will weigh man's virtues and his 
crimes 



HOPE. 



31 



With nice attention, in a righteous scale, 
And save or damn as these or those prevail. 
I plant my foot upon this ground of trust. 
And silence every fear with — God is just. 
But if perchance on some dull drizzling day 
A thought intrude, that says, or seems to say, 
If thus th' important cause is to be tried, 
Suppose the beam should dip on the wrong 
I soon recover from these needless frights, 
And God is merciful— sets all to rights. 
Thus between justice, as my prime support, 
And mercy, fled to as the last resort, 
I glide and steal along with Heaven in view, 
And,— pardon me, the bottle stands with you. 

I never will beUeve, the Colonel cries. 
The sanguinary schemes, that some devise 
Who make the good Creator on their plan 
A being of less equity than man. 
If appetite, or what divines call lust. 
Which men comply with, e'en because they must 
Be punished with perdition, who is pure"? 
Then theirs, no doubt, as well as mine, is sure. 
If sentence of eternal pain belong » 
To every sudden slip and transient wrong. 
Then Heaven enjoins the falUble and frail 
A hopeless task, and damns them if they fail 
My creed (whatever some creed-makers mean 
By Athanasian nonsense, or Nicene) — 
My creed is, he is safe that does his best, 
And death's a doom sufficient for the rest. 

Right, says an ensign; and, for aught I see, 
Your faith and mine substantially agree ; 
The best of every man's performance here 
Is to discharge the duties of his sphere. 
A lawyer's dealings should be just and fair. 
Honesty shines with great advantage there. 
Fasting and prayer sit well upon a priest, 
A decent caution and reserve at least. 
A soldier's best is courage in the field, 
With nothing here that wants to be concealed ; 
Manly deportment, gallant, easy, gay; 
A hand as liberal as the light of day. 
The soldier thus endowed who never shrinks. 
Nor closets up his thoughts, whate'er he thinks, 
Who scorns to do an injury by stealth, 
Must go to Heaven — and I must drink his health. 
Sir Smug, he cries, (for lowest at the board, 
Just made fifth chaplain of Hs patron lord. 
His shoulders witnessing, by many a shrug, 
How much his feeUngs suffered, sat Sir Smug,) 
Your office is to winnow false from true ; 
Come, prophet, drink, and tell us what think you"? 

Sighing and smiling as he takes his glass. 
Which they that woo preferment rarely pass. 
Fallible man, the church-bred youth replies. 
Is still found fallible, however wise; 
And differing judgments sen'e but to declare, 
That truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where. 



Of all it ever was my lot to read, 
Of critics now alive, or long since dead, 
The book of all the world that charmed me most 
Was, — welladay, the title-page was lost; 
The writer well remarks, a heart that knows 
To take with gratitude what Heaven bestows, 
With prudence always ready at our call, 
To guide our use of it, is all in all. 
Doubtless it is. — To which of my owti store, 
I superadd a few essentials more ; 
But these, excuse the liberty I take, 
I waive just now, for conversation's sake. — 
Spoke like an oracle, they all exclaim, 
And add Right Reverend to Smug's honoured 
name. 
And yet our lot is given us in a land. 
Where busy arts are never at a stand ; 
Where Science points her telescopic eye, 
Familiar with the wonders of the sky; 
Where bold Inquiry, diving out of sight, 
Brings many a precious pearl of truth to light; 
Where nought eludes the persevering quest 
That fashion, taste, or luxury, suggest. 

But, above all, in her ovsm light arrayed. 
See Mercy's grand apocalypse displayed ! 
The sacred book no longer suffers wrong, 
Bound in the fetters of an unknown tongue: 
But speaks with plainness, art could never mend, 
What simplest minds can soonest comprehend. 
God gives the word, the preachers throng around. 
Live from his lips, and spread the glorious sound: 
That sound bespeaks Salvation on her way. 
The trumpet of a hfe-restoring day; 
'Tis heard where England's eastern glory shines, 
And in the gulfs of her Cornubian mines. 
And still it spreads. See Germany send forth 
Her sons* to pour it on the farthest north: 
Fired with a zeal pecuhar, theij defy 
The rage and vigour of a polar sky. 
And plant successfully sweet Sharon's rose 
On icy plains, and in eternal snows. 

O blest within th' enclosure of your rocks, 
Nor herds have ye to boast, nor bleating flocks; 
No fertilizing streams your fields divide, 
That show reversed the villas on their side; 
No groves have ye; no cheerful sound of bird, 
Or voice of turtle, in your land is heard: 
Nor grateful eglantine regales the smell 
Of those, that walk at evening where ye dwell: 
But Winter, armed with terrors here unlcnovpn, 
Sits absolute on his unshaken throne ; 
Piles up his stores amidst the frozen waste. 
And bids the mountains he has built stand fast; 
Beckons the legions of his storms away 
From happier scenes, to make your land a prey, 
Proclaims the soil a conquest he has won, 
And scorns to share it with the distant sun. 



I *TJie Moravian Missionaries in Greenland. See Krantz. 



32 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Yet Tnith is yours, remote, unenvied isle ! 
And Peace, the genuine offspring of her smile; 
The imde of lettered Ignorance, that binds 
In chains of error our accomphshed minds, 
That decks, with all the splendour of the true, 
A false religion, is unknown to you. 
Nature, indeed, vouchsafes for our delight 
The sweet vicissitudes of day and night: 
Soft airs and genial moisture feed and cheer 
Field, fruit, and flower, and every creature here ; 
But brighter beams than Ms who fires the skies. 
Have risen at length on your admiring eyes. 
That shoot into your darkest caves the day, 
From which our nicest optics turn away. 

Here see tli' encouragement Grace gives to vice. 
The dire effect of mercy without price ! 
What were they 1 what some fools are made by 

art, 
They were by nature, atheists, head and heart. 
The gross idolatry blmd heathens teach 
Was too refined for them, beyond their reach. 
Not e'en the glorious Sun, though men revere 
The monarch most, that seldom vrill appear, 
And though his beams that quicken where they 

shine. 
May claim some right to be esteemed divine, 
Not e'en the sun, desu'able as rare, 
Could bend one knee, engage one votary there ; 
They were, what base Credulity believes 
True Christians are,dissemblers,drunkards, thieves. 
The full-gorged savage, at his nauseous feast. 
Spent half the darkness, and snored out the rest, 
Was one whom Justice, on an equal plan, 
Denouncmg death upon the sins of man. 
Might almost have indulged with an escape, 
Chargeable only with a human shape. 

What are they now? — MoraUty may spare 
Her grave concern, her kind suspicions there : 
The wretch, who once sang wildly, danced and 

laughed 
And sucked in dizzy madness with his draught, 
Has wept a silent flood, reversed liis ways. 
Is sober, meek, benevolent, and prays, 
Feeds sparingly, communicates his store. 
Abhors the craft he boasted of before, 
And he that stole, has learned to steal no more. 
Well spake the prophet, Let the desert sing, 
Where sprang the thorn, the spiry fir shall spring. 
And where imsightly and rank thistles grew. 
Shall grow the myrtle and luxuriant yew. 

Go now, and with important tone demand 
On what foundation virtue is to stand. 
If self-exalting claims be turned adrift. 
And grace be grace indeed, and hfc a gift; 
The poor reclaimed inhabitant, his eyes 
Ghstening at once with pity and suryjrise. 
Amazed that shadows should obscure the sight 
Of one, whose birth was in aland of light, 



Shall answer, Hope, sweet Hope, has set me free. 
And made all pleasures else mere dross to me. 

These, amidst scenes as waste as if denied 
The common care that waits on aU beside, 
Wild as if Nature there, void of all good, 
Played only gambols in a frantic mood, 
(Yet charge not heavenly skill with having planned 
A playtliing world, unworthy of his hand,) 
Can see his love, though secret evil lurks 
In all we touch, stamped plainly on his works, 
Deem life a blessing with its numerous woes, 
Nor spurn away a gift a God bestows. 
Hard task, indeed, o'er arctic seas to roam! 
Is hope exotic 1 grows it not at home'? 
Yes, but an object, bright as orient mom, 
May press the eye too closely to be borne ; 
A distant virtue We can all confess. 
It hurts our pride, and moves our envy, less. 

Leuconomus (beneath well sounding Greek 
I slur a name a poet must not speak) 
Stood pilloried on Infamy's high stage. 
And bore the pelting scorn of half an age; 
The very bi|<;t of Slander, and the blot 
For every dart that Mahce ever shot. 
The man that mentioned him at once dismissed 
All mercy from his lips, and sneered and hissed; 
His crimes were such as Sodom never knew, 
And Perjury stood up to swear all true; 
His aim was mischief, and his zeal pretence, 
His speech rebellion against common sense ; 
A knave, when tried on honesty's plain rule; 
And when by that of reason, a mere fool; 
The world's best comfort was, his doom was passed; 
Die when he might, he must be damned at last. 

Now, Truth, perform tliine office; waft aside 
The curtain drawn by Prejudice and Pride, 
Reveal (the man is dead) to wondering eyes 
This more than monster, in his proper guise. 
He loved the world that hated hun: the tear 
That dropt upon liis Bible was sincere: 
Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife, 
His only answer was a blameless life; 
And he that forged, and he that threw the dart, 
Had each a brother's interest in his heart. 
Paul's love of Christ, and steadiness unbribed. 
Were copied close in Mm, and well transcribed. 
He followed Paul, Ms zeal a kindred flailie, 
His apostolic charity the same. 
Like him, crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas, 
Forsaking country, kindred, friends, and ease; 
Like him he laboured, and like Mm content 
To bear it, suffered shame where'er he went. 
Blush, Calumny! and write upon Ms tomb, 
If honest Eulogy can spare thee room. 
Thy deep repentance of thy thousand Ues, 
WMch, aimed at lum, have pierced the offended 

skies ! 
And say, blot out my sin, confessed, deplored. 
Against tMne image, in thy saint, O Lordl 



HOPE. 



33 



No blinder bigot, I maintain it still, 
Than he who must have pleasure, come what will : 
He lauglis, whatever weapon Truth may draw, 
And deems her sharp artillery mere straw. 
Scripture indeed is plain; but God and he 
On Scripture ground are sure to disagree ; 
Some wiser rule must teach him how to live, 
Than this his Maker has seen fit to give; . 
Supple and flexible as Indian cane, 
To take the bend his appetites ordain; 
Contrived to suit frail Nature's crazy case, 
And reconcile his lusts with sa\'ing grace. 
By this, witii nice precision of design, 
He draws upon hfe's map a zigzag hne. 
That shows how far 'tis safe to follow sin, 
And where his danger and God's wrath begin. 
By this he forms, as pleased he sports along, 
His well-poised estunate of right and wrong; 
And finds the modish manners of the day, 
Though loose, as harmless as an infant's play. 

Build by whatever plan Caprice decrees. 
With what materials, on what ground you please; 
Your hope shall stand unblamed, perhaps admired, 
If not that hope the Scripture has required. 
The strange conceits, vain projects and wild dreams. 
With which hypocrisy for ever teems, 
(Though other follies strike the pubUc eye, 
And raise a laugh,) pass unmolested by ; 
But if, unblameable in word or thought, 
A man arise, a man whom God has taught. 
With all Elijah's dignity of tone. 
And all the love of the beloved John, 
To storm the citadels they build in air. 
And smite the untempered wall ; 'tis death to spare. 
To sweep away all refuges of lies, 
And place, instead of quirks themselves devise. 
Lama Sabacthani before their eyes; 
To prove, that without Christ all gain is loss. 
All hope despair, that stands not on liis cross ; 
Except the few liis God may have impressed, 
A tenfold frenzy seizes all the rest. 

Throughout mankind, the Christian kind at least, 
There dwells a consciousness in every breast, 
That folly ends where genuine hope begins. 
And he that finds his Heaven must lose his sins. 
Nature opposes with her utmost force 
This riving stroke, this ultunate divorce ; 
And, while religion seems to be her view, 
Hates with a deep sincerity the true : 
For this, of all that ever influenced man. 
Since Abel worshipped, or the world began. 
This only spares no lust, admits no plea, 
But makes him, if at all, completely free ; 
Sounds forth the signal, as she mounts her car, 
Of an eternal, universal war ; 
Rejects all treaty, penetrates aU vrHes, 
Scorns with the same indiflerence frowns and smiles ; 
Drives through the realms of Sin, where riot reels. 
And grinds his crown beneath her burning wheels i 



Hence all that is in man, pride, passion, art, 
Powers of the mind, and feelings of the heart. 
Insensible of Truth's almighty charms. 
Starts at her first approach, and sounds to arms ! 
While Bigotry, with well-dissembled fears, 
His eyes shut fast, his fingers in his ears, 
Mighty to parry and push by God's word, 
With senseless noise, his argument the sword, 
Pretends a zeal for godliness and grace. 
And spits abhorrence in the Christian's face. 

Parent of Hope, immortal Truth ! make knownra 
Thy deathless wreaths, and triumphs all thine own : 
The silent progress of thy power is such. 
Thy means so feeble, and despised so much. 
That few believe the wonders thou hast wrought. 
And none can teach them, but whom thou hast 

taught. 
O see me sworn to serve thee, and command 
A painter's skill into a poet's hand. 
That, while I trembling trace a work divine. 
Fancy may stand aloof firom the design, 
And fight, and shade, and every stroke be thine. 

If ever thou hast felt another's pain, 
If" ever when he sighed hast sighed again, 
If ever on thy eyefid stood the tear, 
That pity had engendered, drop one here. 
This man was happy — had the world's good word, 
And with it every joy it can affbrd ; 
Friendship and love seemed tenderly at strife, 
Which most should sweeten his luitroubled fife ; 
Politely learned, and of a gentle race. 
Good breeding and good sense gave all a grace. 
And whether at the toilette of the fair. 
He laughed and trifled, made him welcome there, 
Or if in mascufine debate he shared. 
Ensured him mute attention and regard. 
Alas, how changed 1 Expressive of his mind. 
His eyes are sunk, arms folded, head reclined ; 
Those awful syllables, hell, death, and sin. 
Though whi,spered, plainly tell what works within ; 
That conscience there performs her proper part, 
And writes a doomsday sentence on his heart ; 
Forsaking, and forsaken of all friends, 
tie now perceives where earthly pleasure ends ; 
Hard task ! for one who lately knew no care. 
And harder still as learnt beneath despair ; 
His hours no longer pass unmarked away, 
A dark importance saddens every day ; 
He hears the notice of the clock perplexed. 
And cries, perhaps eternity strikes next ; 
Sweet music is no longer music here. 
And laughter sounds Hke madness in his ear : 
His grief the world of all her power disarms. 
Wine has no taste, and beauty has no charms : 
God's holy word, once trivial in his view. 
Now by the voice of his experience true. 
Seems, as it is, the fountain whence alone 
Must spring that hope he pants to make his own, 



34 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Now let the bright reverse be known abroad ; 
Say man's a worm, and power belongs to God. 

As when a felon, whom his country's laws 
Have justlj' doomed for some atrocious cause, 
Expects in darkness and heart-chilling fears, 
The shameful close of all his mispent years ; 
If chance, on heavy pinions slowly borne, 
A tempest uslier in tlie dreaded morn. 
Upon his dungeon walls the lightning play, 
The thunder seems to summon liim away. 
The warder at the door his key apphes, 
Shoots back the bolt, and all his courage dies : 
If then, just then, all thoughts of mercy lost. 
When hope, long hngering, at last yields the ghost, 
The sound of pardon pierce his startled ear, 
He drops at once his fetters and his fear ; 
A transport glows in all he looks and speaks. 
And the first thankful tears bedew his cheelis. 
Joy, far superior joy, that much outweighs 
The comfort of a few poor added days, 
Invades, possesses, and o'erwhelms the soul 
Of him, whom Hope has with a touch made whole. 
'Tis Heaven, all Heaven descending on the wings 
Of the glad legions of the King of kings ; 
'Tis more — 'tis God diffused through every part, 
'Tis God himself triumphant in his heart. 
O welcome now the sun's once hated hght. 
His noonday beams were never half so bright. 
Not kindred minds alone are called t' employ 
Their hours, their days, in listening to his joy ; 
Unconscious nature, all that he surveys. 
Rocks, groves, and streams, must join him in his 
praise. 



These are thy glorious works, eternal Truth, 
The scoff of withered age and beardless youth ; 
These move the censure and ilhbcral grin 
Of fools, that hate thee and delight in sin: 
But these shall last when night has quenched the 

pole. 
And Heaven is all departed as a scroll ; 
And when, as Justice has long since decreed, 
This earth shall blaze, and a new world succeed, 
Then these thy glorious works, and they who 

share 
That hope which can alone exclude despair, 
Shall live exempt from weakness and decay, 
The brightest wonders of an endless day. 

Happy the bard, (if that fair name belong 
To him, that blends no fable with his song,) 
Whose lines uniting, by an honest art. 
The faithful monitor's and poet's part. 
Seek to delight, that they may mend mankind, 
And, while they captivate, inform the muid : 
Still happier, if he till a thankfiil soil. 
And fruit reward his honourable toil : 
But happier far, who comfort those, that wait 
To hear plain truth at Judah's hallowed gate : 
Their language simple, as their manners meek, 
No shining ornaments have they to seek ; 
Nor labour they, nor time nor talents waste, 
In sorting flowers to suit a fickle taste ; 
But whUe they speak the vdsdom of the skies, 
Wliich art can only darken and disguise, 
Th' abundant harvest, recompense divine, 
Repays their work — the gleaning only mine. 



^tiutiivt* 



duo nihil majus meliusve tereis 
Fata donavere, bonique divi : 
Nee dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum 

Tempora priscum. J£or. Lib. iv. Ode 2. 



Fairest and foremost of the train, that wait 
On man's most dignified and happiest state. 
Whether we name thee charity or love, 
Cliief grace below, and all in all above. 
Prosper (I press thee with a powerful plea") 
A task I venture on, impelled by thee ; 
O never seen but in thy blest effects, 
Or felt but in the soul that heaven selects ; 
Who seeks to praise thee, and to make thee known 
To other hearts, must have thee in his own. 
Come, prompt me with benevolent desires, 
Teach me to kindle at thy gentle fires. 
And, though disgraced and slighted, to redeem 
A poet's name, by making thee the theme. 

God, working ever on a social plan, 
By various ties attaches man to man : 



He made at first, though free and vmconfined, 
One man the coiimion father of the kind ; 
That every tribe, though placed as he sees best 
Where seas or deserts part them from the rest, 
Differing in language, manners, or in face. 
Might feel themselves alhed to all the race. 
When Cook — lamented, and with tears as just 
As ever mingled with heroic dust, — 
Steered Britain's oak into a world unknown. 
And in his country's glory sought his own. 
Wherever he found man, to nature true. 
The rights of man were sacred in his view; 
He soothed wdth gifts, and greeted vnth a smile. 
The simple native of the new-found isle; 
He spurned the wretch, that slighted or withstood 
The tender argument of kindred blood, 



CHARITY. 



35 



Nor would endure, that any should control 
His freeborn brethren of the southern pole. 

But though some nobler minds a law respect, 
That none shall with impunity neglect, 
In baser souls unnumbered evils meet, 
To thwart its influence, and its end defeat. 
While Cook is loved for savage lives he saved, 
See Cortez odious for a world enslaved! 
Where wast thou then, sweet Charity'? where then, 
Thou tutelary friend of helpless menl 
Wast thou in monkish cells and nunneries found, 
Or building hospitals on English ground 1 
No. — Mammon makes the world Ms legatee 
Through fear, not love ; and Heaven abhors the 

fee. 
Wherever found, (and all men need thy care,) 
Nor age nor infancy could find thee there. 
The hand, that slew till it could slay no more, 
Was glued to the sword hilt with Indian gore. 
Their prince, as justly seated on his throne 
As vain imperial Phihp on his own. 
Tricked out of all his roysdty by art. 
That stripped him bare, and broke his honest heart, 
Died by the sentence of a shaven priest, 
For scorning what they taught him to detest. 
How dark the veil, that intercepts the blaze 
Of Heaven's mysterious purposes and ways ; 
God stood not, though he seemed to stand, aloof; 
And at this hour the conqueror feels the proof: 
The wreath he won drew down an instant curse. 
The fretting plague is in the public purse. 
The cankered spoil corrodes the pining state. 
Starved by that indolence their mines create. 

O could their ancient Incas rise again, 
How would they take up Israel's taunting strain 1 
Art thou too fallen, Iberia'? Do we see 
The robber and the murderer weak as we'? 
Thou, that liast wasted earth, and dared despise 
Alike the wrath and mercy of the sides. 
Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid 
Low in the pits thine avarice has made. 
We come with joy from our eternal rest. 
To see the oppressor in his turn oppressed. 
Art thou the god, the thunder of whose hand 
Rolled over all our desolated land, 
Shook principalities and kingdoms down. 
And made the mountains tremble at his frown! 
The sword shall light upon thy boasted powers. 
And waste them, as thy sword has wasted ours. 
'Tis thus Omnipotence his law fulfils, 
And Vengeance executes what Justice wills. 

Again — the band of commerce was designed 
T' associate all the branches of mankind: 
And if a boundless plenty be the robe. 
Trade is the golden girdle of the globe. 
Wise to promote whatever end he means, 
God opens fruitful nature's various scenes : 
Each climate needs what other climes produce, 
And offers something to the general use; 



No land but listens to the common call, 
And in return receives supply from all. 
This genial intercourse, and mutual aid, 
Cheers what were else a universal shade, 
Calls Nature from her ivy-mantled den, 
And softens human rock-work into men 
Ingenious Art, with her expressive face, 
Steps forth to fashion and refine the race ; 
Not only fills Necessity's demand. 
But overcharges her capacious hand: 
Capricious Taste itself can crave no more, 
Than she supplies from her abounding store; 
She strikes out all that luxury can ask. 
And gains new vigour at her endless task. 
Hers is the spacious arch, the shapely spire, 
The painter's pencil, and the poet's lyre; 
From her the canvass borrows light and shade, 
And verse, more lasting, hues that never fade. 
She guides the fingers o'er the dancing keys, 
Gives difficulty all the grace of ease. 
And pours a torrent of sweet notes around, 
Fast as the thirsting ear can drink the sound. 

These are the gift;s of Art, and Art thrives most 
Where commerce has enriched the busy coast; 
He catches all improvements in his flight. 
Spreads foreign wonders in his country's sight. 
Imports what others have invented well, 
And stirs his own to match them, or excel. 
'Tis thus reciprocating, each with each. 
Alternately the nations learn and teach; 
While Providence enjoins to every soul 
A union vdth the vast terraqueous whole. 

Heaven speed the canvass, gallantly unfurled 
To furnish and accommodate a world. 
To give the pole the produce of the sun, 
And knit th' unsocial chmates into one. — 
Soft airs and gentle heavings of the wave 
Impel the fleet, whose errand is to save. 
To succour wasted regions, and replace 
The smile of Opulence in Sorrow's face. 
Let nothing adverse, nothing unforeseen. 
Impede the bark, that ploughs the deep serene. 
Charged with a freight transcending in its worth 
The gems of India, Nature's rarest birth, 
That flies, like Gabriel on his Lord's commands, 
A herald of God's love to pagan lands. 
But ah ! what wish can prosper, or what prayer, 
For merchants rich in cargoes of despair. 
Who drive a loathsome traffic, guage, and span, 
And buy the muscles and the bones of man! 
The tender ties of father, husband, friend. 
All bonds of nature in that moment end ; 
And each endures, while yet he draws his breath, 
A stroke as fatal as the scythe of Death. 
The sable warrior, frantic vrith regret 
Of her he loves, and never can forget. 
Loses Ln tears the far-receding shore. 
But not the thought, that they must meet no morej 



36 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Deprived of her and freedom at a blow, 
What has he left that he can yet forego'? 
Yes, to deep sadness sullenly resigned. 
He feels his body's bondage in his mind ; 
Puts oiriiis generous nature; and, to suit 
His manners with his fate, puts on the brute. 

O most degrading of all ills, that wait 
On man, a mourner in liis best estate ! 
All other sorrows Virtue may endure, 
And find submission more than half a cure; 
Grief is itself a medicine, and bestowed 
T' improve the fortitude that bears the load, 
To teach the wanderer, as his woes increase, 
The path of Wisdom, all whose paths are peace; 
But slavery I — Virtue dreads it as her grave: 
Patience itself is meanness in a slave : 
Or if the will and sovereignty of God 
Did sufler it a while, and kiss the rod. 
Wait for the dawning of a brighter day, 
And snap the chain the moment when you may. 
Nature imprints upon whate'er we see, 
That has a heart and life in it, Be free ; 
The beasts are chartered — neither age nor force 
Can quell the love of freedom in a horse : 
He breaks the cord that held him at the rack; 
And, conscious of an unencumbered back. 
Snuffs up the morning air, forgets the reiu; 
Loose fly his forelock and his ample mane. 
Responsive to the distant neigh he neighs ; 
Nor stops till, overleaping all delays, 
He finds the pasture where his fellows graze. 

Canst thou, and honored with a Christian 
name, 
Buy what is woman-born, and feel no shame ; 
Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead 
Expedience as a warrant for the deed 1 
So may the wolf, whom famine has made bold, 
To quit the forest and invade the fold: 
So may the ruffian, who, with ghostly glide. 
Dagger in hand, steals close to your bed side ;' 
Not he, but his emergence forced the doOr, 
He found it inconvenient to be poor. 
Has God then given its sweetness to the cane, 
Unless his laws be trampled on — in vain "? 
Built a brave world, which can not yet subsist. 
Unless his right to rule it be dismissed 1 
Impudent blasphemy ! So Folly pleads, 
And, Avarice being judge, with ease succeeds. 

But grant the plea, and let it stand for just. 
That man make man his prey, because he must ; 
Still there is room for pity to abate. 
And sooth the sorrows of so sad a state. 
A Briton knows, or if he knows it not, 
The Scrijjturc placed vsdthin his reach, he ought. 
That souls have no discriminatmg hue. 
Alike important in their Maker's view ; 
That none are free from blemish since the fall, 
And Love divine has paid one price for all. 



The wretch, that works and weeps without relief, 

Has one that notices liis silent grief. 

He, from vvhose hands alone all power proceeds, 

Ranlis its abuse among the foulest deeds, 

Considers all injustice with a frown ; 

But viarks the- man that treads his fellow down. 

Begone — the whip and bell in that hard hand 

Are hateful ensigns of usurped command. 

Not Mexico could purchase kings a claim 

To scourge him, weariness his only blame. 

Remember Heaven has an avenging rod : 

To smite the poor is treason against God. 

Trouble is grudgingly and hardly brooked, 
While life's subUmest joys are overlooked 
We wander o'er a sunburnt thirsty soil, 
Murmuring and weary of our daily toil, 
Forget t' enjoy the palm-tree's offered shade, 
Or taste the fountain in the neighbouring glade: 
Else who would lose, that had the power t' im- 
prove, 
The occasion of transmuting fear to love % 

'tis a god-like privilege to save. 
And that scorns it is himself a slave. 
Inform his mind ; one flash of heavenly day 
Would heal his heart, and melt his chains away. 
" Beauty for ashes" is a gift indeed, . 

And slaves, by truth enlarged, are doubly freed. 
Then would he say, submissive at thy feet, 
While gratitude and love made service sweet, — 
My dear dehverer out of hopeless night. 
Whose bounty bought me but to give me light, 

1 was a bondman on my native plain, 

Sin forged, and Ignorance made fast, the chain; 

Thy lips have shed instruction as the dew, 

Taught me what path to shun, and what pursue; 

Farewell my former joys ! I sigh no more 

For Africa's once loved, benighted shore; 

Serving a benefactor I am free; 

At my best home, if not exiled from thee. 

Some men make gain a fountain, whence pro- 
ceeds 
A stream of liberal and heroic deeds ; 
The swell of pity, not to be confined 
Within the scanty limits of the mind. 
Disdains the banic, and throws the golden sands, 
A rich deposite, on the bordering lands : 
These have an ear for his paternal call. 
Who makes some rich for the supply of all ; 
God's gift with pleasure in his praise employ; 
And Thornton is famihar with the joy. 

O could I worship aught beneath the skies, 
That earth has seen, or fancy can devise, 
Tliine altar, sacred Liberty, should stand, 
Built by no mercenary vulgar hand, 
With fragrant turf, and flowers as wild and fair 
As ever dressed a bank, or scented summer air. 
Duly, as ever on the mountain's height 
The peep df Morning shed a dawning light, 



CHARITY. 



37 



Again, when Evening, in her sober vest, 

Drew the gray curtain of the fading west, 

My soul should yield thee willing thanlis and 

praise. 
For the chief blessings of my fairest days: 
But that were sacrilege — praise is not thine. 
But liis who gave thee, and preserves thee niine; 
Else I would say, and as I spake bid fly 
A captive bird into the boundless sky. 
This triple realm adores thee — thou art come ■ 
From Sparta hither, and art here at home. 
We feel thy force still active, at this hour 
Enjoy inuuunity from priestly power. 
While Conscience, happier than in ancient years, 
Owns no superior but the God she fears. 
Propitious spuit! yet expunge a wrong 
Thy rights have suffered, and our land, too long. 
Teach mercy to ten thousand hearts, that share 
The fears and hopes of a commercial care. 
Prisons expect the wicked, and were built 
To bind the lawless, and to pmiish guilt; 
But shipwreck, earthquake, battle, fire, and flood, 
Are jnighty mischiefs, not to be withstood ; 
And honest merit stands on slippery ground, 
Where covert guile and artifice abound. 
Let just restraint, for public peace designed, 
Ckain up the wolves and tigers of mankind] 
The foe of virtue has no claim to thee. 
But let insolvent Innocence go fi:ee. 

Patron of else the most despised of men, 
Accept the tribute of a stranger's pen ; 
Verse, like the laurel ; its immortal meed, 
Should be the guerdon of a noble deed; 
I may alarm thee, but I fear the shame 
(Charity cljpsen as my theme and aim) 
I must incur, forgetting Howard's name. 
Blest with all wealth can give thee, to resign 
Joys doubly sweet to feeUngs quick as thine, 
To quit the bUss thy rural scenes bestow, 
To seek a nobler amidst scenes of wo. 
To traverse seas, range kingdoms, and bring home, 
Not the proud monuments of Greece or Rome, 
But knowledge such as only dmigeons teach. 
And only sympathy like tliine coxild reach; 
That grief sequestered &om the pubhc stage. 
Might smooth her feathers, and enjoy her cage; 
Speaks a di\'ine ambition, and a zeal, 
The boldest patriot might be propd to feel. 
O that the voice of clamour and debate. 
That pleads for peace till it disturbs the state. 
Were hushed in favour of thy generous plea. 
The poor thy clients, and Heaven's smile thy feel 
Philosophy, that does not dream or stray, 
Walks arm m ami mth nature all his way; 
Compasses earth, dives into it, ascends 
Whatever steep Inquiry recommends. 
Sees planetary wonders smoothly roll 
Round other systems under her control, 



Drinks wisdom at the milky stream of light, 
That cl^cers the silent journey of the night. 
And brings at his return a bosom charged 
With rich instruction, and a soul enlarged. 
The treasured sweets of the capacious plan. 
That Heaven spreads wide before the view of man, 
All prompt his pleased pursuit, and to pursue 
Still prompt him, with a pleasure always new; 
He too has a connecting power, and draws 
Man to the centre of the common cause, 
Aiding a dubious and deficient sight 
With a new medium and a purer hght. 
All truth is precious, if not all divine; 
And what dilates the powers must needs refine. 
He reads the skies, and, watching every change, 
Provides the faculties an ampler range ; 
And wins mankind, as his attempts prevail, 
A prouder station on the general scale. 
But Reason stUl, unless divinely taught, 
Whate'er she learns, learns nothuig as she ought; 
The lamp of revelation only shows. 
What human wisdom can not but oppose. 
That man, in nature's richest mantle clad 
And graced with all ploilosophy caii add, 
Though fair mthout and luminous witliin, 
Is stiU the progeny and hek of sin. 
Thus taught, down falls the plumage of his pride; 
He feels his need of an unerring guide. 
And knows that faUing he shall rise no more, 
Unless the power that bade him stand restore. 
This is indeed philosophy; this known 
Makes wisdom, worthy of the name, his own; 
And, without this, whatever he discuss ; 
Whether the space between the stars and us; 
Whether he measure earth, compute the sea; 
Weigh sunbeams, carve a fly, or spit a flea; 
The solemn trifler with his boasted skill 
Toils much, and is a solemn trifler still: 
Bhnd was he born, and Ms misguided eyes 
Grown dim m trifling studies, blind he dies. 
Self-knowledge truly learned of com'se imphes 
The rich possession of a nobler prize ; 
For self to self, and God to man revealed, 
(Two themes to Nature's eye for ever sealed) 
Are taught by raj^s, that fly with equal pace 
From the same centre of enlightening grace. 
Here stay thy foot; how copious, and how clear, 
Th' o'erflowing weU of Charity sprmgs here ! 
Hark ! 'tis the music of a thousand rills, 
Some through the groves, some down tlie sloping 

hiUs, 
Winding a secret or an open course. 
And all suppUed from an eternal source. 
The ties of Nature do but feebly bind. 
And Cormnerce partially reclauns mankind ; 
Philosophy, without his heavenly guide. 
May blow up self-conceit, and noiuish pride 
But, wliile his promise is the reasoning part, 
Has stUl a veil of midnight on his heart; 



38 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Tis Truth tli\ine, exhibited on earth. 
Gives Charity her being and her birtli. , 

Suppose (when thought is warm and fancy flows, 
"What will not argument sometimes suppose 1 
An isle possessed by creatures of our kind, 
Endued with reason, yet by nature Wind, 
Let supposition lend her aid once more, 
And land some grave optician on the shore : 
He claps liis lens, if haply they may see, 
Close to the part where vision ought to be; 
But finds, that, though his tubes assist the sight, 
They can not give it, or make darkness light. 
He reads wise lectures, and describes aloud 
A sense they know not, to the wondering crowd ; 
He talks of light, and the prismatic hues. 
As men of depth in erudition use ; 

But all he gains for liis harangue is — Well, 

What monstrous lies some travellers will tell ! 

The soul, whose sight all-quickening grace re- 
news, 
Takes the resemblance of the good she views. 
As diamonds, stripped of their opaque disguise. 
Reflect the noonday glory of the skies. 
She speaks of him, her author, guardian, friend. 
Whose love knew no beginning, knows no end. 
In language warm as all that love inspires, 
And in the glow of her intense desires, 
Pants to conmiunicate her noble fires. 
She sees a world stark blind to what employs 
Her eager thought, and feeds her flowing joys ; 
Though Wisdom hail them, heedless of her call. 
Flies to save some, and feels a' pang for all: 
Herself as weak as her support is strong, 
She feels that frailty she denied so long; 
And, from a knowledge of her own disease, 
Learns to compassionate the sick she sees. 
Here see, acquitted of all vain pretence. 
The reign of genuine Charity commence. 
Though scorn repay her sympathetic tears. 
She still is kind, and still she perseveres ; 
The truth she loves a sightless world blaspheme, 
'Tis childish dotage, a delirious dream; 
The danger they discern not, they deny; 
Laugh at their only remedy, and die. 
But still a soul thus touched can never cease, 
Whoever threatens war, to speak of peace. 
Pure in her aim, and in her temper mUd, 
Her wisdom seems the weakness of a child : 
She makes excuses where she might condemn, 
Reviled by those that hate her, prays for them : 
Suspicion lurks not in her artless breast. 
The worst suggested, she believes the best; 
Not soon provoked, however stung and teased, 
And, if pcrliaps made angry, soon appeased ; 
She rather waives than will dispute her right, 
And, injured, makes forgiveness her delight. 

Such was the portrait an apostle drew. 
The bright original was one he knew; 
Heaven held his hand, the hkeness must be true. 



When one, that holds communion with the skies. 
Has filled his urn where these pure water.s riso, 
And once more mingles with us meaner thmgg, 
'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings; 
Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, . 
That tells us whence his treasures are supplied. 
So when a ship, well freighted with the stores 
The sun matures on India's spicy shores, 
Has dropped her anchor, and her canvass furled, 
In some safe haven of our western world, 
'Twere vain inquiry to what port she went 
The gale informs us, laden with the scent. 

Some seek, when queasy conscience has its 
qualms. 
To lull the painful malady with alms; 
But charity not feigned intends alone 
Another's good — theirs centres in their own ; 
And, too short lived to reach the realms of peace, 
Must cease for ever when the poor shall cease. 
Flavia, most tender of her own good name, 
Is rather careless of her sister's fame : 
Her superfluity the poor supplies. 
But, if she touch a character, it dies. 
The seeming virtue weighed against the vice, 
She deems all safe, for she has paid the price : 
No charity but alms aught values she. 
Except in porcelain on her mantel-tree. * 

How many deeds, with wlrich the world has rung, 
From Pride, in league with Ignorance, have sprung ! 
But God o'errules all human follies still. 
And bends the tough materials to liis will. 
A conflagration, or a wintry flood, 
Has left some hundreds without home or food ; 
Extravagance and Avarice shall subscribe, 
While fame and self-complacence are the bribe. 
The brief proclaimed, it visits every p»w, 
But first the squire's, a compliment but due: 
With slow dehberation he unties 
His glittering purse, that envy of all eyes, 
And, while the clerk just puzzles out the psalm, 
Shdes guinea behind guinea in his palm; 
Till finding, what he might have found before, 
A smaller piece amidst the precious store. 
Pinched close between his finger and his thumb, 
He half cxlubits, and then drops the sum. 
Gold to be sure ! — Throughout the town 'tis told, 
How the good squire gives never less than gold. 
From motives such as his, though not the best. 
Springs in due time supply for the distressed ; 
Not less eifectual than wliat love bestows, 
Except that ofiice clips it as it goes. 

But lest I seem to sin against a friend. 
And wound the grace I mean to recommend, 
(Though vice derided with a just design 
Implies no trespass against love divine,) 
Once more I would adopt the graver style, 
A teacher should be sparing of his smile. 
Unless a love of virtue light the flame. 
Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame; 



CHARITY. 



39 



He hides beliind a magisterial air 
His own offences, and strips others bare; 
Affects, indeed, a most humane concern, 
That men, if gently tutored, will not learn; 
That mulish Folly, not to be reclaimed 
By softer methods, must be made ashamed; 
But (I might instance in St. Patrick's dean) 
Too often rails to gratify his spleen. 
Most satirists are indeed a public scourge; 
Their mildest physic is a farrier's purge; 
Their acrid temper turns, as soon as stirred, 
The milk of their good purpose all to curd. 
Their zeal begotten, as their works rehearse, 
By lean despair upon an empty purse. 
The wild assassins start into the street, 
Prepared to poniard whomsoe'er they meet. 
No skill in swordmanship, however just. 
Can be secure against a madman's thrust ; 
And even Virtue, so unfairly matched. 
Although unmortal, maybe pricked or scratched. 
When scandal has new minted an old lie, 
Or taxed invention for a fresh supply, 
'Tis called a satire, and the world appears 
Gathering around it with erected ears: 
A thousand names are tossed into the crowd; 
Some whispered softly, and some twanged aloud ; 
Just as the sapience of an author's brain 
Suggests it safe or dangerous to be plain. 
Strange ! how the frequent inteijected dash 
Cluickens a market and helps oft' the trash; 
The important letters, that include the rest. 
Serve as a key to those that are suppressed; 
Conjecture gripes the victims in his paw. 
The world is charmed, and Scrib escapes the law. 
So, when the cold damp shades of night prevail, 
Worms may be caught by either head or tail; 
Forcibly drawm from many a close recess, 
They meet with Uttlepity, no redress; 
Plunged in the stream, they lodge upon the mud. 
Food for the famished rovers of the flood. 

All zeal for a reform, that gives offence 
To peace and charity, is mere pretence : 
A bold remark, but which, if well apphed. 
Would hurable many a towering poet's pride. 
Perhaps the man was in a sportive fit. 
And had no other play-place for his vsdt; 
Perhaps enchanted with the love of fame, 
He sought the jewel in his neighbour's shame ; 
Perhaps — whatever end he might pursue, 
The cause of virtue could not be his view. 
At every stroke wit flashes in our eyes ; 
The turns are quick, the polished points surprise, 
But shhie with cruel and tremendous charms, 
That, while they please, possess us with alarms; 
So have I seen (and hastened to the sight 
On all the wings of holiday delight,) 
Where stands that monument of ancient power. 
Named, with emphatic dignity, the Tower, 
4 



Guns, halberts, swords, and pistols, great and 

small. 
In starry forms disposed upon the wall; 
Wc wonder, as we gazing stand below. 
That brass and steel should make so fine a show; 
But though we praise th' exact designer's skill, 
Account them implements of mischief still. 

No works shall find acceptance in that day, 
When all disguises shall be rent away, 
That square not truly with tjie Scripture plan, 
Nor spring from love to God, or love to man. 
As he ordains tilings sordid in their birth 
To be resolved into their parent earth; 
And, though the soul shall seek superior orbs, 
Whate'er this world produces, it absorbs; 
So self starts nothing, but what tends' apace 
Home to the goal, where it began the race. 
Such as our motive is, our aim must be; 
If this be servile, that can ne'er be free: 
If self employ us, whatsoe'er is wrought, 
We glorify that self, not Mm we ought: 
Such virtues had need prove their own reward, 
The Judge of all men owes them no regard. 
True Charity, a plant divinely nursed. 
Fed by the love from which it rose at first. 
Thrives against hope, and, in the nidest scene. 
Storms but enliven its unfading green: 
Exuberant is the shadow it supplies. 
Its fruits on earth, its growth above the skies. 
To look at Him, who formed us and redeemed, 
So glorious now, though once so disesteemed. 
To see a God stretch forth his human hand, 
T' uphold the boundless scenes of his command; 
To recollect, that, in a form like ours. 
He bruised beneath Ms feet th' infernal powers. 
Captivity led captive, rose to claim 
The wreath he won so dearly in our name; 
That, tMoned above all height, he condescends 
To caU the few that trust in him Ms friends; 
That, in the Heaven of heavens, that space he 

deems 
Too scanty for th' exertion of Ms beams, 
And shines as if impatient to bestow 
Life and a kingdom upon worms below; 
That sight imparts a never-dying flame. 
Though feeble in degree, in kind the same. 
Like Mm the soul, thus kindled from above, 
Spreads wide her arms of umversal love; 
And, still enlarged as she receives the grace, 
Includes creation in her close embrace. 
Behold a Christian! and without the fires 
The founder of that name alone inspires. 
Though all accomplishment, all knowledge meet, 
To make the shining prodigy complete. 
Whoever boasts that name — ^behold a cheat! 
Were love, in these the world's last doting years, 
As frequent as the want of it appears, 
The chinches warmed, they would no longer hold 
Such frozen figures, stiff as they are cold; 



40 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Relenting forms would lose their power or cease; 
And e'en the dipped and sprinkled live in 

peace: 
Each heart would quit its prison in the breast, 
And flow in free communion with the rest. 
The statesman, skilled in projects dark and deep, 
Might burn his useless Macliiavel, and sleep; 
His budget often filled, yet always poor, 
Might swing at ease beliind Ms study door, 
No longer prey upon our annual rents. 
Or scare the nation with its big contents : 
Disbanded legions freely might depart, 
And slaying man would cease to be an art. 
No learned disputants would take the field, 
Sure not to conquer, and sure not to yield; 



Both sides deceived, if rightly understood, 

Pelting each other for the public good. 

Did Charity prevail, the press would prove 

A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love; 

And I might spare myself the pains to show 

What few can learn, and all suppose they know. 

Thus I have sought to grace a serious lay 

With many a wild, indeed, but flowery spray, 

In hop'es to gain, what else I must have lost, 

Th' attention pleasure has so much engrossed. 

But if, unhappily deceived, I dream. 

And prove too weak for so divine a theme, 

Let Charity forgive me a mistake, 

That zeal, not vanity, has chanced to make, 

And spare the poet for his subject's sake. 



eon^evfii^tton* 



Nam neque me tantum venientis sibilus austri, 
Nee percussa juvant fluctu tam litora, nee qua3 
Saxosas inter decurrunt flumina valles. Virg. Bel. 5. 



Though Nature weigh our talents, and dispense 
To every man his modicum of sense. 
And conversation in its better part 
May be esteemed a gift, and not an art, 
Yet much depends, as in the tiller's toil. 
On culture, and the sowing of the soil. 
Words learned by rote a parrot may rehearse, 
But talking is not always to converse; 
Not more distinct from harmony divine. 
The constant creaking of a country sign. 
As alphabets in ivory employ. 
Hour after hour, the yet unlettered boy, 
Sorting and puzzling vdth a deal of glee 
Those seeds of science called liis a b c ; 
So language in the mouths of the adult, 
Witness its insignificant result. 
Too often proves an implement of play, 
A toy to sport with, and pass time away. 
Collect at evening what the day brought forth, 
Compress the sum into its solid worth. 
And if it weigh th' importance of a fly, 
The scales are false, or algebra a lie, 
Sacred interpreter of human thought, 
How few respect or use thee as they ought ! 
But all shall give account of every wrong. 
Who dare dishonour or defile the tongue ; 
Who prostitute it in the cause of vice. 
Or sell the glory at the market-price ; 
Who vote for hire, or point it with lampoon. 
The dear-bought placeman, and the cheap buffoon. 

There is a prurience in the speech of some. 
Wrath stays him, or else God would strike them 

dumb: 
His vnse forbearance has their end in view. 
They fill their measure, and receive their due, 



The heathen law-givers of ancient days, 
Names almost worthy of a Christian's praise, 
Would drive them forth from the resort of men, 
And shut up every satyr in his den. 
O come not 3'e near innocence and truth, 
Ye worms that eat into the bud of youth ! 
Infectious as impure, your blighting power 
Taints in its rudiments the promised flower, 
Its odour perished and its charming hue. 
Thenceforth 'tis hateful, for it smells of you. 
Not e'en the vigorous and headlong rage 
Of adolescence, or a firmer age. 
Affords a plea allowable or just 
For making speech the pamperer of lust; 
But when the breath of age commits the fault, 
'Tis nauseous as the vapour of a vault. 
So withered stumps disgrace the sylvan scene, 
No longer fruitful, and no longer green ; 
The sapless wood, divested of the bark, 
Grows fungous, and takes fire at every spark. 

Oaths terminate, as Paul observes, all strife — 
Some men have siurely then a peaceful life ; 
Whatever subject occupy discourse. 
The feats of Vestris, or the naval force, 
Asseveration blustering in your face 
Makes contradiction such a hopeless case : 
In every tale they tell, or false or true, 
Well known, or such as no man ever knew, 
They fix attention, heedless of your pain. 
With oaths like rivets forced into the brain; 
And e'en when sober truth prevails throughout, 
They swear it, till afl&rmance breeds a doubt. 
A Persian, humble servant of the sun. 
Who, though devout, yet bigotry had none, 



CONVERSATION. 



41 



Hearing a lawyer, grave in lais address, 
With abjuration every word impress, 
Supposed the man a bishop, or, at least, 
God's name so much upon his lips, a priest ; 
Bowed at the close with all his graceful airs, 
And begged an interest in his frequent prayers. 

Go, quit the rank to which ye stood preferred, 
Henceforth associate in one common herd; 
Religion, vu'tue, reason, common sense. 
Pronounce your human form a false pretence ; 
A mere cUsguis.e, in wliicli a devil lurks, 
Who yet betrays Iris secret by lus works. 

Ye powers who rule the tongue, if such there are, 
And make colloquial happiness your care. 
Preserve me fi'om the thing I dread and hate, 
A duel m the form of a debate. 
The clash of arguments and jar of words, 
Worse than the mortal brunt of rival swords, 
Decide no question with their tecUous length, 
For opposition, gives opinion strength. 
Divert the champions prodigal of breath ; 
And put the peaceably-disposed to death. 

thwart me not, sir Soph, at every turn, 
Nor carp at every flaw you may discern ; 
Though syllogisms hang not on my tongue, 

1 am not surely always in the wrong ; 
'Tis hard if all is false that I advance, 

A fool must now and then be right by chance. 

Not that all freedom of dissent I blame ; 

No — there I grant the privilege I clahn. 

A disputable point is no man's ground ; 

Rove where you please, 'tis common all around. 

Discourse may want an animated — No, 

To brush the surface, and to make it flow ; 

But still remember, if you mean to please, 

To press your point with modesty and ease. 

The mark, at wliich my juster aim I take, 

Is contradiction for its own dear sake. 

Set your opinion at whatever pitch, 

Knots and impediments make something hitch ; 

Adopt his own, tis equally in vain. 

Your thread of argument is snapped again ; 

The wrangler, rather than accord with you, 

Will judge himself deceived, and prove it too. 

Vociferated logic lulls me quite, 

A noisy man is always in the right : 

I twirl my thumbs, fall backinto my chair. 

Fix on the wainscot a distressfiil stare. 

And, when I hope his blunders are all out, 

Reply discreetly — To be sure — no doubt ! 

Dubius is such a scrupulous good man — 
Yes — you may catch him tripping if you can. 
He would not, with a peremptory tone. 
Assert the nose upon his face his own ; 
With hesitation admirably slow, 
He humbly hopes — ^presumes — it may be so. • 
His evidence, if he were called by law 
To swear to some enormity he saw, 



For want of prominence and just relief. 

Would hang an honest man, and save a thief. 

Through constant dread of giving truth oflTence, 

He ties uj) all his hearers in suspense ; 

Knows what ho knows, as if ho knew it not ; 

What he remembers, seems to have forgot ; 

His sole opinion, whatsoe'er befall, 

Centering at last in having none at all. 

Yet, though he tease and baulk your Ustening ear, 

He makes one useful point exceeding clear ; 

Howe'er ingenious on liis darling theme 

A sceptic in philosophy may seem, 

Reduced to practice, liis beloved rule 

Would only prove him a consummate fool ; 

Useless in liim alilce both brain and speech, 

Fate having placed aU truth above his reach, 

His ambiguities his total sum. 

He might as well be blind, and deaf, and dumb. 

Wliere men of judgment creep and feel their way, 
The positive pronounce without dismay ; 
Their want of light and intellect supphed 
By sparks absurdity strikes out of pride. 
Without the means of knowing right from wrong, 
They always are decisive, clear, and strong ; 
Where others toil with philosophic force, 
Their nimble nonsense takes a shorter course ; 
Flings at your head conviction in the lump. 
And gains remote conclusions at a jump : 
Their own defect, invisible to them, 
Seen in another, they at once condemn ; 
And, though self-idolized in every case, 
Hate their own likeness in a brother's face. 
The cause is plain, and not to be denied, 
The proud are always most provoked by pride ; 
Few competitions but engender spite ; 
And those the most where neither has a right. 

The point of honour has been deemed of use. 
To teach good manners, and to curb abuse ; 
Admit it true, the consequence is clear, 
Our polished, manners are a mask we wear. 
And at the bottom barbarous still and rude, 
We are restrained, indeed, but not subdued. 
The very remedy, however sui-e, 
Springs from the mischief it intends to cure, 
And savage m its principle appears, 
Tried, as it should be, by the fruit it bears. 
'Tis hard, indeed, if nothing will defend 
Mankind from quarrels but their fatal end ; 
That now and then a hero must decease. 
That the surviving world may live in peace. 
Perhaps at last close scrutiny may show 
The practice dastardly, and mean, and low ; 
That men engage in it compelled by force, 
And fear, not courage, is its proper source ; 
The fear of tyrant custom, and the fear 
Lest fops should censiure us, and fools should sneer. 
At least, to trample on our Maker's laws, 
And hazard life for any or no cause, 



42 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



To rush into a fixed eternal state 
Out of the very flames of rage and hate, 
Or send another shivering to the bar 
With all the guilt of such unnatural war, 
Whatever use may urge, or honour plead, 
On reason's verdict is a madman's deed. 
Am I to set my life upon a throw, 
Because a bear is rude and surlyl No — 
A moral, sensible and well-bred man 
Will not affront me; and no other can. 
Were I empowered to regulate the lists, 
They should encounter with well-loaded fists; 
A Trojan combat would be something new. 
Let Dares beat Entellus black and blue; 
Then each might show, to his admiring friends, 
in honourable bimips his rich amends. 
And carry in contusions of his skull, 
A satisfactory receipt in full. 

A story, in which native hiunour reigns. 
Is often useful, always entertains: 
A graver fact, enlisted on your side, . 
May furnish illustration, well applied; 
But sedentary weavers of long tales 
Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails. 
'Tis the most asinine employ on earth. 
To hear them tell of parentage and birth. 
And echo conversations dull and dry, 
EmbelUshed with — He said, and So said I. 
At every interview their route the same. 
The repetition makes attention lame: 
We bustle up wdth unsuccessful speed. 
And in the saddest part cry — Droll indeed! 
The path of narrative with care pursue. 
Still making probability your clew : 
On all the vestiges of truth attend, 
And let them guide you to a decent end. 
Of all ambitions man may entertain, 
The worst that can invade a sickly brain. 
Is that, which angles hourly for surprise, 
And baits its hook with prodigies and lies. 
Credulous mfancy, or age as weak. 
Are fittest auditors for such to seek, 
Wlio to please others will themselves disgrace, 
Yet please not, but affront you to your face. 
A great retailer of this curious ware 
Having unloaded and made many stare. 
Can this be truel — an arch observer cries, 
Yes, (rather moved) I saw it with these eyes; 
Sir! I believe it on that gromid alone; 
I could not, had I seen it with my own. 

A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct ; 
The language plain, and incidents well linked ; 
Tell not as new what eveiy body knows, 
And, new or old, still hasten to a close; 
There, centering in a focus round and neat, 
Let all your rays of information meet. 
What neither yields us profit nor delight 
Is like a nurse's lullaby at night; 



Guy Earl of Warwick and fair Eleanore, 
Or giant-killing Jack, would please me more. 

The pipe, with solemn interposing pufF, 
Makes half a sentence at a time enough; 
The dozing sages drop the drowsy strain. 
Then pause, and puff— and speak, and pause 

again. 
Such often, like the tube they so admire, 
Important triflers : have more smoke than fire. 
Pernicious weed ! whose scent the fair aimoys, 
Unfriendly to society's chief joys. 
Thy worst effect is banisliing for hours 
The sex, whose presence civilizes ours: 
Thou art indeed the drug a gardener wants, 
To poison vermin that infest his plants; 
But are we so to wit and beauty blind. 
As to despise the glory of our kind, 
And show the softest minds and fairest forms 
As httle mercy, as the grubs and worms'? 
They dare not wait the riotous abuse, 
Thy thirst-creating steams at length produce. 
When wine has given indecent language birth, 
And forced the flood-gates of Ucentious mirth ; 
For sea-born Venus her attachment shows 
Still to that element, from wHch she rose, 
And with a quiet, which no fumes disturb. 
Sips meek infusions of a milder herb. 

Th' emphatic speaker dearly loves t' oppose 
In contact inconvenient, nose to nose. 
As if the gnomon on his neighbour's phiz. 
Touched with the magnet, had attracted his. 
His whispered theme, dilated and at large, 
Proves after all a wind-gun's airy charge, 
An extract of his diarj^ — no more, 
A tasteless journal of the day before. 
He walked abroad, o'ertaken in the rain. 
Called on a friend, dranli tea, stepped home again, 
Resumed his purpose, had a world of talk 
With one he stmnbled on, and lost his walk. 
I interrupt him with a sudden bow. 
Adieu, dear sir! lest you shoiild Jbse it now. 

I can not talk with civet in the room, 
A fine puss-gentleman that's aU perfume; 
The sight's enough — no need to smell a beau— 
Who thrusts his nose into a rareeshow 1 
His odoriferous attempts to please. 
Perhaps might prosper with a swarm of bees; 
But we that make no honey, though we sting, 
Poets, are sometimes apt to maul the thing. 
'Tis wrong to bring into a mixed resort, 
Wlaat makes some sick, and others a la-mort : 
An argument of cogence, we may say. 
Why such a one shovdd keep liimself away. 
' A graver coxcomb we may sometimes see, 
GLuite as absurd, though not so light as he; 
A shallow brain behind a serious mask. 
An oracle witliin an empty cask, 
The solemn fop; significant and budge; 
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge; 



CONVERSATION. 



43 



He says but little, and that little said 

Owes all its weight, like loaded dice, to lead. 

His wit invites you by his looks to come. 

But when you knock, it never is at home. 

'Tis like a parcel sent you by the stage, 

Some handsome present, as your hopes presage; 

'Tis heavy, bulky, and bids fair to prove 

An absent friend's fidelity and love; 

But when unpacked, your disappointment groans 

To find it stuffed vnih brickbats, earth, and stones. 

Some men employ their healtli, an ugly trick, 
In making known how oft they have been sick, 
And give us in recitals of disease 
A doctor's trouble, but without the fees; 
Relate how many weeks they kept their bed. 
How an emetic or cathartic sped ; 
Nothing is shghtly touched, much less fbrgot. 
Nose, ears, and eyes, seem present on the spot. 
Now the distemper, spite of draught or pill, 
Victorious seemed, and now the doctor's skill ; 
And now — alas for unforeseen mishaps ! 
They put on a damp nightcap and relapse ; 
They thought they must have died, they were so 

bad; 
Their peevish hearers almost wish they had. 

Some fretful tempers wince at every touch, 
You always do too little or too much : 
You speak with life, in hopes to entertain, 
Your elevated voice goes through the brain; 
You fall at onpe into a lower key, 
That's worse — the di-one-pipe of an bumblebee. 
The southern sash admits too strong a hght, 
You rise and drop the curtain — now 'tis night. 
He shakes with cold — you stir the fire and strive 
To make a blaze — that's roasting him alive. 
Serve him with venison, and he chooses fish ; 
With seal — that's just the sort he does not wish. 
He takes what he at first professed to loath. 
And in due time feeds heartily on both; 
Yet still, o'erclouded with a constant frown, 
He does not swallow, but he gulps it down. 
Your hope to please him vain on every plan, 
Himself should work that wonder if he can — 
Alas! liis efforts double his distress, 
He likes yours little, and his own still less. 
Thus always teasing others, always teased. 
His only pleasure is — to be displeased. 

I pity bashful men, who feel the pain 
Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain, 
And bear the marks upon a blushing face 
Of needless shame, and self-imposed disgrace. 
Our sensibilities are so acute, 
The fear of being silent makes us mute. 
We sometimes tliink we could a speech produce 
Much to the purpose, if our tongues were loose ; 
But being tried, it dies upon the lip. 
Faint as a cliicken's note that has the pip : 
Our wasted oil unprofitably burns-, 
Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns. 



Few Frenchmen of tliis evil have complained; 

It seems as if we Britons were ordained, 

By way of wholesome curb upon our pride; 

To fear each other, fearing none beside. 

The cause perhaps inquiry may descry, 

Self-searching with an introverted eye, 

Concealed within an unsuspected part, 

The vainest corner of our own vain heart; 

For ever aiming at the world's esteem, 

Our self-importance ruins its own scheme; 

In other eyes our talents rarely shown, 

"Become at length so splendid in our own, 

We dare not risk them into public view. 

Lest they miscarry of what seems their due. 

True modesty is a discerning gi-ace. 

And only blushes in the proper place ; 

But counterfeit is blind, and skulks through fear, 

Where 'tis a shame to be ashamed t' appear : 

Humility the parent of the first. 

The last by vanity produced and nursed. 

The circle formed, we sit in silent state, 

Like figures drawn upon a dial plate ; 

Yes ma'am and no ma'am, uttered softly show 

Every five minutes how the minutes go; 

Each individual suffering a constraint 

Poetry may, but colours can not paint; 

As if in close committee on the sky. 

Reports it hot or cold, or wet or dry; 

And finds a changing clinre a happy source 

Of wise reflection, and well timed discourse. 

We next inquire, but softly and by stealth, 

Like conservators of the public health, 

Of epidemic throats, if such there are. 

And coughs, and rheums, and phthisic, and catarrh. 

The theme exhausted, a wide chasm ensues, 

Filled up at last with interesting news. 

Who danced with whom, and who are Uke to wed, 

And who is hanged, and who is brought to bed : 

But fear to call a more important cause. 

As if 'twere treason against English laws. 

The visit paid, with ecstacy we come, 

As from a seven years transportation, home, 

And there resume an unembarrassed brow. 

Recovering what we lost we know not how, 

The faculties, that seemed reduced to nought, 

Expression and the privilege of thought. 

The reeking, roaring hero of the chase, 
I give him over as a desperate case. 
Physicians write in hopes to work a cure. 
Never, if honest ones, when death is sure; 
And though the fox he follows may be tamed, 
A mere fox-follower never is reclaimed. 
Some farrier should prescribe his proper course, 
Whose only fit companion is his horse ; 
Or if, deserving of a better doom, ■ 
The noble beast judge otherwise, his groom. 
Yet e'en the rogue that serves him, though he stand, 
To take his honour's orders, cap in hand, 



44 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Prefers his fellow-grooms with much good sense, 
Their skill a truth, his master's a pretence. 
If neither horse nor groom affect the squire. 
Where can at last his joc-keyship retire! 
O to the club, the scene of savage joys, 
The school of coarse good fellowship and noise; 
There in the sweet society of those, 
Whose friendsliip from his boyish years he chose. 
Let him mijjrovc his talent if he can. 
Till none but beasts acknowledge liim a man. 
Man's heart had been impenetrably sealed, 
Like theirs that cleave the flood or graze the field, * 
Had not his Maker's all-bestowing hand 
Given him a soul, and bade liim understand; 
The reasoning power vouchsafed of course inferred 
The power to clothe that reason with his word ; 
For all is perfect, that God works on earth, 
And he, that gives conception, aids the birth. 
If this be plain, 'tis plainly understood, 
What uses of his boon the Giver would. 
The Mind, despatched upon her busy toil, 
Should range where Providence has blessed the 

soil; 
Visiting every flower with labour meet. 
And gathering all her treasures sweet by sweet. 
She should imbue the tongue with what she sips, 
And shed the balmy blessing on the lips. 
That good diffused may more abundant grow. 
And speech may praise the power that bids it flow. 
Will the sweet warbler of the livelong night, 
That fills the Ustening lover with delight. 
Forget his harmony with rapture heard. 
To learn the twittering of a meaner bird'? 
Or make the parrot's mimicry his choice, 
That odious hbel on a human voice 1 
No — Nature, unsophisticate by man. 
Starts not aside from her Creator's plan ; 
The melody, that was at first designed 
To cheer the rude forefathers of mankind, 
Is note for note delivered in our ears. 
In the last scene of her six thousand years. 
Yet Fashion, leader of a chattering train, 
Whom man, for his own hurt, permits to reign, 
Who shifl;s and changes all tilings but his shape, 
And would degrade her votary to an ape, 
The fruitful parent of abuse and wrong, 
Holds a usurped dominion o'er his tongue; 
There sits and prompts him with his own disgrace. 
Prescribes the theme, the tone, and the grimace. 
And when accomplished in her wayward school, 
Calls 'gentleman whom she has made a fool. 
'Tis an unalterable fixed decree, 
That none coidd frame or ratify but she. 
That heaven and hell, and righteousness and sin. 
Snares in his path, and toes that lurk within, 
God and his attributes (a field of day 
Where 'tis an angel's happiness to stray,) 
Fruits of his love and wonders of liis might, 
Be never named in ears esteemed polite. 



That he who dares, when she forbids, be grave, 
Shall stand proscribed, a madman or a knave, 
A close designer not to be believed, 
Or, if excused that charge, at least deceived. 
Oh folly worthy of the nurse's lap. 
Give it the breast, or stop its mouth with pap ! 
Is it incredible, or can it seem 
A dream to any, except those that dream, 
That man should love his Maker, and that fire. 
Warming his heart, should at his Ups transpire ! 
Know then, and modestly let fall'j'our eyes, 
And veil your daring crest that braves the skies; 
That air of insolence affronts your God, 
You need his pardon, and provoke his rod : 
Now, in a posture that becomes you more 
Than that heroic strut assumed before. 
Know, ybut arrears with every hour accrue - 
For mercy shown, while wrath is justly due. 
The time is short, and there are souls on earth, 
Though future pain may serve for present mirth, 
Acquainted with the woes, that fear or shame. 
By fashion taught forbade them once to name, 
And, having felt the pangs you deem a jest. 
Have proved them truths too big to be expressed. 
Go seek on revelation's hallowed ground. 
Sure to succeed, the remedy they found : 
Touched by that power that you have dared to 

mock. 
That makes seas stable, and dissolves the rock. 
Your heart shall yield a life-renewing stream. 
That fools, as you have done, shall call a dream. 

It happened on a solemn eventide; 
Soon after He that was our surety died. 
Two bosom friends, each pensively inclined. 
The scene of all those soriows left beliind. 
Sought their own village, busied as they went 
In musings worthy of the great event : 
They spake of him they loved, of him whose life, 
Though blameless, had incurred perpetual strife. 
Whose deeds had left, in. spite of hostile arts, 
A deep memorial graven on their hearts. 
The recollection, like a vein of ore. 
The farther traced, enriched them still the more; 
They thought him, and they justly thought him, 

one 
Sent to do more than he appeared t' have done; 
T' exalt a people, and to jjlace them high 
Above all else, and wondered he should die. 
Ere yet they brought their journey to an end, 
A stranger joined them, courteous as a friend. 
And asked them with a kind, engaging air. 
What their affliction was, and begged to share. 
Informed, he gathered up the broken thread, 
And, truth and wisdom gracing all he said. 
Explained, illustrated, and seai'ched so well 
The tender theme on which they chose to dwell. 
That, reacliing home, The night, they said, is 

near. 
We must not now be parted, sojourn here — 



CONVERSATION. 



45 



The new acquaintance soon became a guest, 
And, made so welceme at their simple feast. 
He blessed the bread, but vanished at the word. 
And left them both exclaiming, 'Twas the Lord! 
Did not our hearts feel all he deigned to sa.y1 
Did they not burn within us on the way 1 

Now theirs was converse, such as it behoves 
Man to maintain, and such as God approves: 
Their views, indeed, were indistinct and dim. 
But yet successful, being auncd at him, 
Christ and his character their only scope. 
Their object, and their subject, and their liopc. 
They felt what it became them much to feel, 
And, wanting him to loose the sacred seal. 
Found liim as prompt, as their desire was true, 
To spread the new born glories in their view. 

Well — what are ages and the lapse of time. 
Matched against truths, as lasting as sublime'? 
Can length of years on God himself exact"? 
Or make that fiction, which was once a facf? 
No — marble and recording brass decay, 
And, lijje the graver's memory, pass away; 
The works of man inherit, as is just, 
Their author's frailty, and return to dust : 
But truth divine for ever stands secure. 
Its head is guarded, and its base is sure. 
■Fixed in the rolling flood of endless years, 
The pillar of th' eternal plan appears. 
The raving storm and dashing wave defies. 
Built by that architect who built the skies. 
Hearts may be found, that harbour at tliis hour 
That love of Christ, and all its quickening power; 
And lips vmstained by folly or by strife, 
Wliose wisdom, drawn from the deep well of life, 
Tastes of its healthfiil origin, and flows 
A Jordan for th' ablution of our woes. 
O days of heaven and nights of equal praise. 
Serene and peaceful as those heavenly days, 
When souls drawn upwards in communion sweet, 
Enjoy the stillness of some close retreat, 
Discourse, as if released and safe at home, 
Of dangers past, and wonders yet to come. 
And spread the sacred treasures of the breast 
Upon the lap of covenanted Rest. 

Wliat, always dreaming over heavenly things, 
Like angel-heads in stone with pigeon -wings'? 
Canting and whining out all day the word, 
And half the night "? Fanatic and absurd! 
Mine be the friend less fi'equent in his prayers. 
Who makes no bustle with liis soul's affairs, 
Whose wit can brighten up a wintry day. 
And chase the splenetic dull hours away; 
Content on earth in earthly things to shine, 
Who waits for heaven ere he becomes divine 
Leave saints t' enjoy those altitudes they teach. 
And plucks the fruit placed more within his reach 

Well spoken, advocate of sin and shame, 
Knovm by thy bleating, Ignorance thy name. 



Is sparkling wit the world's exclusive right 1 

The fixed fee-simple of the vain and light '? 

Can hopes of heaven, bright prospects for an hour, 

That come to waft us out of Sorrow's power, 

Obscure or quench a faculty, that finds 

Its happiest soil in the sercnest minds 1 

Religion curbs indeed its wanton play, 

And brings the triflcr under rigorous sway, 

But gives it usefulness unlcnown before, 

And, purifying, makes it shine the more. 

A Christian's wit is inoffensive light, 

A beam tliat aids, hut never grieves the sight; 

Vigorous in age as in the flush of youth, 

'Tis always active on the side of truth; 

Temperance and peace ensure its healthfiJ state, 

And make it brightest at its latest date. 

Oh I have seen (nor hope perhaps in vain, 

Ere life go down, to see such sights again) 

A veteran warrior in the Chistian field, 

Who never saw the sword he could not wield ; 

Grave without dullness, learned without pride, 

Exact, yet not precise, though meek, keen-eyed ; 

A man that would have foiled at their owm play 

A dozen would-be's of the modem day ; 

Who, when occasion justified its use, 

Had wit as bright as ready to produce, 

Could fetch from records of an earlier age, 

Or from philosophy's enlightened page, 

His rich materials, and regale your ear 

With strains it was a privilege to hear : 

Yet, above all, his luxury supreme, 

And his chief glory, was the Gospel theme: 

There he was copious as old Greece or Rome, 

His happy eloquence seemed there at homcj 

Ambition not to shine or to excel, 

But to treat justly what he loved so well. 

It moves me more perhaps than foUy ought, 
When some gi-een heads, as void of wdt as thought, 
Suppose themselves monopolists of sense, 
And wiser men's ability pretence. 
Though time will wear us and we must grow old. 
Such men are not forgot as soon as cold ; 
Their fragrant memory will outlast their tomb, 
Embalmed for ever in its own perfume. 
And to say truth, though in its early prime. 
And when unstained with any grosser crime, 
Youth has a sprightliness and fire to boast. 
That in the valley of decline are lost, 
And Virtue with pecuhar charms appears. 
Crowned with the garland of life's blooming years; 
Yet Age, by long experience well informed. 
Well read, well tempered, with religion warmed, 
That fire abated, wliich impels rash youth, 
Proud of his speed, to overshoot the truth. 
As time improves the grape's authentic juice, 
Mellows and makes the speech more fit for use, 
And claims a reverence in its shortening day, 
That 'tis an honour and a joy to pay. 



46 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



The fruits of age, less fair, are yet more sound, 
Than those a brighter season pours around; 
And, Uke the stores autumnal suns mature, 
Through wintry rigours unimpaired endure. 

What is fanatic frenzy, scorned so much, 
And dreaded more than a contagious touch 1 
I grant it dangerous, and approve your fear, 
That fire is catching if you draw too near ; 
But sage observers oft mistake the flame, 
And give true piety that odious name. 
To tremble (as the creature of an hour 
Ought at the view of an almighty power) 
Before liis presence, at whose awful throne 
All tremble in all worlds, except our own, 
To suppUcate his mercy, love his ways, 
And prize them above pleasure, wealth, or praise. 
Though common sense, allowed a casting voice. 
And free fi-om bias, must approve the choice, 
Convicts a man fanatic in th' extreme, 
And wild as madness in the world's esteem. 
But that disease, when soberly defined. 
Is the false fire of an o'erheated mind ; 
It views the truth with a distorted eye. 
And either warps or lays it useless by ; 
'Tis narrow, selfish, arrogant, and draws 
Its sordid nourishment from man's applause; 
And wliile at heart sin unrelinqtushed lies, 
Presumes itself cliief favourite of the skies. 
'Tis such a light as putrefaction breeds 
In fly-blown flesh, whereon the maggot feeds, 
Shines in the dark, but, ushered into day, 
The stench remains, the lustre dies away. 

True bliss, if man may reach it, is composed 
Of hearts in union mutually disclosed : 
And, farewell else all hopes of pure delight. 
Those hearts should be reclaimed, renewed, up- 
right. 
Bad men, profaning friendship's hallowed name. 
Form, in its stead, a covenant of shame, 
A dark confederacy against the laws 
Of virtue, and religion's gloiious cause : 
They build each other up with dreadful skill. 
As bastions set point blank against God's will; 
Enlarge and fortify the dread redoubt. 
Deeply resolved to shut a Saviour out ; 
Call legions up from hell to back the deed ; 
And, cursed with conquest, finally succeed. 
But souls, that cany on a blest exchange 
Of joys, they meet within their heavenly range. 
And with a fearless confidence make known 
The sorrows sympathy esteems its own. 
Daily derive increasing light and force 
From such communion in their pleasant course, 
Feel less the journey's roughness and its length. 
Meet their opposers with united strength, 
And, one in heart, in interest, and design, 
Gird up each other to the race divine. 

But conversation, choose what theme we may, 
And cliiefly when religion leads the way. 



Should flow, hke waters after summer showers, 
Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers. 
The Christian, in whose soul, though now distressed, 
Lives the dear thought of joys he once possessed, 
When all his glowing language issued forth 
With God's deep stamp upon its current worth, 
Will speak without disguise, and must impart, 
Sad as it is, his undissembUng heart. 
Abhors constraint, and dares not feign a zeal. 
Or seem to boast a fire he does not feel. 
The song of Zion is a tasteless thing. 
Unless, when rising on a joyful wing. 
The soul can mix with the celestial bands, 
And give the strain the compass it demands. 

Strange tidings these to tell a world, who treat 
All but their own experience as deceit ! 
Will they believe, though credulous enough ■ 
To swallow much upon much weaker proof. 
That there arc blest inhabitants on earth, 
Partakers of a new ethereal birth. 
Their hopes, desires, and purposes estranged 
From things terrestrial, and divinely changed. 
Their very language, of a kind, that speaks 
The soul's sure interest in the good she seeks, 
Who deal with Scripture, its unportance felt, 
As TuUy with pliilosophy once dealt, 
And in the silent watches of the night. 
And through the scenes of toil-renewing light, 
The social walk, or solitary ride. 
Keep still the dear companion at their side ! 
No — shame upon a self-disgracing age, 
God's work may serve an ape upon a stage 
With such a jest, as filled with heUish glee 
Certain invisibles as shrewd as he ; 
But veneration or respect finds none. 
Save from the subjects of that work alone. 
The world grown old her deep discernment shows. 
Claps spectacles on her sagacious nose, 
Peruses closely the true Christian's face, 
And finds it a mere mask of sjy grimace : 
Usurps God's office, lays his bosom bare, 
And finds hypocrisy close lurking there ; 
And, serving God herself through mere constraint, 
Concludes his unfeigned love of him a feint. 
And yet, God knows, look human nature through, 
(And in due time the world shall know it too) 
That since the flowers of Eden felt the blast. 
That after man's defection laid all waste. 
Sincerity towards the heart-searching God 
Has made the new-born creature her abode, 
Nor shall be found in unregenerate souls, 
Till the last fire burn all between the poles. 
Sincerity ! why 'tis his only pride. 
Weak and imperfect in all grace beside. 
He knows that God demand-s his heart entire. 
And gives him all his just demands require. 
Without it his pretensions were as vain, 
As having it he deems the world's disdain ; 



CONVERSATION. 



47 



That great defect would cost him not alone 

Man's favourable judgment, but his own ; 

His birthright shaken, and no longer clear, 

Than while liis conduct proves his heart smcerc. 

Retort the charge, and let the world be told 

She boasts a confidence she does not hold ; 

That, conscious of her crimes, she feels iiistead 

A cold misgiving, and a killing dread : 

That while in health the ground of her support 

Is madly to forget that Ufe is short ; 

That sick she trembles, knowing she must die, 

Her hope presumption, and her faith a lie ; 

That while she dotes, and di!eams that she believes, 

She mocks her Maker, and herself deceives, 

Her utmost reach, liistorical assent, 

The doctrines warped to what they never meant ; 

That truth itself is in her head as dull 

And useless as a candle in a scull. 

And all her love of God a grovmdless claim, 

A trick upon the canvass, painted flame. 

Tell her again, the sneer upon her face, 

And all her censures of the work of grace. 

Are insincere, meant only to conceal 

A dread she would not, yet is forced to feel : 

That in her heart the Christian she reveres, 

And wliile sh» seems to scorn him, only fears. 

A poet does not work by square or line, 
As smiths and jomers perfect a design ; 
At least we moderns, our attention less. 
Beyond th' example of our sires digress, 
And claim a right to scamper and run wide. 
Wherever chance, caprice, or fancy guide. 
The world and I fortuitously met ; 
I owed a trifle, and have paid the debt ; • 

She did me wrong, I recompensed the deed. 
And, having struck the balance, now proceed. 
Perhaps, however, as some years have passed. 
Since she and I conversed together last. 
And I have lived recluse in rural shades. 
Which seldom a distinct report pervades, 
Great changes and new manners have occurred. 
And blest reforms, that I have never heard. 
And she may now be as discreet and wise. 
As once absurd in all discerning eyes. 
Sobriety perhaps may now be found. 
Where once Intoxication pressed the ground ; 
The subtle and injurious may be just. 
And he grown chaste, that was the slave of lust ; 
Arts once esteemed may be with shame dismissed ; 
Charity may relax the miser's fist ; 
The gamester may have cast his cards away. 
Forgot to curse, and only kneel to pray. 
It has indeed been told me (vpith what weight. 
How credibly, 'tis hard for me to state) 
That fables old, that seemed for ever mute. 
Revived are hastening into fresh repute. 
And gods and goddesses, discarded long, 
Like useless lunjber, or a stroller's song, 



Arc bringing into vogue their heathen train, 
And Jupiter bids fair to rule again ; 
That certain feasts are instituted now, 
Where Venus hears the lover's tender vow ; 
That all Olympus through the country roves, 
To consecrate our few remaining groves, 
And Echo learns politely to repeat 
The praise of names for ages obsolete: 
That having proved the weakness, it should seem, 
Of revelation's inefiectual beam. 
To bring the passions under sober sway, 
And give the mortal sprmgs their proper play, 
They mean to try what may at last be done, 
By stout substantial gods of wood and stone, 
And whether Roman rites may not produce 
The virtues of old Rome for EngUsh use. 
May such success attend the pious plan, 
May Mercury once more embellish man, 
Grace him again with long forgotten arts. 
Reclaim his taste, and brighten up his parts. 
Make him athletic, as in days of old. 
Learned at the bar, in the palaestra bold, 
Divest the ro\igher sex of female airs, 
And teach the softer not to copy theirs : 
The change shall please, nor shall it matter aught 
Who works the wonder, if it be but wrought. 
'Tis time, however, if the case stand thus. 
For us plain folks, and all who side with us. 
To build om' altar, confident and bold. 
And say as stern Elijah said of old. 
The strife now stands upon a fair award, 
If Israel's Lord be God, then serve the Lord : 
If he be silent, faith is all a whim, 
Then Baal is the God, and worship him. 
Disgression is so much in modern use, 
Thought is' so rare, and fancy so profuse. 
Some never seem so wide of their intent, 
As when returning to the theme they meant; 
As mendicants, whose business is to roam. 
Make every parish but their own their home. 
Though such continual zigzags in a book. 
Such drunken reelings have an awkward look, 
And I had rather creep to what is true. 
Than rove and stagger with no mark in view; 
Yet to consult a Uttle, seemed no crime, 
The freakish humour of the present time ; 
But now to gather up -what seems dispersed, 
And touch the subject I designed at first. 
May prove, though much beside the rules of art. 
Best for the pubUc, and my wisest part. 
And first, let no man charge me, that I mean 
To clothe in sable every social scene. 
And give good company a face severe, 
As if they met around a father's bier; 
For tell some men, that pleasure aU their bent. 
And laughter all their work, is hfe mispent, 
Their wisdom bursts into the sage reply, 
Then mirth is sin, and we should always cry. 



48 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



To find the medium asks some share of wit^ 
And therefore 'lis a mark fools never hit. 
But though life's valley be a>ale of tears, 
A brighter scene beyond that vale appears, 
Whose glory, with a light that never fades, 
Slioots between scattered rocks and opening shades. 
And, while it shows the land the soul desires. 
The language of the land she seeks inspires. 
Thus touched, the tongue receives a sacred cure 
Of all that was absurd, profane, impure; 
Held within modest bounds, the tide of speech 
Pursues the course that Truth and Nature teach; 
No longer labours merely to produce 
The pomp of sound, or tinkle without use : 
Where'er it winds, the salutary stream, 
Sprightly and fresh, enriches every theme, 



While all the happy man possessed before, 
The gift of nature, or the classic store, 
Is made subservient to the grand design, 
For which Heaven formed the faculty divine, 
So should an idiot, while at large he strays, 
Find the sweet lyre, on which an artist plkys, 
With rash and awkward force the chords he shakes, 
And grins with wonder at the jar he makes; 
But let the wise and well-instructed hand 
Once take the shell beneath his just command, 
In gentle sounds it seemed as it complained 
Of the rude injuries it late sustained. 
Till tuned at length to some immortal song, 
It sounds Jehovah's name, and pours his praise 
along. 



MttivtmttxU 



studiis florens ignobilis oti. Virg. Gear. Lib. 4. 



Hackneyed in business, wearied at the oar 
Which thousands, once fast chained to, quit no 

more, 
But which, when life at ebb runs weak and low. 
All wish, or seem to wish, they could forego; 
The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade. 
Pants for the refuge of some rural shade, 
Where, all his long anxieties forgot 
Amid the charms of a sequestered spot, 
Or recollected only to gild o'er. 
And add a smile to what was sweet before, 
He may possess the joys he tliinks he sees. 
Lay his old age upon the lap of Ease, 
Improve the remnant of his wasted span. 
And, having lived a trifler, die a man. 
Thus Conscience pleads her cause witliin the breast. 
Though long rebelled against, not yet supj^rcssed. 
And calls a creature formed for God alone. 
For Heaven's high purposes, and not his own: 
Calls him away from selfish ends and aims, 
From what debilitates and what inflames. 
From cities himiming with a restless crowd. 
Sordid as active, ignorant as loud, 
Whose highest praise is that they live in vain, 
The dupes of pleasure, or the slaves of gain. 
Where works of man are clustered close around, 
And works of God are hardly to be found, 
To regions where, in spite of sin and wo, 
Traces of Eden are still seen below. 
Where mountain, river, forest, field, and grove. 
Remind him of his Maker's power and love. 
'Tis well if, looked for at so late a day, 
In the last scene of such a .senseless play. 
True wisdom will attend his feeble call. 
And grace his action ere the curtain fall. 



Souls, th^t have long despised their heavenly birth. 
Their washes all impregnated with ^arth. 
For threescore years employed with ceaseless care 
In catching smoke and feeding upon air, 
Conversant only with the ways of men. 
Rarely redeem the short remaining ten. 
Inveterate habits choke th' unfruitful heart, , 
Their fibres penetrate its tenderest part. 
And, draining its nutritious powers to feed 
Their noxious growth, starve every better seed. 

Happy, if full of days — but happier far, 
If, ere we yet discern life's evening star. 
Sick of the service of a world, that feeds 
Its patient drudges with dry chaflf and weeds, 
We can escape from custom's idiot sway. 
To serve the sovereign we were born to obey. • 
Then sweet to muse upon his skill displayed 
(Iirfinite skill) in all that he has made! 
To trace in Nature's most minute design 
The signature and stamp of power divine, 
Contrivance intricate, expressed wdth eape. 
Where unassisted sight no beauty sees. 
The shapely limb and lubricated joint, 
Witliin the small dimensions of a point. 
Muscle and nerve miraculously spun. 
His mighty work, who speaks, and it is done, 
The invisible in things scarce seen revealed, 
To whom an atom is an ample field ; 
To wonder at a thousand insect forms. 
These hatched, and those resuscitated worms, 
New life ordained and brighter scenes to share. 
Once prone on earth, now buoyant upon air, 
Whose shape would make them, had they bulk 

and size. 
More hideous foes than fiincy can devise ; 



RETIREMENT. 



49 



With helmet-heads and dragon-scales adorned, 
The mighty mj'riads, now securely scorned, 
Would mock the majesty of man's high birth. 
Despise his bulwarks, and unpeople earth. 
Then with a glance of fancy to survey, 
Far as the faculty can stretch away. 
Ten thousand rivers poured at Ms conxmand 
From urns, that never fail, through every land; 
This like a deluge with impetuous force, 
Those windmg modestly a sOent course; 
The cloud-surmounting Alps, the fruitful vales; 
Seas, on which every nation spreads her sails; 
The sun, a world whence other worlds drink light, 
The crescent moon, the diadem of night; 
Stars countless, each in his appointed place, 
Fast anchored m the deep abyss of space — 
At such a sight to catch the poet's flame, 
And with a rapture like his own exclaim. 
These are thy glorious works, thou source of good. 
How dimly seen, how faintly understood ! 
Thine, and upheld by thy paternal care, 
This universal frame, thus wondrous fair; 
Thy power divine, and bounty beyond thought, 
Adored and praised in all that thou hast wrought. 
Absorbed m-that immensity I see, 
I shrink abased, and yet aspire to thee ; 
Instruct me, guide me to that heavenly day 
Thy words more clearly than thy works display, 
That, while thy truths my grosser thoughts refine, 
I may resemble thee, and call thee mine. 

O blest proficiency! sm'passing all 
That men erroneously their glory call. 
The recompense that arts or arms can yield, 
The bar, the senate, or the tented field. 
Compared with this sublimest life below. 
Ye kings and rulers, what have courts to showl 
Thus studied, used and consecrated thus. 
On earth what is, seems formed indeed for us: 
Not as the plaything of a froward child. 
Fretful unless diverted and beguiled, 
Much less to feed and fan the fatal fires 
Of pride, ambition, or impure desires, 
But as a scale, by wliich the soul ascends 
From mighty means to more important ends, 
Securely, though by steps but rarely trod. 
Mounts from inferior beings up to God, 
And sees, by no fallacious light or dim. 
Earth made for man, and man himself for him. 

Not that I,mean t' approve, or would enforce, 
A superstitious and monastic course : 
Truth is not local, God alike pervades 
And fills the world of traffic and the shades, 
And may be feared amidst the busiest scenes. 
Or scorned were business never intervenes. 
But 'tis not easy with a mind like ours, 
Conscious of weakness irr its noblest powers, 
And in a world where, other ills apart, 
The roving eye misleads the careless heart, 



To limit Thought, by nature prone to stray 
Wherever freakish Fancy points the way; 
To bid the pleadings of Self-love be still, 
Resign our own and seek our Maker's will; 
To spread the page of Scripture, and compare 
Our conduct with the laws engraven there; 
To measure all that passes in the breast. 
Faithfully, fairly, by that sacred test; 
To dive into the secret deeps within. 
To spare no passion and no favourite sin, 
And search the themes, important above all. 
Ourselves, and our recovery from our fall. 
But leisure, silence, and a mind released 
From anxious thoughts how wealth may be in- 
creased, 
How to secvu"e, in some propitious hour, 
The point of interest or the post of power, 
A soul serene; and equally retired 
From objects too much dreaded or desired, 
Safe from the clamours of perverse dispute, 
At least are friendly to the great pursuit. 

Opening the map of God's extensive plan. 
We find a little isle, tliis fife of man; 
Eternity's unknown expanse appears 
Circhng around and limituig his years. 
The busy race examine and explore 
Each creek and cavern of the dangerous shore, 
With care collect what in their eyes excels. 
Some shining pebbles, and some weeds and shells 
Thus laden, dream that they are rich and great. 
And happiest he that groans beneath his weight. 
The waves o'ertake them in their serious play, 
And every hour sweeps multitudes away ; 
They shriek and sink, survivors start and weep, 
Pursue their sport, and follow to the deep. 
A few forsake the throng: with lifted eyes 
Ask wealth of Heaven, and gain a real prize. 
Truth, wisdom, grace, and peace like that above, 
Sealed with his signet whom they serve and love; 
Scorned by the rest, vnth patient hope they wait 
A kind release from their imperfect state, 
And uiuregretted are soon snatched away 
From scenes of sorrow into glorious day. 

Now these alone prefer a life recluse. 
Who seek retirement for its proper use; 
The love of change, that hves in every breast, 
Genius and temper, and desire of rest. 
Discordant motives in one centre meet. 
And each inclines its votary to retreat. 
Some minds by nature are averse to noise. 
And hate the tumult half the world enjoys, 
The lure of avarice, or the pompous prize. 
That comts display before ambitious eyes ; 
The fruits that hang on pleasure's flowery stem, 
Whate'er enchants them, are no snares to them. 
To them the deep recess of dusky groves 
Or forest, where the deer securely roves, 
The fall of waters, and the song of birds. 
And hills that echo to the distant herds, 



50 



COWPERS WORKS. 



Are luxuries excelling all the glare 

The world can boast, and her chief favourites 

share. 
With eager step, and carelessly arrayed, 
For such a cause the poet seeks the shade, 
From all he sees he catches new delight. 
Pleased Fancy claps her pinions at the sight, 
The rising or the setting orb of day, 
The clouds that flit, or slowly float away, 
Nature in all the various shapes she wears, 
Frowning in storms, or breathing gentle airs; 
The snowy robe her vdntry state assumes. 
Her summer heats, her fruits, andher perfumes: 
AU, all alike transport the glowing bard. 
Success in rhyme his glory and reward. 
O Nature ! whose Elysian scenes disclose 
His bright perfections, at whose word they rose. 
Next to that power, who formed thee and sustains. 
Be thou the great inspu-er of my strains. 
Still, as I touch the lyre, do thou expand 
Thy genuiiie channs, and guide an artless hand, 
That I may catch a fire but rarely known. 
Give useful Hght, though I should miss renown. 
And, poring on thy page, whose every hue 
Bears proof of an intelhgcnce dixine. 
May feel a heart enriched by what it pays, 
That builds its glory on its Maker's praise. 
Wo to the man; whose wit disclaims its use, 
Glittering in vain, or only to seduce. 
Who studies nature with a wanton eye. 
Admires the work, but shps the lesson by; 
His hours of leisure and recess employs 
In drawing pictures of forbidden joys, 
Retires to blazon his own worthless name, 
Or shoot the careless with a surer aim. 

The lover too shuns business and alarms, 
Tender-idolater of absent charms. 
Saints offer nothing in their warmest prayers, 
That he devotes not with a zeal like theirs; 
'Tis consecration of his heart, soul, time, 
And every thought that wanders is a crime. 
In sighs he worships his supremely fair, 
And weeps a sad libation in despair ; 
Adores a creature, and, devout in vain, 
Wins in return an answer of disdain. 
As woodbine weds the plant within her reach. 
Rough elm, or smooth-grained ash, or glossy beech 
In spiral rings ascends the trunk, and lays 
Her golden tassels on the leafy sprays. 
But does a mischief while she lends a grace, 
Straitening its growth by such a strict embrace ; 
So love, that clings around the noblest minds. 
Forbids th' advancement of the soul he binds ; 
The suitor's air indeed he soon improves. 
And forms it to the taste of her he loves. 
Teaches his eyes a language, and no less 
Refines his speech, and fashions his address ; 
But farewell promises of happier fruits. 
Manly designs, and learning's grave pursuits; 



Girt with a chain he can not wish to break, 
His only bUss is sorrow for her sake; 
Who will may pant for glory and excel, 
Her smile liis aim, all higher auns farewell! 
Thyrsis, Alexis, or whatever name 
May least ofl'cnd agamst so pure a flame, 
Though sage advice of friends the most sincere 
Sounds harslily in so delicate a snare, 
And lovers, of all creatures, tame or wild, 
Can least brook management, however mild; 
Yet let a poet (poetry disarms 
The fiercest animals with magic charms) 
Risk an intrusion on thy pensive mood. 
And woo and win thee to thy proper good. 
Pastoral images and still retreats. 
Umbrageous walks and soUtary seats. 
Sweet birds in concert with harmonious streams, 
Soft airs, nocturnal vigils, and day dreams. 
Are all enchantments in a case like thine. 
Conspire against thy peace with one design, 
Sooth thee to make thee but a surer prey. 
And feed the fire that wastes thy powers away. 
Up — God has formed thee with a wiser view, 
Not to be led in chains, but to subdue; 
Calls thee to cope with enemies, and first 
Points out a conflict with thyself, the worst. 
Woman indeed, a gift he would bestow, 
When he designed a Paradise below. 
The richest earthly boon his hands afford. 
Deserves to be beloved, but not adored. 
Post away swiftly to more active scenes. 
Collect the scattered truths that study glearus. 
Mix with the world, but with its wiser part, 
No longer give an image all tliine heart; 
Its empire is not hers, nor is it tliine, 
'Tis God's just claim, prerogative divine. 

Virtuous and faithful Heberden, whose skill 
Attempts no task it can not well fulfil. 
Gives melancholy up to Nature's care, 
And sends the patient into purer air. 
Look where he comes — in tliis embowered alcove 
Stand close concealed, and see a statue move: 
Lips busy, and eyes fixed, foot falling slow, 
Arms hanging idly down, hands clasped below, 
Interpret to the marking eye distress. 
Such as its symptoms can alone express. 
That tongue is silent now; that silent tongue 
Could argue once, could jest or join the song, 
Could give advice, could censure or commend, 
Or charm the sorrows of a drooping friend. 
Renounced alike its office and its sport, 
Its brisker and its graver strains fall short ; 
Both fail beneath a fever's secret sway, 
And like a simimer brook are past away. 
This is a sight for Pity to periise, 
Till she resemble faintly what she views. 
Till sympathy contract a kindred pain. 
Pierced with the woes that she laments in vain. 



RETIREMENT. 



51 



This, of all maladies that man infest, 
Claims most compassion, and receives the least : 
Job felt it, when he groaned beneath the rod 
And the barbed arrows of a frowning God ; 
And such, emollients as his friends could spare, 
Friends such as his for modern Jobs prepare. 
Blest, rather curst, with hearts that never feel, 
Kept snug in caskets of close hammered steel. 
With mouths made only to grin wide and eat, 
And minds, that deem derided pain a treat, 
With limbs of British oak, and nerves of wire, 
And wit that puppet-prompters might inspire, 
Their sovereign nostrum is a clumsy joke 
On pangs enforced Vidth God's severest stroke. 
But with a soul, that never felt tlie stmg 
Of sorrow, sorrow is a sacred thing : 
Not to molest, or irritate, or raise 
A laugh at his expense, is slender praise ; 
He, that has not usurped the name of man, 
Does all, and deems top httle all, he can, 
T' assuage the throbbings of the festered part, 
And stanch the bleedings of a broken heart. 
'Tis not, as heads that never ache suppose, 
Forgery of fancy, and a dream of woes ; 
Man is a Rarp, whose chords elude the sight, 
Each yielding harmony disposed aright ; 
The screws reversed (a task which, if he please, 
God in a moment executes with ease,) 
Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose. 
Lost, till he tune them, all their power and use. 
Then neither heathy wilds, nor scenes as fair 
As ever recompensed the peasant's care. 
Nor soft declivities with tufted hills. 
Nor view of waters turning busy mills, 
Parks in which Art preceptress Nature weds. 
Nor gardens interspersed with flowery beds. 
Nor gales, that catch the scent of blooming groves. 
And waft it to the mourner as he roves, 
Can call up hfe into his faded eye, 
'That passes all he sees miheeded by ; 
No wounds like those a wounded spirit feels. 
No cure for such till God, who makes them, heals. 
And thou, sad sufferer under nameless iU, 
That yields not to the touch of human skUI, 
Improve the kind occasion, understand 
A Father's frown, and kiss his chastning hand. 
To thee the day-spring, and the blaze of noon. 
The purple evening and resplendent noon. 
The stars, that, sprinkled o'er the vault of night. 
Seem drops descending in a shower of light. 
Shine not, or undesired and hated shine, 
Seen through the medium of a cloud like thine : 
Yet seek him, in his favour hfe is found. 
All bliss beside a shadow and a sound : 
Then heaven, ecUpsed so long, and this dull earth. 
Shall seem to start into a second birth ; 
Nature, assuming a more lovely face, 
Borrovsdng a beauty from the works of grace, 



Shall be despised and overlooked no more. 
Shall fill thee with delights unfclt licfore, 
Impart to things inanimate a voice. 
And bid her mountains and her hills rejoice ; 
The sound shall run along the winding vales, 
And thou enjoy an Eden ere it fails. 

Ye groves (the statesman at his desk exclaims, 
Sick of a thousand disappointed aims,) 
My patrunonial pleasure and my pride, 
Beneath your shades your gray possessor liide, 
Receive me languishing for that repose 
The servant of the public never knovfs. 
Ye saw me once (ah, those regretted days. 
When boyish innocence was all my praise !) 
Hour after hour delightfully allot 
To studies then famiUar, since forgot, 
And cultivate a taste for ancient song. 
Catching its ardour as I mused along; 
Nor seldom, as propitious Heaven might send, 
Wliat once I valued and could boast, a friend. 
Were witnesses how cordially I pressed 
His undissembling vulue to my breast ; 
Receive me now, not uncorrupt as then. 
Nor guiltless of corrupting other men, 
But versed in arts, that, while they seem to stay 
A faUing empire, hasten its decay, 
To the fair haven of my native home, 
The wreck of what I -was, fatigued I come; 
For once I can approve the patriot's voice. 
And make the course he recommends my choice ; 
We meet at last in one sincere desire. 
His wish and mine both prompt me to retire. 
'Tis done — he steps into the welcome chaise. 
Lolls at his ease behind four handsome bays. 
That whirl away from business and debate 
The disencumbered atlas of the state. 
Ask not the boy, who, when the breeze of morn 
First shakes the glittering drops from every thorn, 
Unfolds his flock, then under bank or bush 
Sits linldng cherry-stones, or platting rush, 
How fair is freedom 1 — he was always free ; 
To carve his rustic name upon a tree, 
To snare the mole, or with ill-fashioned hook, 
To draw th' incautious minnow from the brook, 
Are life's prime pleasures in his simple view ; 
His flock the chief concern he ever knevy ; 
She shines but httle in his heedless eyes. 
The good we never miss we rarely prize : 
But ask the noble drudge in state affairs. 
Escaped from office and its constant cares. 
What charms he sees in Freedom's smile express- 
ed. 
In Freedom lost so long, now repossessed ; 
The tongue, whose strains were cogent as com- 
mands, 
Revered at home, and felt in foreign lands, 
Shall own itself a stammerer in that cause, 
Or plead its silence as its best applause. 



52 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



He knows indeed that whether dressed or rude, 
Wild without art or artfully subdued, 
Nature in every form inspires delight. 
But never marked her with so just a sight, 
Her hedge-row shrubs, a variegated store, 
With woodbine and wild roses mantled o'er. 
Green balks and furrowed lands, the stream, that 

spreads 
Its cooUng vapour o'er the dewy meads, 
Downs, that almost escape tli' inquiring eye, 
That melt and fade into the cUstant sky. 
Beauties he lately slighted as he passed. 
Seem all created since he travelled last. 
Master of all the enjoyments he designed. 
No rough annoyance raiokling in his mind. 
What early philosophic hours he keeps, 
How regular his meals, how sound he sleeps [ 
Not sounder he, that on the mainmast head. 
While morning kindles with a windy red. 
Begins a long look-out for distant land. 
Nor quits till evening watch his giddy stand. 
Then swift descending with a seaman's haste. 
Slips to his hammock, and forgets the blast. 
He chooses company, but not the squire's, 
WTiose wit is rudeness, whose good-breading tires ; 
Nor yet the parson's, who would gladly come, 
Obsequious when abroad, though proud at home; 
Nor can he much affect the neighbouring peer. 
Whose toe of emulation treads too near; 
But wisely seeks a more convenient friend, 
With whom, dismissing forms, he may unbend I 
A man, whom marks of condescending grace 
Teach while they flatter him, his proper place ; 
Who comes when called, and at a word with- 
draws. 
Speaks mth resei-ve, and hstens with applause ; 
Some plain mechanic, who, without pretence 
To birth or wit, nor gives nor takes offence ; 
On whom he rests well-pleased his weary powers. 
And talks and laughs away his vacant hours. 
The tide of life, swiil always in its course, 
May run in cities with a brisker force. 
But nowhere with a current so serene. 
Or half so clear, as in the rural scene. 
Yet how fallacious is all earthly bliss. 
What obvious truths the wisest heads may miss ; 
Some pleasures Uve a month, and some a year, 
But short the date of all we gather here ; 
No happiness is felt, except the true. 
That does not charm the more for being new. 
This observation, as it chanced, not made. 
Or, if the thought occurred, not duly weighed, 
He sighs — for after all by slow degrees 
The spot he loved has lost the power to please ; 
To cross his ambling pony day by day, 
Seems at the best but dreaming life away; 
The prospect, such as might enchant despair. 
He views it not, or sees no beauty there ; 



With acliing heart, and discontented looks. 

Returns at noon to billiards or to books. 

But feels, wliile grasping at his faded joys, 

A secret thirst of his renounced employs. 

He chides the tardiness of every post, 

Pants to be told of battles won or lost. 

Blames his own indolence, observes, though late, 

'Tis criminal to leave a sinking state. 

Flies to the levee, and, received with grace, 

Kneels, kisses hands, and shines again in place.' 

Suburban villas, highway-side retreats. 
That dread th' encroachment of our growing 

streets. 
Tight boxes neatly sashed, and in a blaze 
With all a July sun's collected rays, 
Delight the citizen, who, gasping there, 
Breathes clouds of dust, and calls it country air. 
O sweet retirement, who would balk the thought, 
That could afford retirement, or could not 1 
'Tis such an easy walk, so smooth and straight, 
The second milestone fronts the garden gate; 
A step if fair, and if a shower approach. 
You find safe shelter in the next stage-coach, 
Tljere, prisoned in a parlour -snug and sjjiall, 
Like bottled wasps upon a southern wall. 
The man of business and his fiiends compressed, 
Forget their labours, and yet find no rest; 
But still, 'tis rural — trees arc to be seen 
From every window, and the fields are green ; 
Ducks paddle in the pond before the door. 
And what could a remoter scene show more 1 
A sense of elegance we rarely find 
The portion of a mean or vulgar mind, 
And ignorance of better things makes man, 
Who can not much, rejoice in what the can. 
And he, that deems his leisure well bestowed 
In contemplation of a turnpike-road, 
Is occupied as well, employs his hours 
As wisely, and as much improves his powers 
As he, that slumbers in pavilions graced 
With all the charms of an accomplished taste. 
Yet hence, alas ! insolvencies ; and hence 
Th' unpitied victim of ill-judged expense. 
From all his wearisome engagements freed. 
Shakes hands with business and retires indeed. 

Your prudent grand-mammas, ye modern belles, 
Content with Bristol, Bath, and Tunbridge-wells, 
When health required it would consent to roam, 
Else more attached to pleasures found at home. 
But now alike, gay widow, virgin, wife. 
Ingenious to diversify dull life, 
In coaches, chaises, caravans, and hoys. 
Fly to the coast for daily, nightly joys ; 
And all, unpaticnt of dry land, agree 
With one consent to rash into the sea. — 
Ocean exhiliits, fiithomless and broad, 
Much of "the power and majesty of God. 



RETIREMENT. 



53 



He swathes about the sweUing of the deep, 
That shines and rests, as infants smile and sleep ; 
Vast as it is, it answers as it flows 
The breathings of the lightest air that blows ; 
Curling and whitening over all the waste, 
The rising waves obey th' increasing blast, 
Abrupt and horrid as the tempest roars. 
Thunder and flash upon the steadfast shores. 
Till he, that rides the whirlwind, checks the rain, 
Then all the world of waters sleep agam.— 
Nereids or Dryads, as the fashion leads. 
Now in the floods, now panting in the meads, 
Votaries of Pleasure still, where'er she dwells. 
Near barren rocks, in palaces, or cells, 

grant a poet leave to recommend 

(A poet fond of Nature, and j'our friend) 
Her slighted works to your admiring view ; 
Her works must needs excel, who fashioned you. 
Would ye, when rambling in your morning ride. 
With some unmeaning coxcomb at your side, 
Condenm the prattler for his idle pains, 
To waste miheard the music of his strains, 
And, deaf to all th' impertinence of tongue. 
That, while it courts, affronts and does you wrong, 
Mark well the finished plan without a fault, 
The seas globose and huge, th' o'erarching vault, 
Earth's milUons daily fed, a world employed, 
In gathering plenty yet to be enjoyed, 
Till gratitude grew vocal in the praise 
Of God, beneficent in all his ways ; 
Graced with such wisdom, how would beauty shine ! 
Ye want but that to seem indeed divine. 

Anticipated rents, and bills unpaid. 
Force many a shining youth into the shade, 
Not to redeem his time, but his estate. 
And play the fool, but at a cheaper rate. 
There, hid in loathed obscurity, removed 
From pleasures left, but never more beloved, 
He just endures, and with a sickly spleen 
Sighs o'er the beauties of the charming scene. 
Nature indeed looks prettily in rhyme ; 
Streams tinkle sweetly in poetic chime : 
The warbUngs of the blackbird, clear and strong. 
Are musical enough in Thomson's song ; 
And Cobham's groves, and Windsor's green re- 
treats. 
When Pope describes them, have athousand sweets; 
He likes the country, but in truth must own 
Most Ukes it, when he studies it in town. 

Poor Jack — no matter who — for when I blame 

1 pity, and must therefore sink the name. 
Lived in his saddle, loved the chase, the course. 
And always, ere he mounted, kissed his horse. 
The estate, his sires had owned in ancient years. 
Was quickly distanced, matched against a peer's. 
Jack vanished, was regretted and forgot ; 

'Tis wild good-nature's never-failing lot. 

At length, when all had long supposed him dead, 

By cold submersion, razor, rope, or lead. 



My lord, alighting at his usual place. 
The Crown, took notice of an ostler's face. 
Jack knew his friend, but hoped in that disguise 
He might escape the most observing eyes, 
And whistling, as if unconcerned and gay, 
Curried his nag, and looked another way. 
Convinced at last, upon a nearer view, 
'Twas he, the same, the very Jack he knew, 
O'erwhelmcd at once with wonder, grief, and joy, 
He pressed liim much to quit his base employ ; 
His countenance, his purse, his heart, his hand, 
Influence and power were all at his command : 
Peers are not always generous as well bred. 
But Granby was, meant truly what he said. 
Jack bowed, and was obliged — confessed 'twas 

strange, 
That so retired he should not vsdsh a change. 
But knew no medium between guzzling beer. 
And his old stint — three thousand pounds a yeai. 

Thus some retire to nourish hopeless wo ; 
Some seeking happiness not found below ; 
Some to comply with humour, and a mind 
To social scenes by nature disinclined ; 
Some swayed by fashion, some by deep disgust ; 
Some self-impoverished, and because they must ; 
But few, that court Retirement, are aware 
Of half the toils they must encounter there. 

Lucrative offices are seldom lost 
For want of powers proportioned to the post : 
Give e'en a dunce th' employment he desires, 
And he soon finds the talents it requires ; 
A business with an income at its heels 
Furnishes always oil for its own wheels. 
But in his arduous enterprise to close 
His active years with indolent repose, 
He finds the labours of that state exceed 
His utmost faculties, severe indeed. 
'Tis easy to resign a toilsome place. 
But not to manage leisure with a grace ; 
Absence of occupation is not rest, 
A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed. 
The veteran steed, excused his task at length, 
In kind compassion of his failing strength. 
And turned into the park or mead to graze. 
Exempt from future service all his days. 
There feels a pleasure perfect in its kind. 
Ranges at liberty, and snuiTs the wind : 
But when his lord would quit the busy road, 
To taste a joy hke that he had bestowed, 
He proves less happy than his favoured brute, 
A hfe of ease a difficult pursuit. 
Thought, to the man that never thinks, may seem 
As natural as when asleep to dream ; 
But reveries (for human minds will act) 
Specious in show, impossible in fact, 
Those flimsy webs, that break as soon as wrought, 
Attain not to the dignity of thought : 
Nor yet the swarms that occupy the brain. 
Where dreams of dress, intrigue, and pleasure reign ; 



54 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Nor such as useless conversation breeds, 
Or lust engenders, and indulgence feeds. 
Whence, and what are wcl to what end ordained 1 
What means the drama by the world sustained 1 
Business or vain amusement, care or mirth, 
Dinde the frail inhabitants of earth. 
Is duty a mere sport, or an employ 1 
Life an intrusted talent, or a toy 1 
Is there, as reason, conscience, Scripture, say, 
Cause to provide for a great future day. 
When, earth's assigned duration at an end, 
Man shall be summoned and the dead attend 1 
The trmnpet — will it sound, the curtain rise, 
And show th' august tribunal of the skies ; 
Where no prevarication shall avail. 
Where eloquence and artifice shall fail, 
The pride of arrogant distinctions fall, . 

And conscience and our conduct judge us all 1 
Pardon me, ye that give the midnight oil 
To learned cares, or philosopliic toil, 
Though I revere your honourable names, 
Your useful labours and important aims. 
And hold the world indebted to your aid, 
Enriched with the discoveries ye have made ; 
Yet let me stand excused, if I esteem 
A mind employed on so sublime a theme. 
Pushing her bold inquiry to the date 
And outline of the present transient state. 
And, after poising her adventurous wings. 
Settling at last upon eternal things, 
Far more intelligent and better taught 
The strenuous use of profitable thought. 
Than ye, when happiest, and enlightened most, 
And highest in renown, can justly boast. 

A mind unnerved, or indisposed to bear 
The weight of subjects worthiest of her care. 
Whatever hopes a change of scene inspires. 
Must change her nature, or in vain retires. 
An idler is a watch, that wants both heftids, 
As useless if it goes, as when it stands. 
Books, therefore, not the scandal of the shelves. 
In which lewd sensualists print out themselves ; 
Nor those, in which the stage gives vice a blow, 
With what success let modern manners show ; 
Nor his, who, for the bane of thousands born, 
Built God a church, and laughed his word to scorn, 
Skilful alike to seem devout and just. 
And stab religion with a sly side-thrust ; 
Nor those of learned philologists, who chase 
A panting syllable through time and space. 
Start at it home, and hunt it in the dark, 
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark ; 
But such as Learning without false pretence, 
The friend of Truth, th' associate of good Sense, 
And such as, in the zeal of good design, 
Strong judgment labouring in the Scripture mine. 
All such as manly and great souls produce, 
Worthy to hve, and of eternal use : 



Behold in these what leisure hours demand, 
Amusement and true knowledge hand in hand. 
Luxury gives the mind a childish cast, 
And, while she polishes, perverts the taste; 
Habits of close attention, thinking heads, 
Become more rare as dissipation spreads, 
Till authors hear at length one general cry, — 
Tickle and entertain us, or we die. 
The loud demand, from year to year the same, 
Beggars Invention, and makes Fancy lame; 
Till farce itself, most mournfully jejune, 
Calls for the Idnd assistance of a tune ; 
And novels (witness every month's -review 
Behe their name, and offer nothing new. 
The mind, relaxing into needful sport, 
Should turn to writers of an abler sort, 
Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, 
Give truth a lustre, and make vrisdom smile. 
Friends (for I can not stint, as some have done, 
Too rigid in my vievv, that name to one ; 
Though one, I grant it, in the generous breast 
Will stand advanced a step above the rest ; 
Flowers by that name promiscuously we call. 
But one, the rose, the regent of them all) — 
Friends, not adopted with a schoolboy's haste, 
But chosen with a nice discerning taste; 
Well-born, well-disciplined, who, placed apart 
From vulgar minds, have honour much at heart, 
And, though the world may think th' ingredients 

odd. 
The love of virtue, and the fear of God ! 
Such friends prevent what else would soon succeed, 
A temper rustic as the life we lead. 
And keep the pohsh of the 'manners clean 
As theirs who bustle in the busiest scene ; 
For solitude, however some may rave. 
Seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave, 
A sepulchre in wliich the living he, 
Where all good quaUties grow sick and die. 
I praise the Frenchman,* his remark was shrewd- 
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude ! 
But grant me still a friend in my retreat. 
Whom I may whisper — solitude is sweet. 
Yet neither these delights, nor aught beside, 
That appetite can ask, or wealth provide, 
Can save us always from a tedious day. 
Or shine the dullness of still life away : 
Divine communion, carefully enjoyed. 
Or sought with energy, must fill the void. 
O sacred art, to which alone life owes 
Its happiest seasons, and a peaceftil close. 
Scorned in a world, indebted to that scorn 
For evils daily felt and hardly borne. 
Not knowing thee, we reap with bleeding hands 
Flowers of rank odour upon thorny lands. 
And, while Experience cautions us in vain, 
Grasp seeming happiness, and find it pain. 



* Bniyere. 



RETIREMENT. 



55 



Despondence", self-deserted in her grief, 

Lost by abandoning her own relief, 

Murmuring and ungrateful Discontent, 

That scorns afflictions mercifully meant, 

Those humours, tart as wine upon the fret. 

Which idleness and weariness beget; 

These, and a thousand plagues, that haunt the 

breast, 
Fond of the phantom of an earthly regt, 
Divine communion chases, as the day 
Drives to their dens th' obedient beasts of prey. 
See Judah's promised king bereft of all, 
Driven out an exUe from the face of Saul, 
To distant caves the lonely wanderer flies. 
To seek that peace a tyrant's firown denies. 
Hear the sweet accents of his tuneful voice, 
Hear him, o'erwhelmed with sorrow, yet rejoice; 
No womanish or waUing grief has part, 
No, not for a moment, in his royal heart; 
'Tis manly music, such as martyrs make, 
Suffering with gladness fo^ a Savioiu-'s sake; 
His soul exults, hope animates his lays, 
The sense of mercy Idndles into praise, 
And wilds, famiUar with a lion's roar. 
Ring vnth ecstatic sounds unheard before : 
'Tis love like his, that can alone defeat 
The foes of man, or make a desert sweet. 



Religion does not censure or exclude 
Unnumbered pleasures harmlessly pursued; 
To study culture, and with artful toil 
To meliorate and tame the stubborn soil ; 
To give dissimilar yet fruitful lands 
The grain, or herb, or plant that each demands; 
To cherish virtue in an humble state, 
And share the joys your bounty may create; 
To mark the matchless workings of the power 
That shuts within its seed the future flower, 
Bids these in elegance of form excel, 
In colour these, and those delight the smell, 
Sends Nature forth the daughteir of the skies. 
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes; 
To teach the canvass innocent deceit. 
Or lay the landscape on the snowy sheet — 
These, these are arts pursued without a crime, 
That leave no stain upon the wing of Time. 

Me poetry (or rather notes that aim 
Feebly and vainly at poetic fame) 
Employs, shut out frorn more important views, 
Fast by the banks of the slow winding Ouse; 
Content if thus sequestered I may raise 
A monitor's though not a poet's pra.ise. 
And while I teach an art too little known, 
To close life wisely, may not waste my own. 



Kfit ^ai^lt. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The history of the following production is briefly this: A lady, fond of blank verse, demanded a poem of that kind from 
the author, and gave him the SOFA for a subject. He obeyed; and having much leisure, connected another subject with 
it; and pursuing the train of thought to which his situation and tiuTi of mind led him, brought forth at length, instead 
of the trifle which he at first intended, a seriotis affair — a Volume. 

In the poem on the subject of Education, he would be very sorry to stand suspected of having aimed his censure at any 
particular school. His objections are sucli, as naturally apply themselves to schools in general. If there were not, as for 
the most part there is, wilful neglect in those who manage them, and an omission even of such discipline as they are sus- 
ceptible of, the objects are yet too numerous for minute attention ; and the aching hearts of ten thousand parents, mourning 
under the bitterest of all disappointments, attest the truth of the allegation. His quarrel, therefore, is with the mischief at 
large, and not with any particular instance of it. 



THE SOFA. 



ARGUMENT. 

Historical deduction of seats, from the Stool to the Sofa. — A Schoolboy's ramble. — A walk in the country. — The scene 
described. — Rural sounds as weU as sights delightful. — ^Another walk — Mistake concerning the charms of solitude corrected. — 
Colonnades commended. — Alcove, and the view from it. — The wilderness. — The grove. — The thresher. — The necessity and 
the benefits of exercise. — The works of nature superior to, and in some instances inimitable by, art'. — The wearisomeness 
of what is commonly called a life of pleasiure. — Change of scene sometimes expedient. — ^A common described, and the 
character of crazy Kate introduced. — Gipsies. — ^The blessings of civilized life. — That state most favourable to virtue. — The 
South Sea islanders compassionated, hut chiefly Omai.— His present state of mind supposed.— Civilized life friendly to 
virtue, but not great cities. — Great cities, and London in particular, allowed their due praises, but censurfed. — ^Fete 
Champetre. — The book concludes with a reflection on the fatal effects of dissipation and effeminacy upon our public 
measures 



I sixG the Sofa, I, who lately sang 
Truth, Hope, and Charity, and touched with awe 
The solemn chords, and with a trembling hand, . 
Escaped with pain from that adventurous fliffht, 
5. 



Now seek repose upon an humbler theme; 
The theme though himible, yet august and proud 
Th' occasion — for the Fair commands the song. 
Time was, when clothing sumptuous or for use, 



56 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Save their own painted skins, our sires had none. 
As yet black breeches were not; satin smooth, 
Or velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pUe ; 
The hardy chief upon the rugged rock 
Washed by the sea, or on the gravelly bank ■ 
Thrown up by wintry torrents roaring loud. 
Fearless of wrong, reposed his weary strength. 
Those barbarous ages past, sjicceeded next 
The birth-day of invention ; weak at first, 
Dull in design, and clumsy to perform. 
Joint-stools were then created ; on three legs 
Upborne they stood. Three legs upholding firm 
A massy slab, in fashion square or round. 
On such, a stool immortal Alfred sat. 
And swayed the sceptre of his infant realms :' 
And such in ancient halls and mansions drear 
May still be seen ; but perforated sore. 
And drilled in holes, the sohd oak is found, 
By worms voracious eaten through and through. 

At length a generation more refined 
Improved the simple plan ; made three legs four. 
Gave them a twisted form vermicular, 
And o'er the seat with plenteous wadding stuffed. 
Induced a splendid cover, green and blue. 
Yellow and red, of tapestry richly wrought 
And woven close, or needlework sublime. 
There might you see the piony spread wide. 
The full blown rose, the shepherd and his lass, 
Lapdog and lambkin with black staring eyes, 
And parrots with twin cherries in their beak. 

Now came the cane from India, smooth and bright 
With Nature's varnish ; severed into stripes. 
That interlaced each other, these supplied 
Of texture firm a lattice-work, that braced 
The new machine, and it became a chair. 
But restless .was the chair ; the back erect 
Distressed the weary loins, that felt no ease ; 
The slippery seat betrayed the sliding part 
That pressed it, and the feet hung dangling down. 
Anxious in vain, to find the distant floor. 
These for the rich ; the rest, whom Fate had placed 
In modest mediocrity, content 
With base materials, sat on well tanned ludes, 
. Obdurate and unyielding, glassy smooth. 
With here and there a tuft of crimson yarn, 
Or scarlet crewel, in the cushion fixed. 
If cushion might be called, what harder seemed 
Than the firm oak, of wliich the frame was formed. 
No want of timber then was felt or- feared 
In Albion's happy isle. The lumber stood 
Ponderous and fixed by its own massy weight. 
But elbows still were wanting : these, some say 
An alderman of Cripplcgatc contrived ; 
And some ascribe th' invention to' a priest. 
Burly, and big, and studious of his case. 
But rude at first, and not v^ath easy slope 
Receding wide, they pressed against the ribs, 
And bruised the side ; and, elevated high. 
Taught the raised shoulders to invade the ears. 



Long time elapsed or e'er our rugged sires 
Complained, though incommodiously pent in, 
And ill at ease beliind. . The ladies first 
'Gan miimiur, as became the softer sex. 
Ingenious Fancy, never better pleased, 
Than when employed t' accommodate the fair, 
Heard the sweet moan with pity, and devised 
The soft settee ; one elbow at each. end. 
And in the i^tidst an elbow it received, 
United yet divided, twain at once. 
So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne ; 
And so two citizens, who 'take the air, 
Close packed, and smiling, in a chaise and one. 
But relaxation of the languid Irame, . 
Was bliss reserved for happier days. So slow 
The growth of what is excellent ; so hard 
T' attain -perfection in this nether world. 
Thus first necessity invented stools, 
Convenience next suggested elbow chairs. 
And Luxury th' accomphshed Sofa last. 

The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick, 
Whom snoring she disturbs. As sweetly he. 
Who quits the coach-box at the midnight hour, 
To sleep within the carriage more secure, 
His legs depending at the open door. 
Sweet sleep enjoys the curate m his desk, 
The tedious rector drawling o'er liis head ; 
And sweet the clerk below. But neither sleep 
Of lazy nurse, who snores the sick man dead ; • 
Nor his, who .quits the box at midnighi hour, 
To slumber in the carriage more secure ; 
Nor sleep enjoyed by curate in his desk ;■ 
Nor yet the dozings of the clerk, are sweet, 
Compared with the repose the Sofa yields. 

O may I live exempted (wlfile I live 
Guiltless of pampered appetite obscene) 
From pangs arthritic, that infest the toe 
Of libertine Excess. The Sofa suits 
The gouty limb, 'tis true : but gouty limb 
Though on a Sofa, may I never feel; 
For I have loved the rural walk through lanes 
Of grassy swarth, close cropped by nibbling sheep^ 
And skirted thick with intertexture firm 
Of thorny boughs ; have loved the rural walk 
O'er hills, through valleys, and by rivers' brink, 
E'er since a truant boy I passed mybounds, 
T' enjoy a ramble on the banks of Thames : 
And still remember nor without regret 
Of hours, that sorrow since has much endeared, 
How oft, my slice of pocket store consumed. 
Still hungering, pcnnyless, and far from home, 
I fed on scarlet hips and stony haws. 
Or blushing crabs, or berries, that emboss 
The bramble, black as jet, or sloes austere. 
Hard fare ! but such as boyish appetite 
Disdains not ; nor the palate, rmdepraved 
By cuhnary arts, unsavoury deems. 
No Sofa then awaited my return ; 
Nor Sofa then I needed. Youth repairs 



THE TASK. 



57 



His wasted spirits quickly, by long toil 
Incurring short fatigue ; and tliougli our years, 
As life declines, speed rapidly away. 
And not a year but pilfers as he goes 
Some youthful grace, that age would gladly keep ; 
A tooth or aubm-n lock, and by degrees 
Their length and colour from the locks they spare ; 
Th' elastic sprmg of an unwearied foot, 
That mounts the stile with ease, or leaps the fence, 
That play of lungs, inhaUng and again 
Respiring freely the fresh air, that makes 
Swifl pace or steep ascent, no toil to me. 
Mine have not pilfered yet, nor yet impaired 
My relish of fair prospect ; scenes that soothed 
Or channed me young, no longer young, I find 
Still soothing, and of power to charm me still. 
And witness, dear companion of my walks, 
Whose ami this twentieth winter I perceive 
Fast locked in mine, with pleasure such as love, 
Confirmed by long experience of thy worth 
And well tried virtues could alone inspire — 
Witness a joy that thou hast doubted long. 
Thou knowest my praise of nature most sincere, 
And that my raptures are not conjured up 
To serve occasions of poetic pomp. 
But genuine, and art partner of them all. 
How oft upon yon eminence our pace 
Has slackened to a pause, and we have borne 
The ruiHing wind, scarce conscious that it blew, 
While admiration, feeding at the eye. 
And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene. 
Thence with what pleasure have we just discerned 
The distant plough slow moving, and beside 
His labouring team, that swerved not from the track, 
The sturdy swain diminished to a boy 1 • 
Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain 
Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er. 
Conducts the eye along his sinuous course 
Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank, 
Stand, never overlooked, our favourite elms, 
That screens the herdsman's soUtary hut ; 
WTiile far beyond, and overthwart the stream. 
That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale, 
The sloping land recedes into the clouds ; 
Displayiiig on its varied side the grace 
Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower. 
Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerftd bells 
J ust undulates upon the listening ear, • • 
Groves, heaths, and smoking villages, remote. 
Scenes must be beautiful, which daily viewed 
Please daily, and whose novelty survives 
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years : 
Praise justly due to those that I. describe. 

Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, 
Exhilarate the spirit and restore 
The tone of languid Nature. Mighty winds, 
That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood 
Of ancient growth, make music not unlike 
The dash of Ocean on his winding shore. 



And lull the spirit while they fill the mind ; 

Unnumbered branches waving in the blast. 

And all their leaves fast fluttering, all at once. 

Nor less composure waits Upon the roar 

Of distant floods, or on the softer voice 

Of neighbourmg fountain, or of rills that slip 

Through the cleft rock, and, chiming as they fall 

Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length 

111 matted grass, that with a livelier green . 

Betrays the secret of their silent course. 

Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds, 

But'animated nature sweeter still, 

To sooth and satisfy the human ear. ■ 

Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one 

The livelong night : nor these alone, whose notes 

Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain. 

But cawing rooks, and kites that swim subhme 

In still repeated circles, screaming loud. 

The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl, 

That hails the rising moon, have charms for me. 

Sounds inliarmonious in themselves and harsh, 

Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns, 

And only there, please highly for their sake. 

Peace to the artist whose ingenious thought 

Devised the weather-house, that useful toy ! 

Fearless of humid air and gathering rains, 

Forth steps the man — an emblem of myself! 

More deUcate his timorous mate retires. 

When Winter soaks the fields, and female feet. 

Too weak to struggle with tenacious clay. 

Or ford the rivulets, are best at home. 

The task of new discoveries falls on me. 

At such a season, and with such a charge, 

Once went I forth ; and found, till then unknown, 

A cottage, whither oft we since repair; 

'Tis perched upon the green hill tops, but close 

Environed with a ring of brandling elms, 

That overhang the thatch, itself unseen 

Peeps at tlie vale below; so thick beset 

With foliage of such dark redundant growth, 

I called the low^roofed lodge the peasant's nest. 

And, hidden as it is, and far remote 

From such unpleasing sounds, as haunt the ear 

In village or in town, the bay of curs 

Incessant, clinking hammers, grinding wheels, 

And infants clamorous, whether pleased or pained, 

Oft have I wished the peaceful covert mine. 

Here, I have said, at least I should possess 

The poet's treasure, silence, and indulge 

The dreams of fancy, tranquil and secure. 

Vain thought ! the dweller in that still retreat 

Dearly obtains the refuge it affords. 

Its elevated site forbids the wretch 

To drink sweet waters of the crystal well ; 

He dips the bowl into the weedy ditch, 

And, heavy laden, brings his beverage home, 

Far fetched and little worth ; nor seldom waits, 

Dependent on the baker's pxmctual call, 

To hear his creaking panniers at the door, 



58 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Angry and sad, and his last crust consumed. 
So farewell em'y of the peasant's nest! 
If solitude makes scant the means of life, 
Society for me ! — thou seeming sweet, 
Be still a pleasing object in my view ; 
My visit still,- but never mine abode. 

Not distant far, a length of colonnade 
Invites us. Monument of ancient taste. 
Now scorned, but worthy of a better fate. 
Our fathers knew the value of a screen 
From sultry suns : and, in their shaded walks 
And long protracted bowers, enjoyed at noon ■ 
The gloom and coolness of dechning day. 
We bear our shades about us ; self-deprived 
Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, 
And range an Indian waste without a tree. 
Thanks to Benevolus* he spares me yet 
These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines ; 
And, though himself so pohshed, still reprieves 
The obsolete prolixity of shade. 

Descending now (but cautious, lest too fast) 
A sudden steep, upon a rustic bridge ■ 
We pass a gulf, in which the willows dip 
Their pendent boughs, stooping as if to drink. 
Hence, ankle deep in moss and flowery thyme, 
We mount again, and feci at every step 
Our foot half sunk in hillocks green and soft, 
Raised by the mole, the miner of the soil. 
He, not unhke the great ones of mankind. 
Disfigures Earth : and, plotting in the dark. 
Toils much to earn a monumental pile, 
That may record the mischiefs he has done. 

The summit gained, behold the proud alcove 
That crowns it ! yet not all its pride secures 
The grand retreat from injuries impressed 
By rural carvers, who with knives deface 
The pannels, leaving an obscure, rude name. 
In characters uncouch, and spelt ainiss. 
So strong the zeal to immortalize himself 
Beats in the breast of inan, that e'en a few. 
Few transient years, won from th' ^byss abhorred 
Of blank oblivion, seem a glorious prize. 
And even to a clown. Now roves the eye ; 
And, posted on this speculative height. 
Exults in its command. The sheepfold here 
Pours out its fleecy tenants o'er thp glebe. 
At first, progressive as a stream, they seek 
The middle field; but scattered by degrees. 
Each to his choice, soon whiten all the land. 
There from the sun-burnt hayfield homeward 

creeps 
The loaded wain ; while, lightened of its charge, 
The wain that meets it passes swiftly by; 
The boorish driver leaning o'er his team 
Vociferous, and impatient of delay. 
Nor less attractive is the woodland scene. 



■ John Courtney Throckmorion, Esq. of Weslon Umlcr- ' 
wood. 



Diversified with trees of every growth, 
Alike, yet various. Here the gray smooth trunks 
Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine. 
Within the twilight of their distant shades; 
There, lost behind a rising ground, the wood 
Seems sunk, and shortened to its topmast boughs. 
No tree in all the grove but has its charms, 
Though each its hue peculiar; paler some, 
And of a wanish gray; the willow such. 
And poplar, that with silver lines his leaf, 
And ash far stretching his umbrageous arm; 
Of deeper green the elm; and deeper still. 
Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak. 
Some glossy-leaved, and shining in the sun, 
The maple, and the beech of oily nuts 
Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve 
Diflfusing odours: nor unnoted pass 
The sycamore, capricious in attire. 
Now green, riow tawny, and ere autumn yet 
Have changed the woods, in scarlet honours . 

blight. 
O'er these, but far beyond (a spacious map 
Of hill and valley interposed between,) 
The Ouse dividing the well-watered land. 
Now gutters in the sun, and now retires, 
As, bashful, yet impatient to be seen. 

Hence the declivity is sharp and short, ■ 
And such the reascent; between them weeps 
A little naiad her impoverished urn 
AU summer long, which winter fills again. 
The folded gates would bar my progress now, 
But that the lord* of this enclosed demesne, 
Communicative of the good he owns, . 
Admits me to a share ; the guiltless eye 
Commits no wrong, nor wastes what it enjoys. 
Refreshing change ! where now the blazing suni 
By short transition we have lost his glare. 
And stepped at once into a cooler cUmc. 
Ye fallen avenues! once more I mourn 
Your fate unmerited, once more rejoice 
That yet a remnant of your rac6 survives. 
How airy and how light the graceftd arch. 
Yet awful as the consecrated roof 
Re-echoing pious anthems ! while beneath 
The checkered earth seems restless as a flood 
Brushed by the wind. So sportive is the light 
Shot through the boughs, it dances as they dance. 
Shadow and sunshine intermingling quick,. 
And darkening and enhghtening, as the leaves 
Play wanton, every moment, every spot. 

And now, with nerves new-braced and spirits 
cheered, 
We tread the wilderness, whose well-rolled walks, 
With curvature of slow and easy sweep — 
Deception innocent — give ample space 
To narrow bounds. The grove receives us next; 

' See the foiegoio!' note. 



THE TASK. 



59 



Between the upright shafts of whose tall elms 
We may discern the thresher at his task. 
Thiunp after thump resounds the constant flail, 
That seems to swing uncertain, and yet falls 
Full on the destined ear. Wide flies the chaif, 
The rustling straw sends up a frequent mist 
Of atoms, sparkhng in the noonday beam. 
Come hither, ye that press your beds of down, 
And sleep not; see him sweating o'er his bread 
Before he eats it. 'Tis the primal curse, 
But softened into mercy; and made the pledge 
Of cheeriful days, and nights without a groan. 

By ceaseless action all that is subsists. 
Constant rotation of th' unwearied wheel. 
That nature rides upon, maintains her health, 
Her beauty, her fertility. She dreads 
An instant's pause, and lives but whUe she moves 
Its own revolvency upholds the world. 
Winds from all quarters agitate the air, 
And fit the limpid element for use. 
Else noxious ; oceans,- rivers, lakes, and streams, 
All feel the freshening impulse, and are cleansed 
By restless undulation; e'en the oak 
Thrives by the rude concussion of the storm: 
He seems indeed indignant,' and to feel 
Th' impression of the blast with proud disdain, 
Frovraing,- as if in his unconscious arm 
He held the thunder: bat the monarch owes 
His firm stability to what he scorns. 
More fixed below, the more disturbed above. ' 
The law, by which all creatures else are bound, 
Binds man, the lord of all. Himself derives 
No mean advantage fi'om a kindred cause, 
From strenuous toil liis hours of sweetest ease. 
The sedentary stretch their lazy length 
When Custom bids, but no refreshment find, 
For none they need: the languid eye, the cheek 
Deserted of its bloom, the flaccid, shrunk. 
And withered muscle, and the vapid soul, 
Reproach their owner with that love of rest. 
To which he forfeits e'en the rest he loves. 
Not such the alert and active. Measure life 
By its true worth, the comfort it afTords, 
And theirs alone seems worthy of the name. 
Good health, and, its associate in the most. 
Good temper ; spirits prompt to undertake. 
And not soon spent, though in an arduous task; 
The powers of fancy and strong thought are theirs ; 
E'en age itself seems privileged in them 
With clear exemption from its own defects. 
A sparkling eye beneath a wrinkled front 
The veteran shows, and gracing a gray beard 
With youthful smiles, descends toward the grave 
Sprightly and old almost without decay. 

Like a coy maiden. Ease, when courted most. 
Farthest retires — an idol, at whose shrine 
Who oftenest sacrifice are favoiued least. 
The love of Nature, and the scenes she draws 



Is Nature's dictate. Strange! there should be 

found 
Who, sdf-imprisoned in their proud saloons,' 
Renounce the odours of the open field 
For the unscented fictions of the loom: 
Who, satisfied with only pencilled, scenes, • 
Prefer to the performance of a God 
Th' inferior wonders of an artist's hand ! 
Lovely indeed the mimic works of Art; 
But Nature's works far lovelier. I admire. 
None more admires, the painter's magic skill, 
Who shows me that wliich I shall never see, 
Conveys a distant country into mine. 
And throws Italian light on English walls : 
But imitative strokes can do no more 
Than please the eye — sweet Nature's every sense, 
The air salubrious of her lofty hills. 
The cheering fragrance of her dewy vale.s • 
And music of lier woods — no works of man 
May rival these, these all bespeak a power 
Peculiar, and exclusively her own. 
Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast; 
'Tis free to all — 'tis every day renewed; 
Who scorns it starves deservedly at home. 
He doeainot scorn it, who, imprisoned long 
In some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey 
To sallow sickness, which the vapours, dank 
And clammy, of his dark abode have bred, 
Escapes at last to hberty and hght: 
His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue ; 
His eye relumines its extinguished fires ; 
He walks, he leaps, he runs — is winged with joy. 
And riots in the sweets of every breeze. 
He does not scorn it, who has long endured 
A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs. 
Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflamed 
With acrid salts: his very heart athirst, 
To gaze at Nature in her green array, 
Upon the ship's tall side he stands, possessed 
With visions prompted by intense desire : 
Fair fields appear below, such as he left 
Far distant, such as he would die to find — 
He seeks them headlong, and is seen no more. 
The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns, 
The lowering eye, thfe petulance,'the frown. 
And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, 
And mar the face of beauty, when no cause 
For such umheasurable wo appears. 
These Flora banishes, and gives the fair 
Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her 

own. 

It is the constant revolution, stale 
And tasteless, of the same repeated joys, 
That palls and satiates, and makes languid life 
A pedler's pack, that bows the bearer down. 
Health suffers, and the spirits ebfi, the heart 
Recoils firom its own choice — at the full feast 
Is famished — finds no music in the song. 
No smartness in the jest; and wonders why. 



CO 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Yet. thousands still desire to journey on, 
Though halt, and weary of the path they tread. 
The paralytic, who can hold her cards, 
But can not play them, borrows a friend's hand 
To deal and shufHe, to divide and sort 
Her mingled suits and sequences ; and sits, 
Spectatress both and spectacle, a sad 
And silent cipher, wliile her proxy plays. 
Others arc dragged into the crowded room 
Between supporters ; and, once seated, sit, 
Through downright inability to rise, 
Till the stout bearers hflthe corpse again. 
These speak a loud memento. Yet e'en these 
Themselves love Ufe, and chng to it, as he, 
That overhangs a torrent, to a twig. 
They love it, and yet loath it; fear to die, 
Yet scorn the purposes for which they hve. 
Then wherefore not renounce them 1 No — the 

dread, 
The slavish dread of solitude, that breeds 
Reflection and remorse, the fear of shame. 
And their inveterate habits, all forbid. 

Whom call we gay'? That honour has been long 
The boast of mere pretenders to the name. 
The innocent are gay, the lark is gay. 
That dries his feathers, saturate with dew, ' -i "' 
Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams 
Of dayspring overshoot his humble nest. 
The peasant too, a witness of his song. 
Himself a songster, is as gay as he. 
But save me from the gay ety of those, . 
Whose headachs nail them to a noonday bed ; 
And save me too from theirs, whose haggard eyes 
Flash desperation and betray their pangs 
For property stripped off by cruel chance ; 
Fromgayety, that fills the bones with pain. 
The mouth with blasphemy, the heart with wo. 

The earth was made so various,- tliat the mind 
Of desultory man, studious of change, 
And pleasetl with novelty, might be indulged. * 
Prospects, however lovely, may be seen 
Till half their beauties fade ; the weary sight, 
Too well acquainted with their smilc.^;, slides oil' 
Fastidious, seeking less familiar scenes. 
Then snug enclosures in the sheltered vale, 
Where frequent hedges intercept the cje. 
Delight us; happy to renounce awhile. 
Not senseless of its charms, what still we love. 
That such short absense may endear it more. 
Then forests, or the savage rock, may please. 
That hides the seamew in his hollow clefts 
Above the reach of man. His hoary head. 
Conspicuous many a league, the mariner 
Bound homeward, and in hope already there. 
Greets with three cheers exulting. At his waist, 
A girdle of half-withered shrubs he shows. 
And at his feet the baflled billows die. 
The common, overgrown with fern, and rough 
With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deformed, 



And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom,. 
And decks itself with ornaments of gold, 
Yields no uni)leasing ramble ; there the turf 
Smells fresh, aijd, rich-in odoriferous herbs 
And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense 
With luxury of unexpected sweets. 

There oflen wanders one, whom better days 
Saw better clad, iix cloak of satin trimmed 
With lace, and hat with splendid riband bound. 
A servant maid was she, and fell in love . 
With one who left her, went to sea, and died. 
Her fancy followed him through foaming waves 
To distant shores; and she would sit and weep 
At what a sailor sufl'ers ; fancy too, 
Delusive most where warmest wishes are, 
Would oft anticipate his glad return, 
And dream of transports she was not to know. 
She heard the doleful tiduigs of his death — 
And never smiled again 1 and now she roams 
The dreary waste ; there spends the livelong day, 
And there, unless when charity forbids, 
The livelong night. A tattered apron hides, 
Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides a gown 
More tattered still ; and both but ill conceal 
A bosom heaved with never-ceasing sighs! 
She begs an idle pin of all she meets, 
And hoards them in her sleeve ; but ne«dful food, 
Tho' pressed with hunger oft, or comelier clothes, 
Tho' pinched with cold asksnever. — Kateiscrazed. 

I see a column of slow -rising smoke 
O'ertop the loft}' wood that skirts the wild, 
A vagabond and useless tribe there eat 
Their miserable meal. A kettle slung 
Between two poles upon a stick transverse, 
Receives the morsel — flesh obscene of dog, 
Or vermin, or. at best of cock purloined 
From his accustomed perch. Plard faring race ! 
They pick their fuel out of every hedge. 
Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves un- 

quenched 
The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide 
Their liuttering rags, and shows a tawny skin, 
The vellum of the pedigree they claim. 
Great skill have they in palmistry, and more • • 
To conjure clean away the gold they touch, 
Conveying worthless dross into its place; 
Loud when they beg, dumb only when they steal. 
Strange ! that a creature rational, and cast 
In human mould, should brutalize by choice 
His nature ; and though capable of arts. 
By which the world might profit, and himself. 
Self-banished from society, prefer 
Such squallid sloth to honourable toil ! 
Yet even thqse, though feigning sickness, oft 
Tliey swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb, 
And vex their flesh with artificial sores, 
! Can change their whine into a mirthful note, 
I When safe occasion offers ; and with dance, 
!• And music of the bladder and the bag, 



THE TASK. 



61 



Beguile their woes, and make the woods resound 
Such health and gaycty of heart enjoy 
The houseless rovers of the sylvan world; 
And, breathing wholesome air, and wandering 

much, 
Need other physic none to. heal th' effects 
Of loathsome diet, penury and cold. 

Blest he, though undistinguished from the crowd 
By wealth or dignity, who dwells secure. 
Where man, by nature fierce, has laid aside 
His fierceness, having learnt, though slow to learn, 
The manners and the arts of civil life. 
His wants indeed are many; but supply 
Is ob^'ious, placed within the easy reach 
Of temperate wishes and industrious hands. 
Here virtue thrives as in her proper soil; 
Not rude and surly, and beset with thorns, 
And terrible to sight, as when she springs 
(If e'er she springs spontaneous) in remote 
And barbarous chmcs, where ■violence prevails, 
Andstrength islordof all; but gentle, kind, 
By culture lamed, by Uberty refreshed, 
And all her fruits by radiant truth matured. 
War and the chase engross the savage whole; 
War followed for revenge, or to supplant 
The envied tenants of some happier spot : 
The chase for sustenance, precarious trust ! 
His hard condition with severe constraint 
Binds all his faculties, forbids all growth 
Of wisdom, proves, a school, in which be learns 
Sly circmnvention, unrelenting hate. 
Mean self-attaclxment, and scarce aught beside. 
Thus fare the shivering natives of the north,. 
And thus the rangers of the western world, 
Where it advances far into the deep. 
Towards the antarctic. E'en the favoured isles 
So lately found, although the constant sun 
Cheer all their seasons with a grateful smile, 
Can boast but Uttle virtue ; and inert 
Through plenty, lose in morals what they gain 
In manners — victims of luxurious ease. 
These therefore I can pity, placed remote 
From all that science traces, art invents. 
Or inspiration teaches; and enclosed 
In boimdless oceans, never to be passed 
. By navigators uninformed as they. 
Or ploughed perhaps by British bark again: 
But far beyond the rest, and with most cause. 
Thee, gentle savage !* whom no love of thee 
Or thine, but curiosity perhaps, 
Or else vainglory, prompted us to draw 
Forth from thy native bowers to show thee here 
With what superior skill we can abuse 
The gifts of Providence, and squander life. 
The dream is past; and thou hast found again 
Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams. 



And homestall thatched with leaves. But hast 

thou found 
Their former charms 1 And having seen our state, 
Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp 
Of equipage, our gardens, and our sports, 
And heard our music; are thy simple friends. 
Thy simple fare, .and all thy plain delights. 
As dear to thee as once"? And have thy joys 
Lost nothing by comparison with oursl 
Rude as thou art, (for we returned thee rude 
And ignorant, except of outward show) 
I can not think thee yet so dull of heart 
And spiritless, as never to regret 
Sweets tasted here, and left as soon as known. 
Methinks I see thee straying on the beach, 
And asking of the surge that bathes thy foot. 
If ever it has washed our distant shore. 
I see thee weep, and thine are honest tears, 
A patriot's for his country : thou art sad 
At thought of her forlorn and abject state, . 
From which no power of thine can raise her up. 
Thus Fancy paints thee, and, though apt to err, 
Perhaps errs httle, when she paints thee thus. 
She tells me too, that duly every morn 
Thou climbest the mountain top, with eager eye 
Exploring far and wide the watery waste 
For sight of ship from England. Every speck 
Seen in the dim horizon turns thee pale 
With conflict of contending hopes and fears. 
But comes at last the dull and dusky eve. 
And sends thee to thy cabin, well prepared 
To dream all night of what the day denied. 
Alas ! expect it not. We found no bait 
To tempt us iii thy country. Doing good, 
Disinterested good, is not our trade. 
We travel far, 'tis true, but not for nought ; 
And must be bribed to compass earth again 
By other hopes and richer fruits than yours. 

But though true worth and virtue in the mild 
And genial soil of cultivated life 
Thrive most, and may perhaps thrive only therej 
Yet not in cities oft : in proud, and gay, 
And gain devoted cities. Thither flow, 
As to a common and most noisome sewer. 
The dregs and feculence of every land. 
In cities foul example on most minds 
Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds, 
In gross and paippered cities, sloth, and lust. 
And wantonness, and gluttonous excess. 
In cities vice is hidden with most ease, 
Or seen with least reproach ; and virtue, taught 
By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there 
Beyond th' achievements of sU'CcessfU flight. 
I do confess them nurseries c£ the arts, 
In which they flourish most ; where, m the beams 
Of warm cncom-agement, and in the eye 
Of pubHc note, they reach their perfect size. 
Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaimed 
The fairest capital of all the world. 



C3 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



B'. riot and incontinence the worst. 

7'liore, touched by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes 

A lucid mirror, in which Nature sees 

All her reflected features. Bacon there 

Gives more than female beauty to a stone, 

And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips. 

Nor does the chisel occupy alone 

The powers of sculpture, but the style as much. 

Each province of her art her equal care. 

With nice incision of her guided steel 

She ploughs a brazen field, and clothes a soil 

So sterile with what charms soe'er she will, 

The richest scenery and the loveliest forms. 

Where finds Philosophy her eagle eye. 

With which she gazes at yon burning disk 

Undazzled, and detects and counts his spots 1 

In London. Where her implements exact, 

With which she calculates, computes, and scans, 

All distance, motion, magnitude, and now 

Measures an atom, and now girds a world 1 

In London. Where has commerce such a mart. 

So rich, so thronged, so drained, and so supphed, 

xls London — opulent, enlarged, and still 

Increasing London 1 Babylon of old 

Not more the glory of the earth than she,, 

A more accomplished world's chief glory now. 

She has her praise. Now mark a spot or two, 
That so much beauty would do well to purge ; 
And show this queen of cities, that so fair 
May yet be foul; so wdtty, yet -not wise. 
It is not seemly, nor of good report. 
That she is slack in discipline ; more prompt 
T' avenge than to prevent the breach of law 
That she is rigid in denouncing death 
On petty robbers, and indulges life 
And liberty, arid oft times honour too, 
To peculators of the public gold : 
That thieves at home must hang ; but he, thatputs, 



Into his overgorged and bloated purse 
The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes. 
Nor is it well, nor. can it come to good. 
That, through profane and infidel contempt 
Of holy writ, she has presumed t' annul 
And abrogate, as roundly as she may, 
The total ordinance and will of God ; 
Advancing Fashion to the post of Truth, 
And centring all authority in modes 
And customs of her own, till sabbath rites 
Have dwindled into unrespected forms, 
And knees and hassocks are well-nigh divorced. 

God made the country, and man made the town. 
What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts 
That can alone make sweet the bitter draught 
That life holds out to all, should most abound 
And least be threatened in the fields and groves 1 
Possess ye therefore, ye who, borne about 
In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue 
But that of idleness, and taste no scenes 
But such as art contrives, possess ye still 
Your element ; there only can ye shine ; 
There only minds like yours can do no harm. 
Our groves were~ planted to console at noon 
The pensive wanderer in their shades. At eve 
The moonbeam, sliding softly in between 
The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish, 
Birds warbling all the music. We can spare 
The splendour of your lamps ; they but eclipse 
Our softer satellite. Your songs confound 
Our more harmonious notes ; the thrush departs 
Scared, and the offended nightingale is mute. 
There is a public mischief in your mirth ; * 
It plagues your country. Folly such as yours, 
Graced with a sword, and worthier of a fan-, 
Has ma,de, what enemies could ne'er have done, ■ 
Our arch of empire, steadfast but for you, 
A mutilated structure, ,soon to fall. 



Kilt KA^^. 



THE TIME-PIECE. 



ARGUMENT. 

Reflections suggested by the conclusion of the former book.— Peace anion" the nations recommended, on the ground of 
their common fellowsliip in sorrow,— Prodigies enumerated.— Sicilian Earthqualces,— Man rendered obnoxious to these 
calamities by sin.— God tiie agent in tliem.— The philosophy tliat stops at secondary causes reproved.— Our own late mis- 
carriages accounted for,— Satirical notice talccn of our trijis to Fontainbleau.— But the pulpit, not satire, the proper engine 
of reformation,— The Reverend Advertiser of engraved sermons.— Petit-maitre j)ar3on,— The good preacher,— Pictui-e of a 
theatrical clerical coxcomb,— Story-tellers and jesters in the pulpit reproved. — Apostrophe to popular applause.— Retailers 
of ancient philosophy expostulated with,— Sum of the whole matter.— Effects of sacerdotal mismanagement on the laity.— 
Their folly and extravagance.— The mischiefs of profusion.— Profusion itself, with all its consequent evils, ascribed, as to its 
principal cause, to the want of discipline in the universities. 



O FOR a lodge in some vast wilderness, 
Somrboundle.ss contiguity of shade, 
Where rumour of oppression and deceit. 



Of unsuccessful or successful war, 

Might never reach me more. My ear is pained, 

My soul is sick with every day's report 



THE TASK. 



G3 



Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled. 
T'here is no flesh in man's obdurate heart, 
It does not feel for man ; tlic natural bond 
Of brotherhood is severed as the flax, 
That fivlls asunder at the touch of fire. 
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin 
Not coloured like his own ; and having power 
T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause 
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey% 
Lands intersected by a narrow frith 
Abhor each other. Mountiuns interposed 
Make enemies of nations, who had else 
Dike kindred drops been nringled into one. 
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys; 
And, worse than all, and most to be deplored 
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, 
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat 
With stripes, that mercy with a bleeding heart 
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. 
Then what is ma.n1 And what man, seeing this, 
And having human feelings, docs not blush. 
And hang his head, to think himself a manl 
I would not have a slave to till my ground. 
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep. 
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 
That sinews bought and sold have- ever earned. 
No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's 
Just estimation prized above all price, 
I had much rather be myself the slave, 
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. 
We have no slaves at home — then why abroad "? 
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave 
That parts us, are emancipate and loosed. 
Slaves can not breathe in England: if their lungs 
Receive our air, that moment they are free ; 
They touch our country, and their shackles fall. 
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud 
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then. 
And let it circulate through every vain 
Of all your empire ; that, where Briton's power 
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too. 
Sure there is need of social intercourse, 
Benevolence, and peace, and mutual aid, 
Between the nations in a world, that seems 
To toll the death bell of its own decease, 
And by the voice of all its elements 
To preach the general- d6om> When were the 

winds 
Let sUp with such a warrant to destroy 1 
When did the waves so haughtily o'erleap 
Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry '? 
Fires from beneath, and meteorst from above. 
Portentous, unexampled, unexplained, 
Plave kindled beacons in the skies ; and tli' old 
And crazy earth has had her shaldng fiits 
More frequent, and foregone her usual rest. 
Is it a time to wrangle, when the props 

' Alluding to the calamities in Jamaica, 
t August 18, 17S3. 



And pillars of our planet seem to fail, 

And Nature* with a dim and sickly eye 

To wait the close of all 1 But grant her end 

More distant, and that prophecy demands 

A longer respite, unaccomplislied yet ; 

Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak " 

Displeasure in his breast, who smites the earth 

Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice. 

And 'tis but seemly, that, where all deserve 

And stand exposed by common peccancy, 

To what no few have felt, there should be peace, 

And brethren in calamity should love. 

Alas for Sicily ! rude fragments now 
Lie scattered, where the shapely column stood. 
Her palaces are dust. In all her streets 
The voice of singing and the sprightly chord 
Are silent. Revelry, and dance, and show, 
Suffer a syncope and a solemn pause ; 
While God performs upon the trembling stage 
Of his own works his dreadful part alone. 
How does the earth receive hun 1 — with what signs 
Of gratiflation and delight her king'? 
Pours she not all her choicest fruits abroad, 
Her sweetest flowers, her aromatic gums, 
Disclosing Paradise where'er he treads 1 
She quakes at his approach. Her hollow womb, 
Conceiving thunders, through a thousand deeps 
And fiery caverns, roars beneath his foot. 
The hills move lightly, and the mountains smoke, 
For he has touched them. From the extreraiest 

point 
Of elevation down into the abyss 
His wrath is busy, and his frown is felt. 
The rocks fall headlong, and the valleys rise, 
The rivers die into offensive pools, 
And charged with putrid verdure, breathe a gross 
And mortal nuisance into all the air. 
What solid was, by transformation strange. 
Grows fluid ; and the fixed and rooted .earth, 
Tormented into billows, heaves and swells, 
Or with vertiginous and hideous whirl 
Sucks down its prey insatiable. Immense 
The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs 
And agonies of human and of brute 
Multitudes, fugitive on every side. 
And fugitive in vain. The sylvan scene 
Migrates uplifted : and, with all its soil 
Ahghting in far distant fields, finds out 
A new possessor, and survives the change; 
Ocean has caught the frenzy, and, upwrought 
To an enormous and o'erbearing height. 
Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice, 
I Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore 
Resistless. Never such a sudden flood, 
I Upridged so high, and sent on such a charge, 
' Possessed an inland scene. Where now the throng. 
That pressed the beach, and, hasty to depart, 

I ' Alluding to the fog, that covered both Europe and Asia 
during the whole summer of 1783. 



&4 



COIVPER'S WORKS. 



Looked to the sea for safety 1 They arc gone, 
Gone wdth tlic refluent wave into the deep — 
A jirince with lialf his people ! Ancient towers, 
And roofs embattled liijrli, the gloomy scenes, 
Wliere beauty oft and lettered worth consume 
Life irf the unproductive shades of death, 
Fall prone: the pale inhabitants come forth. 
And, happy in their unforeseen release 
From all the rigours of restraint, enjoy 
The terrors of the day, that sets them free. 
Who then, that has thee, would not hold thee fast, 
Freedom 1 whom they that lose thee so regret, 
That e'en a judgment, making way for thee. 
Seems in their eyes a mercy for thy sake. 

Such e\'ils Sin hath wrought ; and such a flame 
Kindled in Heaven, that it buyis down to Earth, 
And in the furious inquest that it makes 
On God's behalf, lays waste liis fairest works. 
The very elements, though each be meant 
Tlie minister of man, to serve his wants, . 
Conspire against him. With his breath he draws 
A plague into his blood ; and can not use 
Life's necessary means, but he must die. 
Storms rise t' o'erwhelm him : or, if stormy winds 
Rise not, the waters of the deep shall rise, 
And, needing none assistance of the storm. 
Shall roll themselves ashore, and reach him there. 
The earth shall shake him out of all his holds. 
Or make his house his grave ; nor so content, 
Sliall counterfeit the motions of the flood, 
And drown him in her dry and dusty gulfs. 
What then ! — were they the wicked above all, 
And we the righteous, whose fast anchored isle 
Moved not, while theirs was rocked, hke a hght 

skin; 
The sport of every wave 1 No : none are clear, 
And none than we more guilty. But,' where a;ll 
Stand chargeable with guilt, and to the shafts 
Of wrath obnoxious, God may choose his mark : 
May punish, if he please, the less, to warn 
The more malignant. li he spared not them. 
Tremble and be amazed at thine escape, 
Far guiltier England, lest he spare not thee 1 

Happy the man, who sees a God employed 
In all the good and ill that checker life ! 
Resolving all events, with their eflfects 
And manifold re suits, into the will 
And arbitration wise of the Supreme. 
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend 
The least of our concerns (since from the least 
The greatest oft originate;) could chance 
Find place in his dominion, or dispose 
One lawless particle to tiiwart his plan; 
Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen 
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb 
The smooth an'd equal course of his aflairs. 
This truth Philosophy, though eagle-eyed 
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks ; 
And, having found his instrument, forgetij, 



Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still, 

Denies the power that wields it. God proclaims 

His hot displeasure against foolish inen, 

That live an atheist life; involves the Heaven 

In tempests; quits his grasp upOn the winds. 

And gives them all their ftiry ; bids a plague 

Kindle a flcry bile upon the skin. 

And putrefy the breath of blooming Health. 

He calls for Famine, and the meagre fiend 

Blows mildew from between his shrivelled lips, 

And taints the golden ear. He springs his mines, 

And desolates a nation at a blast. 

Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells- 

Of homogeneal and discordant springs 

And principles ; of causes, how they work 

By necessary laws their sure efliccts; 

Of action and re-action : he has found 

The source of the disease, that nature feels, 

And bids the world take heart and banish fear. 

Thou fool I will thy discovery of the cause 

Suspend th' eflTcct, or heal iti Has not God 

Still wrought by means since first he made the- 

world 1 • 
And did he not of old employ his means 
To drown if? What is his creation less 
Than a capacious reservoir of means 
Formed for his use, and ready at his will? 
Go, dress thine eye with eye-salve ; ask of him, 
Or ask of whomsoever he has taught; 
And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all. 
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still — 
My country ! and while 3^et a nook is left, 
Where Enghsh minds and manners may be found", 
Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime 
Be fickle, and thy year most part deformed 
With dripping rains, or withered by a frost, 
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies. 
And fields without a flower, for warmer France 
With all'her\'ines; nor for Ausonia's groves 
Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers. • 
To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime 
Of patriot eloquence to flasli down fire 
Upon thy foes, was never meant my task : 
But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake 
Thy joys and sorrows, with as true a heart 
As any thunderer there. And I can feel 
Thy follies too; and vnth a just disdain 
Frown at cfleminates, whose very looks 
Reflect dislionour on the land I love. 
How, in the name of soldiership and sense, 
Should England prosper, when such things, as 

smooth 
And tender as a girl, all essenced o'er 
With odours, and as profligate as sweet;. 
Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath. 
And love when they should fight; when such as 

these 
Presume to lay their hands upon the ark 
Of her magnificent and awful cause 1 



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65 



Time was when it was praise and boafit enough 

In every chmc, and travel wlierc we niiglit, 

That we were bom her children. Praise enough 

To fillth' ambition of a private man, 

That Chatham's language was his mother tongue, 

And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own. 

Farewell those honours, and farewell with them 

The hope of such hereafter ! They have fallen 

Each in his field of glory; one in arms, 

And one in council — Wolfe upon the lap 

Of smiling Victory that moment won. 

And Chatham heart-sick of his country's shame! 

They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still 

Consulting England's happiness at home, 

Secured it by an unforgiving frown, 

If any wronged her. AVolfe, where'er he fought, 

Put so much of his heart into his act, 

That his example had a magnet's force. 

And all were swift to follow whom all loved. 

Those smis are set. O rise some other such 1 

Or all that we have left is empty talk 

Of old achievements, and despair of new. 

Now hoist the sail, and let the streamers float 
Upon the wanton breezes. Strew the deck 
With lavender, and sprinkle liquid sweets; 
That no rude savour maritime invade 
The nose of nice nobUity ! Breathe soft 
Ye clarionets, and softer still ye flutes; 
That "winds and waters, lulled by magic sounds, 
May bear us smoothly to the GalUc shore ! 
True ;. we have lost an empire — let it pass. 
True ; we may thank the perfidy of France, 
That picked the jewel out of England's crown, 
With all the cunning of an emious shrew. 
And let that pass^ — 'twas but a trick of state 
A brave man knows no malice, but at once 
Forgets in peace the injuries of war, 
And gives his direst foe a friend's embrace. 
And, shamed as we have been, to th' very beard 
Braved and defied, and in our own sea proved 
Too weak for those decisive blows, tliat once 
Ensured us mastery there, we yet retain 
Some small pre-eminence; we justly boast 
At least superior jockeysliip, and claim 
The honours of the turf as all our own! 
Go then, well worthy of the praise j'e seek, 
And show the shame, ye might conceal at home, 
In foreign eyes ! — Be grooms and wm the plate, 
Where once your noble fathers won a crown! — 
'Tis generous to communicate your skill 
To those that need it. Folly is soon learned: 
And under such preceptors wlio can fail ! 

There is a pleasure in poetic pams, 
Which only poets know. The shifts and turns, 
Th' expedients and inventions multiform. 
To wliich the mind resorts, in chase of terms 
Though apt, yet coy, and diliicult to vs-in — 
T' arrest the fleeting images, that fill 
The mirror of the mind, and iiold them fast, 



And force them sit till he has pencilled off 

A faithful likeness of the forms lie views; 

'I'hen to dispose his copies with such art, 

That each may. find its most propitious light. 

And shine by situation, hardly less 

Than by the labour and the skill it cost; 

Arc occupations of the poet's nrind 

So pleasmg, and that steal away the thought 

With such address from themes of sad import, 

That, lost in his own musings, happy man! 

He feels th' anxieties of life, denied 

Their wonted entertainment, all retire. 

Such joys has he that sings. But ah ! not such, 

Or seldom such, the hearers of his song. 

Fastidious, or else listless, or perhaps 

Aware of nothing arduous in a task 

They never undertook, they httle note 

His dangers or escapes, and haply find 

Their least amusement where he found the most. 

But is amusement alii Studious of song, 

And yet ambitious not to sing in vain, 

I would not trifle merely, though the world 

Be loudest in their praise, who do no more. 

Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay? 

It may correct a foibxe, may chastise 

The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress, 

Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch; 

But where are its subluner trophies found 1 

What vice has it subdued 1 whose heart reclaimed 

By rigour, or whom laughed into reform 1 

Alas! Leviathan is not so tamed; 

Laughed at he laughs again; and stricken hard, 

Turns to Ms stroke his adamantine sccdes. 

That fear no discipUne of human hands. 

The pulpit, thjerefore, (and I name it filled 
With solemn awe, that bids me well beware 
With what intent I touch that holy thing) — 
The pulpit (when the satirist has at last, 
Strutting and vapouring in an empty school, 
Spent all his force and made no proselyte)^ 
I say the pulpit (in the sober use 
Of its legitimate, peculiar powers) 
Must stand acknowledged, while the world shall 

stand. 
The most important and effectual guard. 
Support, and ornament of Virtue's cause. 
There stands the messenger of truth : there stands 
The legate of the skies ! — His theme di^dne, 
His ofltice sacred, his credentials clear. 
By him the violated law speaks out 
Its thunders ; and by him in strains as sweet 
As angels use, the Gospel wliispers peace. 
He establishes the strong, restores the weak, 
Eeclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart. 
And, armed himself in panoply complete 
Of heavenly temper, furnishes with arms 
Bright as his own, and trains, by every rule 
Of holy discipline, to glorious war. 



G6 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Tlio sacramental host of God's elect! 

Are all such teachers 1 — would to Heaven all were ! 

But iiark — the doctor's voice ! — fast wedged between 

Two empirics he stands, and with -swoln cheeks 

Inspires the news, his trumpet. Keener far 

Than all invective is his bold harangue. 

Wliile through that pubHc organ of report 

He hails the clergy ; and. defying shame, 

Annomices to the world his own and theirs ! 

He teaches those to read, whom schools dismissed^ 

And colleges, untaught; sells accent, tone, 

And-emphasis m score, and gives to prayer 

The adagio and andante it demands. 

He grinds divinity of other days 

Down into modern use ; transforms old print 

To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes 

Of gallery critics by a thousand arts. 

Are there who pxirchase of the dottor's ware 1 

O, name it not in Gath ! — it can not be. 

That grave and learned clerks should need such aid. 

He doubtless is in spprt, and does but droll, 

Assunung thus a rank unknown before — 

Grand caterer and dry-nurse of the church ! 

I venerate the man, whose heart is warm, ■ 
Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose 

life, 
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof 
That he is honest in the sacred cause, 
To such I render more than mere respect. 
Whose actions say, that they respect themselves. 
But loose in morals, and in manners vain, 
In conversation frivolous, in dress 
Extreme, at once rapacious and profuse ; 
Frequent in park vnth lady at his side. 
Ambling and prattling scandal as he goes ; 
But rare at home, and never at his books. 
Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card ; 
Constant at routs, familiar with a- round 
Of ladyships, a stranger to the poor ; 
Ambitious of preferment for its gold, 
And well-prepared, by ignorance and sloth, 
By infidelity and love of world, 
To make God's work a sinecure ; a slave 
To his own pleasures and his patron's pride ; 
From such apostles, O ye mitred heads, 
Preserve the church ! and lay not careless hands 
On sCuUs, that can not teach, and will not learn. 

Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul, 
Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own, 
Paul should himself direct me. I would trace 
His master-strokes, and draw from liis design. 
I would. express him simple, grave, sincere ; 
In do(;trinc uncorrupt ; in language plain, 
And plain in manner ; decent, solejnn, chaste, 
And natural in gesture ; much impressed 
Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, 
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds 
May feci it too ; affectionate in look, 
And tender in address, as well becomes 



A messenger of grace to guilty men. 
Behold the picture ! — Is it Uke 1 — tike whom 1 
The things that mount the rostrum with a skip. 
And then skip down again ; pronounce a text ; 
Cry — hem ; and reading what they never wrote, 
Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work. 
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene! ■ 

In man or woman, but far most in man, 
And most of aH in man that ministers 
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe 
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn ; 
Object of my implacable disgust. 
What ! — wdll a man play tricks, wiU he indulge 
A silly fond conceit of his fair form, 
And just proportion, fashionable mien. 
And pretty face, in presence of his God 1 
Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes, 
As with the diamond on his lily hand. 
And play his brilUant parts before my eyes, . 
When I am hungry for the bread of life 1 
He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames 
His noble ofldce, and, instead of truth, 
Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock. 
Therefore avaunt all attitude, and stare, 
And start theatric, practised at the glass ! 
r seek divine simplicity in hun, ' 
Who handles things divine ; and all besides,. 
Though learned vdth labour, and though much ad' 

mired 
By curious eyes and judgments ill-informed, 
To me is odious as the nasal twang 
Heard at conventicle, where worthy men, 
Misled by custom, strain celestial themes 
Through the pressed nostril, spectacle bestrid. 
Some decent m demeanour while they preach, 
That task performed, relapse into themselves ; 
And having spoken wisely, at the close 
Grow wanton, and give proof to every eye, 
Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not ! 
Forth comes the pocket mirror — First we stroke 
An eyebrow ; next compose a straggling lock ; 
Then with an air most gracefully performed, 
Fall back into our seat, extend an arm. 
And lay it at its ease with gentle care, 
With handkerchief in hand depending low : 
The better hand more busy gives the nose 
Its bergamot, or aids, the indebted eye- 
With opera glass, to watch the moving scene, 
And recognise the slow-retiring fair. — 
Now this is fulsome, and oflfends me more 
Than in a churchman slovenly neglect 
And rustic coarseness would. A heavenly mind 
May be indiflferent to her house of clay, 
And slight the hovel as beneath her care ; 
But how a body so fantastic, trim. 
And quaint, in its deportment and attire, 
Can lodge a heavenly mind — demands a doubt. 

He, that negotiates between God and man, 
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns 



THE TASK. 



67 



Of judgment and of mercy, should beware 

Of lightness in his speech. 'Tis pitiful 

To court a grin, when you should woo a soul ; 

To brealc a jest, when pity would inspire 

Pathetic exhortation ; and t' address 

The skittish fancy with facetious tales, 

When sent with God's commission to the heart ! 

Sd did not Paul. Direct me to a quip 

Or merry turn in all he ever wtote. 

And I consent you take it for your text. 

Your only one, till sides and benches fail. 

No : he was serious in a serious cause, 

And understood too well the weighty terms. 

That he had taken in charge. He would not stoop 

To conquer those by jocular exploits. 

Whom truth and soberness assaOed in vain. 

O Popular Applause ! what heart of man 
Is proof against thy swfeet seducing charms *? 
The wisest and the best feel urgent need 
Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales ; 
But swelled into a gust — Who then, alas ! 
With all his canvass set, and inexpert, 
And therefore heedless, canwithstand thy power? 
Praise from the rivelled lips of toothless, bald 
Decreptitude, and in the looks of lean 
And craving Poverty, and in the bow 
Respectful of the smutched artificer. 
Is oft too welcome, and may much disturb 
The bias of the purpose. How much more, 
Pom-ed forth by beauty splendid and polite. 
In language soft as Adoration breathes 1 
Ah spare your idol 1 think him human stiU. 
Charms he may have, but he has frailties too ! 
Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire. 

All truth is from the sempiternal source 
Of light divine. But Egypt, Greece and Rome, 
Drew from the stream below. More favoured we 
Drink, when we choose it, at the fountain head. 
To them it flowed much mingled and defiled 
With hurtful error, prejudice and dreams 
Illusive of philosophy, so called. 
But falsely. Sages after sages strove 
In vain to fiilter off a crystal draught 
Pure from the lees, wHch often more enhanced 
The thirst than slaked it, and not seldom bred 
Intoxication and delirium wild. 
In vain they pushed inquiry, to the birth 
And spring time of the world; asked, Whence is 

man? 
Why formed at all? and wherefore as he is? 
Where must he find his Maker? with what rites 
Adore him? WUl hfe hear, accept, and bless? 
Or does he sit regardless of his works? 
Has man within him an immortal seed? 
Ot does the tomb take all ? If he survive 
His ashes, where? and in what weal or wo? 
Knots worthy of solution, which alone 
A Deity could solve. Their answers, vague 
And all at random, fabulous and dark, 



Left them as dark themselves. Their rules of life, 

Defective and unsanctioned, proved too weak 

To bind the roving appetite, and lead 

Blind nature to a; God not yet revealed. 

'Tis Revelation satisfies all doubts, 

Explains all mysteries, except her own. 

And so illuminates the path of life, '. 

That fools discover it, and stray.no more. ■ 

Now tell me, dignified and sapient sir. 

My man of morals, nurtured in the shades 

Of Academus — is this false or true? 

Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools 1 

If Christ, then why resort at every turn 

To Athens or to Rome, for wisdom short 

Of man's occasions, when in liim reside 

Grace, knowledge, comfort — an unfathomed store 1 

How oft, when Paid has served us with a text, 

Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preached ! 

Men that, if now alive, would sit content 

And humble learners of a Saviour's worth. 

Preach it who might. Such was their love of 

truth. 
Their thirst of knowledge, and their candour too ! 

And thus it is — The pastor, either vain 
By natm'e, or by flattery made so, taught 
To gaze at his own splendour, and t' exalt 
Absurdly, not his office, but hunself ; 
Or unenlightened, and too proud to learn; 
Or vicious, and not therefore apt to teach; 
Perverting often by the stress of lewd 
And loose example, whom he should instruct 
Exposes, and holds up to broad disgrace 
The noblest function, and discredits much 
The brightest truths that man has ever seen. 
For ghostly counsel; if it either fall 
Below the exigence, or be not backed 
With show of love, at least wdth hopeful proof 
Of some sincerity on the giver's part ; 
Or be dishonoured in th' exterior form 
And mode of its conveyance by such tricks 
As move derision, or by foppish airs 
And histrionic mummery, that let down 
The pulpit to the level of the stage; 
Drops from the hps a disregarded thing. 
The weak perhaps are moved, but are not taught, 
While prejudice in men of stronger minds 
Takes deeper root, confirmed by what they see. 
A relaxation of religion's hold 
Upon the roving and untutored heart,. 
Soon follows, and, the curb of conscience snapped, 
The laity run wild — Bm do they now? 
Note then- extravagance, and be convinced. 

As nations, ignorant of God, contrive 
A wooden one; so we, no longer taught 
By monitors that mother church supplies, 
Now make our own. Posterity will ask 
(If e'er posterity see verse of mine) 
Some fifty or a hundred lustrums hence. 
What was a monitor in George's days? 



68 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



My very gentle reader, yet unborn, 

Of whom I needs must augur better things. 

Since Heaven would sure grow weary of a world 

Productive only of a race Uke ours, 

A monitor is wood — plank shaven thin. 

"We wear it at our backs. There, closely braced 

And neatly fitted, it compresses hard 

The prominent and most unsightly bones. 

And binds the shoulders flat. We prove its use 

Sovereign and most effectual to secure 

A form, not now gymnastic as of yore. 

From rickets and distortion, else our lot. 

But thus admonished, we can walk erect — 

One proof at least of manhood ! while the friend 

Sticks close, a Mentor worthy of his charge. 

Our habits, costlier than Lucullus wore, 

And by caprice as multipUed as his. 

Just please us while the fashion is at full, 

But change with every moon. The sycophant, 

Who waits to dress us, arbitrates their date; 

Surveys his fair reversion with keen eye; 

Finds one ill made, another obsolete, 

This fits not nicely, that is iU conceived; 

And, making prize of all that he condemns, 

. With our expenditure defrays liis own. 
Variety's the very spice of life, 
That gives it all its flavour. We have run 
Through every change, that Fancy, at the loom 

■ Exhausted, has had genius to supply ; 
And studious of mutation still, discard 
A real elegance, a little used, 
For monstrous novelty, and strange disguise. 
We sacrifice to dress, till household joys 
And comfort cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, 
And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires ; 
And introduces hunger, frost, and wo, 
Where peace and hospitality might reign. 
What man that fives, and that knows how to hvc, 
Would fail t' exhibit at the public shows 
A form as splendid as the proudest there, 
Though appetite raise outcries at the cost"? 
A man o' th' town dines laie, but soon enough 
With reasonable forecast and despatch, ■ 
T' ensure a side-box station at half-price. 
You think, perhaps, so deficate his dress, 
His daily fare as delicate. Alas ! 
He picks clean teeth, and busy as he seems 
With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet! 
The rout is Folly's circle, wliich he draw^ 
With magic wand. So Mtent is the spell, 
That none, decoyed into that fatal ring, 
Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape. 
There we grow early gray, but never wise ; 
There form connexions, but acquire no friend ; 
Solicit pleasure hopeless of success ; 
Waste youth in occupations only fit 
F'or second childhood, and devote old age 
To sports, which only childhood could excuse ; 
There they are happiest, who dissemble best 



Their weariness; and they the most poUte, 
Who squander time and treasure vnih a smile, 
Though at their own destruction. She that asks 
Her dear five hundred friends contemns them all, 
And hates their coming. They (what can they 

lessl) 
Make just reprisals ; and, with cringe and shrug, 
And bow obsequious, hide their hate of her. 
All catch the frenzy, downward from her grace. 
Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies, 
And gild our chamber ceiling as they pass, 
To hr;.^, who, frugal only that her thrift 
May feed excesses she can ill afford, 
Is hackneyed home unlackeyed; who, in haste 
Ahghtin'g, turns the key in her own door. 
And, at the watchman's lantern borrowing light, 
Finds a cold bed her only comfort left. 
Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their 

wives, 
On Fortune's velvet altar offeruig up 
Their last poor pittance. — Fortime, most severe 
Of Goddesses yet know^n, and costlier far 
Than all, that held their routs in Juno's heaven. — 
So fare we in this prison-house the World ; 
And 'tis a fearful spectacle to see 
So many maniacs dancing in their chains. 
They gaze upon the links, that hold them fast, 
With eyes of anguish, execrate their lot, 
Then shake them in despair, and dance agedn ! 

Now basket up the family of plagues, 
That wastes our vitals; peculation, sale 
Of honour, perjury, corruption, frauds 
By forgery, by subterfuge of law. 
By tricks and hes as nmnerous and as keen • 
As the necessities their authors feel; 
Then cast them, closely bundled, every brat 
At the right door. Profusion is the sire. 
Profusion unrestrained, with all that's base 
In character, has Uttered all the land, 
And bred, within the memory of no few, 
A priesthood, such as Baal's was of old, 
A people, such as never was till now. 
It is a hmigry vice : — it eats up all 
That" gives society its beauty, strength, 
Convenience, and security, and use : 
Makes men mere vermin, worthy to be trapped 
And gibbeted, as fast as catchpole claws 
Can seize the slippery prey; unties the knot 
Of union, and converts the sacred band. 
That holds mankind together, to a'scourge. • 
Profusion, deluging a state with lusts 
Of grossest nature and of worst effects, 
Prepares it for its ruin : hardens, blinds, 
And warps the consciences of public men, 
Till they can laugh at Virtue ; mock the fools 
That trust them ; and in the end disclose a face, 
That would have shocked Creduhty herself, 
Unmasked, vouchsafing their sole excuse — 
Since all alike are selfish, why not they 1 



THE TASK. 



69 



This does Profusioiij and the accursed cause 
Ot such deep mischief has itself a cause. 

In colleges and halls in ancient days, 
When learning, virtue, piety and truth, 
Were precious, and inculcated with care. 
There dwelt a sage called Disciphne. His head, 
Not yet by time completely silvered o'er, 
Bespoke Mm past the bounds of freakish youth, 
But strong for service still, and unimpaired. 
His eye was meek and gentle, and a smile 
Played on his hps ; and in his speech was heard 
Paternal sweetness, dignity and love. 
The occupation dearest to his heart 
Was to encourage goodness. He would stroke 
The head of modest and ingenuous worth, 
That blushed at its own praise; and press the 

youth 
Close to his side, that pleased liim. Learning 

grew 
Beneath his care a thriving vigorous plant; 
The mind was well informed, the passions held 
Subordinate, and diligence was choice. 
Tf e'er it chanced, as sometimes chance it must, 
That one among so many overleaped 
The luuits of control, his gentle eye 
Grew stern, and darted a severe rebuke : 
His frown was full of terror, and his voice 
Shook the delinquent with such fits of awe, ■ 
As left him not, till penitence had won 
Lost favour back again, and closed the breach. 
But Discipline, a faithful servant long; 
Declined at length into the vale of years : 
A palsy struck his arm ; his sparkling eye 
Was quenched in ihemns of age ; his voice un- 
strung,- 
Grew tremulous, and drew derision more 
Than reverence m perverse, rebeUious youth. 
So colleges and halls neglected much 
Their good old friend; and Discipline at length, 
O'crlooked and unemployed, fell sick and died. 
Then Study languished, Emulation slept. 
And Virtue fled. The schools became a scene 
Of solemn farce, where Ignorance in stilts, . 
His cap well Uned with logic not liis own. 
With parrot tongue performed the scholar's part, 
Proceeding soon a graduated dunce. 
Then compromise had place, and scrutiny 
Became stone blind ; precedence went in truck ; 
And he was competent whose purse was so. 
A dissolution of all bonds ensued ; 
The curbs invented for the mulish mouth. 
Of headstrong youth vvere broken ; bars and bolts 
Grew rusty by disuse ; and massy gates 
Forgot their office, opening with a touch ; 
Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade, 
The tasselled cap and the spruce band a jest, 
A mockery of the world ! What need of these 
For gamesters, jockeys, brotliellers impure, 
Spendthrifts, and booted, sportsmen oftener seen 



With belted waist and pointers at their heels, 
Than in the bounds of duty 1 What was learned, 
If aught was learned in childhood, is forgot ; 
And such expense, as pinches parents blue, 
And mortifies the hberal hand of love, 
Is squandered in piursuit of idle sports 
And vicious pleasinre ; buys the boy a name, 
That sits a stigma on his father's house. 
And cleaves through life inseparably close 
To hifn that wears it. * What can ailer-games 
Of riper joys, and comjnerce with the world, 
The lewd vain world, that must receive him soon, 
Add to such erudition, thus acquired, 
Where science and where virtue are professed 1 
They may confirm his habits, rivet fast 
His folly, but lo spoil hiin is a task. 
That bids defiance to th' united powers 
Of fashion, dissipation, taverns, stews. 
Now. blame we most the nurshng or the nurse 1 
The children crooked, twisted, and deformed. 
Through want of care ; or her, whose winking eye^ 
And slumbering oscitancy mars the brood 1 
The nurse no doubt. Regardless of her charge, 
She needs herself correction; needs to learn. 
That it is dangerous sporting with the world, 
With things so sacred as the nation's trust. 
The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge. 

All are not such. I had a brother once 
Peace to the memory of a man of worth, 
A man of letters, and of manners too ! 
Of manners sweet as Virtue always wears. 
When' gay Good-nature dresses her in smiles. - 
He graced a college,* in wliich order yet 
Was sacred ; and was honoured, loved, and wept, 
By more than one, themselves conspicuous there. 
Some minds are tempered happily, and mixed 
With such ingredients of good sense, and taste 
Of what is excellent in man, they thirst 
With such a zeal to be what they approve. 
That no restraints can circumscribe them more 

j Than they themselves by choice, for wisdom's sake. 

I Nor can example hurt them : what they see 

I Of vice in others but enhancing more 
The charms of virtue in their just esteem. 
If such escape contagion, and emerge 
Pure from so foul a pool to shine abroad, 
And give the world their talents and themselves, 
Small thanks to those whose negligence or sloth 
Exposed their inexperience to the snare, 
And left them to an undirected choice. 

i See then the quiver brokenand decayed. 
In which are kept our arrows ! Rusting there 
In wild disorder, and unfit for use, 

. What wonder if, discharged into the world. 
They shame their shooters with a random flight. 
Their points obtuse, and feathers drunk with wine ! 

: Well rnay the church wage unsuccessful war 

* Bene't Coll. Cambridge. 



70 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



With- such artillery armed. Vice parries wide 
Th' undreadcd volley with a sword of straw, 
And stands an impudent and fearless mark. 

Have we not tracked the felon home, and found 
His birth-place and his dam 1 The country mourns. 
Mourns because every plague, that can infest 
Society, and that saps and worms the base 
Of th' edifice, that Policy has raised, 
Swarms in all quarters : meets the eye, the ear. 
And suffocates the breath at every turn, 
Profusion breeds them ; and the cause itself 



Of that calamitous mischief has been found : 
Found too where most offensive, in the skirts 
Of the robed pedagogue ! Else let th' arraigned 
Stand up unconscious, and refute the charge. 
So when the Jewish leader stretched his arm, 
And waved his rod divine, a race obscene. 
Spawned in the muddy beds of Nile, came forth, 
Polluting Egypt : gardens, fields, and plains. 
Were covered with the pest ; the streets were filled ; 
The croaking nuisance lurked in every nook; 
Nor palaces, nor even chambers, 'scaped ; 
And the land stank— so numerous was the firy. 



Kfit KuuU. 



BOOK ra. 



THE GARDEN 



ARGUMENT. 

Self-recollection and reproof.— Address to domestic happiness.— Some account of myself— The vanity of many, of their 
pursuits who are reputed wise.— Justification of my censures.— Divine illumination necessary to the most expert philoso- 
pher.— The question, What istruthl answered by other questions.— Domestic happiness addressed again.— Few lovers of 
the country.— My tame hare.— Occupations of a retired gentleman in his garden.— Pruning.— Framing.— Green-house— 
Sowing of flower-seeds.— The country preferable to the town even in winter.— Reasons why it is deserted at that season.— 
Ruinous affecis of gaming, and of expensive improvement. — Book concludes with an apostrophe to the metropolis. 



As one, who long in thickets and in brakes 
Entangled, winds now this way and now that 
His devious course uncertain, seeking homef 
Or, having long in miry ways been foiled 
And sore discomfited, from slough to slough 
Plungiirg, and half despairing of escape; 
If chance at length he find a greensward smooth 
And faithfiil to the foot, his spirits rise, 
He cherups brisk his ear-erecting steed, 
And winds his way with pleasure and with ease; 
So I, designing other themes, and called 
T' adorn the Sofa with eulogium due, 
To tell its slumbers, and to paint its dreams, 
Have rambled wide : in country, city, seat 
Of acadenuc fame (howe'er deserved,) 
Long held, and scarcely disengaged at last. 
But now with pleasant pace a cleanlier road 
I mean to tread: I feel myself at large. 
Courageous and refreshed for future toO, 
If toil await me, or if dangers new. 

Since pulpits fail, and sounding boards reflect 
Most part an empty, incflectual sound, 
What change that I,, to fame so little known, 
Nor conversant with men or manners much. 
Should speak to purpose, or vj'ith better hope 
Crack the satiric thong? 'Twere wiser far 
For me, enamoured of sequestered scenes, 
And charmed with rural beauty, to repose, 
Where chance may. throw me, beneath elm or 

vine. 
My languid limb.s, when summer seers the. plains, 



Or, when rough winter rages, on the soft 
And sheltered Sofa, while the nitrous air 
Feeds a blue flame, and makes a cheerfiil hearth 
There, undisturbed by Folly, and apprised 
How great the danger of dirturbing her, 
To muse in silence, or, at least, confine 
Remarks, that gall so many, to the few " 
My partners in retreat. Disgust concealed 
Is ofttimes proof of wisdom, when the fault 
Is obstinate, and cure beyond our reach 

Domestic happmess, thou only bliss 
Of Paradise, that has survived the fall ! 
Though few now taste thee unimpaired and pure, 
Or tasting long enjoy thee ! too infirm, 
Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets 
Unmixed with drops of bitter, which neglect 
Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup; 
Thou art the nurse of Virtue, in thine arms 
She smiles, appearing, as in truth she is, 
Heaven-born, and destined to the skies again. 
Thou art not known where Pleasure is adored, • 
That reeling goddess with the zoneless waist 
And wandering eyes, still leaning on the arm 
Of Novelty, her fickle, frail support ; 
For thou art meek and constant, hating change 
And finding in the calm of truth-tried love 
Joys that her stormy raptures never yield. 
Forsaking thee what shipwreck have we made 
Of honour, dignity and fair renown ! 
Till prostitution elbows us aside 
In all our crowded streets; and senates seem 



THE TASK. 



•Jl 



Convened for purposes of empire less, 

Than to release the adulteress from her bond. 

Th' adulteress! what a theme for angry verse! 

What provocation to the indignant heart, 

That feels for injured love ! l)ut I disdain 

The nauseous task to paint her as she is, 

Cruel, abandoned, glorying in her shame ! 

No : let her pass, and, charioted along 

In guilty splendour, shake the pubhc ways ; 

The frequency of crimes has washed them white. 

And verse of mme shall never brand the wretch 

Whom matrons now, of character unsmirched, 

And chaste themselves, are not ashamed to own. 

Virtue and vice had bo\mdaries in old time. 

Not to be passed : and she, that had renounced 

Her sex's honour, was renounced herself 

By all that prized it; not for prudery's sake, 

But dignity's, resentful of the wrong. 

'Twas hard perhaps on here and there a waif, 

Desirous to return, and not received; 

But 'twas a wholesome rigour in the main. 

And taught th' unblemished to preserve with care 

That purity, whose loss was loss of all. 

Men too were nice in honour in those daj-s, 

And judged offenders well. Then he that sharped. 

And pocketed a prize by fraud obtained. 

Was marked and shunned as odious. He that 

sold 
His country, or was slack when she required 
His every nerve in action and at stretch, 
Paid with the blood that he had basely spared, 
The price of his default. But now — yes, now 
We are become so candid and so fair. 
So liberal in construction, and so rich 
In Christian charity, (good natured age !) 
That they are safe, sinners of either sex, 
Transgress what laws they may. Well dressed, 

well bred. 
Well equipaged, is ticket good enough 
To pass as readily through every door. 
Hypocrisy, detest her as we may, 
(And no man's hatred ever ^vronged her yet) 
May claim this merit still — that she admits 
The worth of what she mimics with such care, 
And thus gives virtue indirect applause ; 
But she has burnt her mask, not needed here, 
Where vice has such allowance, that her shifts 
And specious semblances have lost their use. 
I was a stricken deer, that left the herd 
" Long since. With many an arrow deep infixed 
^y panting side was charged, when I withdrew 
To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. 
There was I found by one who had hilnself 
Been hurt by th' archers. In his side he bore, 
And in his hands and feet the cruel scars. 
With gentle force soliciting the darts. 
He drew them forth, and healed, and bade me live. 
Since then, with few associates, in remote 
And silent woods 1 wander, far from those 
6 



My former partners of the peopled scene ; 
With few associates, and not wishing more. 
Here muqja I ruminate, as much I may. 
With other views of men and manners now 
Than once, and others of a Ufe to come. 
I see that all are wanderers, gone astray 
Each in his own delusions ; they arc lost 
In chase of fancied happiness, still wooed 
And never won. Dream after dream ensues ; 
And still they dream that they shall still succeed, 
And still are disappointed. Rings the world 
With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind, 
And add two thirds of the remaining half. 
And find the total of their hopes and fears 
Dreams, empty dreams. The million flit as gay ' 
As if created only hke the fly. 
That spreads his motley wings in th' eye of noon, 
To sport their season, and be seen no more. 
The rest are sober dreamers, grave and wise. 
And pregnant with discoveries new and rare. 
Some write a narrative of wars, and feats 
Of heroes httle known ; and caO the rant 
A history : describe the man of whom 
His own coevals took but Httle note. 
And paint his person, character, and views, 
As they had known him from his mother's womb. 
They disentangle from the puzzled skeui, 
In which obscurity has wrapped them up 
The threads of politic and shrewd design, 
That ran through all his purposes, and, charge 
His mind with meanings that he never had, 
Or, having, kept concealed. Some drill and bore 
The solid earth, and from the strata there 
Extract a register, by which we learn, 
That he who made it, and revealed its date 
To Moses, was mistaken in its age. 
Some, more acute, and more industrious still, 
Contrive creation ; travel nature up 
To the sharp peak of her sublimest height, 
And tell us whence the stars ; why some are fixed 
And planetary some ; what gave them first 
Rotation, from what fountain flowed their light. 
Great contest follows, and much learned dust 
Involves the combatants ; each claiming truth, 
And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend 
The little wick of fife's poor shallow lamp 
In playing tricks with nature, giving laws 
To distant worlds, and trifling in their ovra. 
Is't not a pity now that tickling rheums 
Should ever tease the lungs, and blear the sight 
Of oracles fike these 1 Great pity too. 
That having wielded the elements, and built 
A thousand systems, each in his own way, 
Th«y should go out in fume, and be forgot 1 
Ah! what is fife thus spent 1 and what are they 
But frantic, who thus spend it 1 all for smoke- 
Eternity for bubbles proves at last 
A senseless bargain. When I see such games 
Played by the creatures of a Power, who swears 



72 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



That he will judge the earth and call the fool 
To a sharp reckoning, that has Uved in vain ; 
And when I weigh this seeming wisdom well, 
And prove it in the infallible result 
So hollow and so false— I feel my heart 
Dissolve in pity, and account the learned, 
If this be learning, most of all deceived. 
Great crunes alarm the conscience, but it sleeps, 
While thoughtful man is plausibly amused, 
Defend me therefore, common sense, say I, 
From reveries so airy, from the toil 
Of dropping buckets into empty wells, 
And grovying old in drawing nothing up ! 

'Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound. 
Terribly arched, and aqmline his nose. 
And overbuilt with most impending brows, 
'Twere well, could you permit the world to live 
As the world pleases ; what's the world to you 1 
Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk 
As sweet as charity from human breasts. 
I tliink, articulate, I laugh and weep. 
And exercise all functions of a man. 
How then should I and any man that Uves 
Be strangers to each other 1 Pierce my vein. 
Take of the crimson stream meandering there. 
And catechise it well ; apply the glass. 
Search it, and prove now if it be not blood 
Congenial with tliine own, and, if it be. 
What edge of subtlety canst thou suppose 
Keen enough, wLsc and slulful as thou art. 
To cut the link of brotherhood, by wliich 
One common Maker bound me to the kind 1 
True ; I am no proficient, I confess. 
In arts lUce yours. I can not call the swift 
And perilous lightnings from the angry clouds. 
And bid them Mde themselves in earth beneath, 
I can not analyse the air, nor catch 
The parallax of yonder luminous point. 
That seems half quenched in the immense abyss: 
Such powers I boast not — neither can I rest 
A silent witness of the headlong rage. 
Or heedless folly, by which thousands die. 
Bone of my bone, and kindred souls to mine. 

God never meant that man should scale the hea- 
vens 
By stride of human wisdom, in his works, 
Though wondrous : he commands us in his word 
To seek him rather where his mercy shines. 
The mind, indeed, enhghtened from above. 
Views him in all ; ascribes to the grand cause 
The grand effect ; acknowledges with joy 
His manner, and with rapture tastes his style ; 
But never yet did philosophic tube, 
That brmgs the planets home into the eye 
Of observation, and discovers, else 
Not visible, his family of worlds, 
Discover Jiim that rules them ; such a veil 
Hangs over mortal eyes, blind from the birth. 
And dark in things divine. Full often too 



Our wayward intellect, the more we learn 

Of nature, overlooks her author more ; 

From instrumental causes proud to draw 

Conclusions retrograde, and mad mistake. 

But if his word once teach us, shoot a ray 

Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal 

Truths undiscerned but by that holy light, 

Then all is plain. Philosophy, baptized 

In the pure fountain of eternal love, 

Has eyes indeed ; and viewing all she sees 

As meant to indicate a God to man. 

Gives him his praise, and forfeits not her own. 

Learning has borne such fruit in other days 

On all her branches ; piety has found 

Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer 

Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews. 

Such was thy wisdom, Newton, child-like sage ! 

Sagacious reader of the works of God, 

And in this word sagacious. Such too thine, 

Milton, whose genius had angehc wings. 

And fed on manna ! And such thine, in whom 

Our British Themis gloried with just cause, 

Inmaortal Hale ! for deep discerimient praised, 

And sound integrity, not more than famed 

For sanctity of manners undefiled. 

All flesh is grass, and all its glory fade 
Lilie the fair flower dishevelled in the wind ; 
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream. 
The man we celebrate must find a tomb, 
And we that worship hiixi ignoble graves. 
Notliing is proof against the general curse 
Of vanity, that seizes all below. 
The only amaranthine flower on earth 
Is virtue ; th' only lasting treasure, truth. 
But what is truth 1 'Twas Pilate's question put 
To truth itself, that deigned him no reply. 
And wherefore 1 will not God impart his light 
To them thajt ask it 1 — Freely — 'tis his joy, 
His glory, and his nature, to impart. 
But to the proud, uncandid, insincere, 
Or negligent inquirer, not a spark. 
What's that, which brings contempt upon a book, 
And him who writes it, though the style be neat, 
The method clear, and ai'gument exact 1 
That makes a minister in holy things 
The joy of many, and the dread of more, 
His name a theme for praise and for reproach 1 — 
That, wliile it gives us worth in God's account. 
Depreciates and undoes us in our own 1 
What pearl is it that rich men can not buy, 
That learning is too proud to gather up ; 
But wliich the poor, and the despised of all. 
Seek and obtain, and often find unsought 1 
Tell me — and I will tell thee what is truth. 

O friendly to the best pursuits of man, 
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, 
Domestic life in rural pleasure passed ! 
Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets ; 
Though many boast thy favours, and affect 



THE TASK. 



73 



To understand and choose thee for their own. 
But fooUsh man foregoes his proper bUss, 
E'en as his first progenitor, and quits, 
Though placed in Paradise (for earth has still 
Some traces of her youthful beauty left,) 
Substantial happiness for transient joy. 
Scenes formed for contemplation, and to nurse 
The growing seeds of wisdom ; that suggest, 
By every pleasing image they present. 
Reflections such as meUorate the heart. 
Compose the passions, and exalt the mind ; 
Scenes such as these 'tis his supreme delight 
To fill with riot and defile with blood. 
Should some contagion, kind to the poor brutes 
We persecute, aimihilate the tribes 
That draw the sportsman over hill and dale 
Fearless, and wrapt away from all liis cares ; 
Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again, 
Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye ; 
Could pageantry and dance, and feast and song. 
Be quelled in all our summer-months' retreats ; 
How many self-deluded nymphs and swains, 
Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves. 
Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen, 
And crowd the roads, impatient for the tovm ! 
They love the country, and none else, who seek 
For their own sake its silence, and its shade. 
Delights which who would leave, that has a heart 
Susceptible of pity, or a mmd 
Cultured and capable of sober thought. 
For all the savage din of the svsdft pack. 
And clamours of the field 1 — detested sport. 
That owes its pleasures to another's pain ; 
That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks 
Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued 
With eloquence, that agonies inspire. 
Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs 1 
Vain tears, alas, and sighs that never find 
A corresponding tone in jovial souls ! 
Well — one at least is safe. One sheltered hare 
Has never heard the sanguinary yell 
Of cruel man, exulting in her woes. 
Innocent partner of my peaceful home, 
Whom ten long years' expeiience of my care 
Has made at last familiar ; she has lost 
Much of her vigUant instinctive dread, 
Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine. 
Yes — thou mayest eat thy bread, and lick the hand 
That feeds thee ; thou mayest froUc on the floor 
At evening, and at night retire secure 
To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarmed ; 
For I have gained thy confidence, have pledged 
All that is human in me, to protect 
Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love. 
If I survive thee, I wall dig thy grave ; 
And, when I place thee in it, sighing say, 
I knew at least one hare that had a friend. 
• How various his employments, whom the world 
Calls idle ; and who justly in return 



Esteems that busy world an idler too '. 
Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen. 
Delightful industry enjoyed at home. 
And Nature, in her cultivated trim, 
Dressed to his taste, inviting him abroad. — 
Can he want occupation, who has these"? 
Will he be idle, who has much t' enjoy 1 
Me therefore studious of laborious ease, 
Not slothful, happy to deceive the time, 
Not waste it, and aware that human life 
Is but a loan to be repaid witli use. 
When He shall call his debtors to account. 
From whom are all our blessings, business finds 
E'en here : while sedulous I seek t' improve, 
At least neglect not, or leave unemployed. 
The mind he gave me ; driving it, though slack 
Too oft, and much impeded in its work 
By causes not to be divulged in vain. 
To its just point — the service of mankind. 
He, that attends to his interior self, 
That has a heart and keeps it ; has a mind 
That hungers, and supplies it : and who seeks 
A social, not a dissipated life. 
Has business; feels himself engaged t' achieve 
No unimportant, though a silent, task. 
A life all turbulence and noise may seem 
To him that leads it wise, and to be praised ; 
But wisdom is a pearl with most success 
Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies. 
He that is ever occupied in storms, 
Or dives not for it, or brings up instead, 
Vauily industrious, a disgraceftd prize. 

The morning finds the self-sequestered man 
Fresh for his task, intend what task he may. 
Whether inclement seasons recommend 
His wann but simple home, where he enjoys. 
With her, who shares his pleasures and his heart, 
Sweet converse, sipping .calm the fragrant lymph, 
Which neatly she prepares; then to his book 
Well chosen, and not sullenly perused 
In selfish silence, but imparted oft. 
As aught occm's, that she may smile to hear, 
Or turn to nourishment, digested well, 
Or if the garden with its many cares. 
All well repaid, demand him, he attends 
The welcome call, conscious how much the hand 
Of lubbard labour needs his watchftd eye, 
Oft loitering lazily, if not o'erseen. 
Or misapplying his unskUftd strength. 
Nor does he govern only or direct, 
But much performs himself No works, indeed 
That ask robust, tough sinews, bred to toil, 
Servile employ : but such as may amuse, 
Not tire, demanding rather skill than force. 
Proud of his well-spread walls, he views his trees 
That meet, no barren interval between. 
With pleasure more than e'en their fruits aflfords; 
Which, save himself who trains them, none can 
feel. 



74 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



These therefore are his own peculiar charge; 
No meaner hand may discipUne the shoots, 
None but liis steel approach them. What is weak, 
Distempered, or has lost prolific powers, 
Impaired by age, his unrelenting hand 
Dooms to the knife: nor does he spare the soft 
And succulent, that feeds its giant growth, 
But barren, at th' ex]:ense of neighbouring twigs 
Less ostentatious, and yet studded tliick 
With hopeful gems. The rest, no portion left 
That may disgrace his art, or disappoint 
Large expectation, he disposes neat 
At measured distances, that air and sun, 
Admitted freely may afford their aid, 
And ventilate and warm the swellmg buds. 
Hence Summer has her riches, Autumn hence, 
And hence e'en Winter fills his withered hand 
With bluslung fruits, and plenty not his own.* 
Fair recompense of labour well bestowed. 
And wise precaution; which a clime so rude 
Makes needful still, whose Spring is but the child 
Of churhsh Winter, in her froward moods 
Discovering much the temper of her sire. 
For oft, as if in her the stream of mild 
Maternal nature had reversed its course, 
She sings her infants forth with many smiles ; 
But, once deUvered, kills them with a frown. 
He therefore, timely warned himself, suppUes 
Her want of care, screening and keeping warm 
The plenteous bloom, that no rough blast may 

sweep 
His garlands from the boughs. Again, as oft 
As the sun peeps and vernal airs breathe mild, 
The fence withdrawn, he gives them every beam, 
And spreads liis hopes before the blaze of day. ■ 

To raise the prickly and green-coated gomd 
So grateftJ to the palate, and when rare 
So coveted, else base and- disesteemed — 
Food for the vulgar merely — is an art 
That toiling ages have but just matured, 
And at this moment unessayed in song. 
Yet gnats have had, and frogs and mice, long 

since, 
Their eulogy; those sang the Mantuan bard, 
And these tlie Grecian, in ennobhng strains; 
And in thy numbers, PhiUps, shines for aye 
The solitary shilling. Pardon then, 
Ye sage dispensers of poetic fame, 
Th' ambition of one meaner far, whose powers, 
Presuming an attempt not less sublime, 
Pant for the praise of dressing to the taste 
Of critic appetite, no sordid fare, 
A cucumber, while costly yet and scarce. 

The stable yields a stcrcoraceous heap. 
Impregnated with quick fermenting salts, 
And potent to resist the freezing blast: 
For, e'er the beech and ehn have cast their leaf 



• • Miraturque novos fructus et non eua poma.' Virg. 



Deciduous, when now November dark 
Checks vegetation in the torpid plant 
Exposed to his cold breath, the task begins. 
Warily, therefore, and with prudent heed, 
He seeks a favoured spot ; that where he builds 
Th' agglomerated pile his frame may front 
The sun's meridian disk, and at the back 
Enjoy close shelter, wall, or reeds, or hedge 
Impervious to the wind. First he bids spread 
Dry fern or Uttered hay, that may imbibe 
Th' ascending damps ; then leisurely impose, 
And lightly, shaking it with agile hand 
From the fuU fork, the saturated straw. 
What longest binds the closest forms secure 
The shapely side, that as it rises takes, 
By just degi'ees, an overhanging breadth, 
Sheltering the base with its projected eaves; 
Th' uplifted frame, compact at every joint, 
And overlaid with clear translucent glass, 
He settles next upon the sloping mount, 
Whose sharp decUvity shoots oft' secure 
From the dashed pane the deluge as it falls. 
He shuts it close, and the first labour ends. 
Thrice must ths voluble and restless earth 
Spin round upon her axle, ere the warmth 
Slow gathering in the midst, through the square 

mass 
Diffused, attain the surface ; when, behold ! 
A pestilent and most corrosive steam, 
Like a gross fog Boeotian, rising fast, 
And fast condensed upon the dewy sash, 
Asks egress ; wliich obtained, the overcharged 
And drenched conservatory breathes abroad, 
In volmnes wheeling slow, the vapour dank ; 
And, purified, rejoices to have lost 
Its foul inhabitant. But to assuage 
Th' impatient fervour, which it first conceives 
Within its reeking bosom, threatning death 
To his young hopes, requires discreet delay, 
Experience, slow preceptress, teaching oft 
The way to glory by miscarriage foul. 
Must prompt liinr, and admonish how to catch 
Th' auspicious moment, when the tempered heat, 
Friendly to vital motion, may afford 
Soft fomentation, and invite the seed. 
The seed, selected wisely, plmnp and smooth, 
And glossy, he commits to pots of size 
Duninutive, well filled with well-prepared 
And fruitful soil, that has been treasured long, 
And drank no moisture -from the dripping clouds. 
These on the warm and genial earth, that hides 
The smoking manure, and o'erspreads it all, 
He places hghtly, and, as time subdues 
The rage of fennentation, plunges deep 
In the soft medium, till they stand immersed. 
Then rise the tender germs, upstarting quick, 
And spreading wide their spongy lobes ; at first 
Pale, wan, and livid ; but assuming soon, 
If fanned by balmy and nutritious air, 



THE TASK. 



75 



Strained through the friendly mats, a vivid geecn. 

Two leaves produced, two rough indented leaves. 

Cautious he pinches from the second stalk 

A pimple, that portends a future sprout, 

And interdicts its growth. Thence straight succeed 

The branches, sturdy to his utmost wish ; 

Prolific all, and harbingers of more. 

The crowded roots demand enlargement now. 

And transplantation in an ampler space. 

Indulged in what they wish, they soon supply 

Large foliage, overshadovring golden flowers, 

Blown on the summit of th' apparent fruit. 

These have their sexes ! and, when sununer sliines, 

The bee transports the fertihzing meal 

From flower to flower, and e'en the breathing air 

Wafts the rich prize to its appointed use. 

Not so when winter scowls. Assistant art 

Then acts in Nature's office, brings to pass 

The glad espousals, and ensures the crop. 

Grudge not, ye rich, (since Luxury must have 
His dainties, and the world's more nmnerous half 
Lives by contriving deUcates for you,) 
Grudge not the cost. Ye Uttle know the cares, 
The vigilance, the labour, and the skill, 
That day and night are exercised, and hang 
Upon the tickhsh balance of suspense, 
That ye may garnish your profuse regales 
With summer fruits brought forth by wintry suns. 
Ten thousand dangers lie in wait to thwart 
The process. Heat and cold, and wind, and steam. 
Moisture and drought, mice, worms, and swarm- 
ing flies, • 
Minute as dust, and numberless, oft work 
Dire disappointment, that admits no cure, 
And which no care can obviate. It were long. 
Too long, to tell th' expedients and the shifts, 
Which he that fights a season so severe 
Devises, while he guards his tender trust; 
And oft at last in vain. The learned and wise 
Sarcastic would exclaim, and judge the song 
Cold as its theme, and like its theme, the fruit 
Of too much labour, worthless when produced. 

Who loves a garden loves a green-house too. 
Unconscious of a less propitious clime, 
There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug. 
While the winds whistle, and the snows descend. 
The spiry myrtle with unwithering leaf 
Shines there and flourishes. The golden boast 
Of Portugal and western India there, 
The ruddier orange, and the paler lime. 
Peep through the polished fohage at the storm, 
And seem to smile at what they need not fear. 
Th' amomum there, with intermuigUng flowers 
And cherries hangs her twigs. Geranium boasts 
Her crimson honours ; and the spangled beau, 
Picoides, glitters bright the winter long. 
All plants, of every leaf, that can endure 
The winter's frown, if screened from Ms slirewd 
bite, 



Live there, and prosper. ■ Those Ausonia clauns, 
Levantine regions these ; the Azores send 
Their jessamine, her jessftmiiie remote 
Cafiraria ; foreigners from many lands, 
They form one social shade, as if convened 
By magic summons of th' Orphean lyre. 
Yet just arrangement, rarely brought to pass 
But by a master's hand, disposing well 
The gay diversities of leaf and flower, 
Must lend its aid t' illustrate all their charms, 
And dress the regular yet various scene. 
Plant behind plant aspiring, in the van 
The dwarfish, in the rear retired, but still, 
Subhme above the rest, the statelier stand. 
So once were ranged the sons of ancient Rome 
A noble show ! while Rosciustrod the stage, 
And so, wliile Garrick, as renovmed as he, 
The sons of Albion ; fearing each to lose 
Some note of Nature's music froiii his lips. 
And covetous of Shakspeare's beauty, seen 
In every flash of his far-beaming eye. 
Nor taste alone and well contrived display 
Suffice to give the marshalled ranks the grace 
Of their complete effect. Much yet remains 
Unsung, and many cares are yet behind, 
And more laborious ; cares on which depends 
Their vigour, injured soon, not soon restored. 
The soil must be renewed, which, often washed, 
Loses its treasure of salubrious salts, 
And disappoints the roots; the slender roots 
Close interwoven, and where they meet the vase 
Must smooth be shorn away ; the sapless branch 
Must fly before the knife ; the withered leaf 
Must be detached, where it strews the floor 
Swept with a woman's neatness, breeding else 
Contagion, and disseminating death. 
Discharge but these kind offices, (and who 
Would spare, that loves them, offices like these '?) 
Well they reward the toil. The sight is pleased, 
The scent regaled, each odoriferous leaf, 
Each opening blossom freely breathes abroad 
Its gratitude, and thanks him with its sweets. 

So manifold, all pleasing m their kind. 
All healthftd, are th' employs of rural life. 
Reiterated as the wheel of tune 
Runs round; still ending, and beginning still. 
Nor are these all. To deck the shapely knoll, 
That softly swelled and gayly dressed appears 
A flowery island, from the dark green lawn 
Emerging, must be deemed a labour due 
To no mean hand, and asks the touch of taste. 
Here also grateful mixture of well-matched 
And sorted hues (each giving each relief, 
And by contrasted beauty shining more) 
Is needful. Strength may wield the ponderous 



May turn the clod, and wheel the compost home; 
But elegance, chief grace the garderi shows, 
And most attractive, is the fair result 



76 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Of thought, the creature of a polished mind. 

Without it all is gothic as the scene, 

To which the insipid citizen resorts 

Near yonder heath ; where Industry mispent, 

But proud of his uncouth ill-chosen task. 

Has made a heaven on earth; with suns and 

moons 
Of close rammed stones has charged th' encmn- 

bered soil, 
And fairly laid the zodiac in the dust. 
He, therefore, who would see his flowers disposed 
Sightly and in just order, ere he gives 
The beds the trusted treasure of their seeds, 
Forecasts the future whole ; that when the scene 
Shall break into its preconceived display. 
Each for itself, and all as with one voice 
Conspiring, may attest his bright design. 
Nor even then, dismissing as performed 
His pleasant work may he suppose it done. 
Few self-supported flowers endure the wind 
Uninjured, but expect th' upholding aid 
Of the smooth-shaven prop, and, neatly tied, 
Are wedded thus, like beauty to old age, 
For interest sake, the Uving to the dead. 
Some clothe the soil that feeds them, far diffused 
And lowly creeping, modest and yet fair. 
Like virtue, tlniving most where little seen ; 
Some more aspiring catch the neighbour shrub 
With clasping tendrils, and invest his branch, 
Else unadorned, with many a gay festoon 
And fragrant chaplet, recompensing well 
The strength they borrow with the grace they 

lend. 
All hate the rank society of weeds. 
Noisome, and ever greedy to exhaust 
Th' impoverished earth ; an overbearing race. 
That, hke the multitude made faction-mad, 
Disturb good order, and degrade true worth. 

O blest seclusion from a janing world. 
Which he, thus occupied, enjoys ! Retreat 
Can not indeed to guilty man restore 
Lost innocence, or cancel follies past ; 
But it has peace, and much secures the n;iind 
From all assaults of evil ; proving still 
A faithful barrier, not o'erleaped with ease 
By vicious Custom, raging uncontrolled 
Abroad, and desolating public hfe. 
When fierce Temptation, seconded within 
By traitor Appetite, and armed with darts 
Tempered in hell, invades the throbbing breast. 
To combat may be glorious, and success 
Perhaps may crown us ; but to fly is safe. 
Had I the choice of sublunary good, 
What could I vrish, that I possess not here? 
Health, leisure, means t' improve it, friendship, 

peace, 
No loose or wanton, though a wandering muse, 
And constant occupation without care. 
Thus blest I draw a picture of that bhss ; 



Hopeless, indeed, that dissipated minds, 

And profligate abusers of a world 

Created fair so much in vain for them, 

Should seek the guiltless joys, that I describe, 

Allured by my report: but sure no less. 

That self-condemned they must neglect the prize, 

And what they will not taste must yet approve. 

What we admire we praise ; and, when we praise 

Advance it into notice, that, is worth 

Acknowledged, others may admire it too. 

I therefore recommend, though at the risk 

Of popular disgust, yet boldly still. 

The cause of piety, and sacred truth. 

And virtue, and those scenes, which God ordained 

Should best secure them, and promote them most, 

Scenes that I love, and with regret perceive 

Forsaken, or through folly not enjoyed. 

Pure is the nymph, though liberal of her smiles, 

And chaste, though xmconfined, whom I extol, 

Not as the prince in Shushan, when he called, 

Vainglorious of her charms, his Vashti forth, 

To grace the full pavilion. His design 

Was but to boast his ovra peculiar good. 

Which all might view vnth envy, none partake. 

My charmer is not mine alone ; my sweets. 

And she that sweetens all my bitters too, 

Nature, enchanting Nature, in whose form 

And lineaments divine I trace a hand 

That errs not, and find raptures still renewed, 

Is free to all men — universal prize. 

Strange that so fair a creature should yet want 

Admfrers and be destined to divide 

With meaner objects e'en the few she finds; 

Stripped of her ornaments, her leaves and flowers, 

She loses all her influence. Cities then 

Attract us, and neglected Nature pines 

Abandoned, as unworthy of our love. 

But are not wholesome airs, though unperfumed 

By roses; and clear suns, though scarcely felt; 

And groves, if unharmonious, yet secure 

From clamour, and whose very silence charms; 

To be preferred to smoke, to the eclipse 

That metropolitan volcanoes make. 

Whose Stygian throats breathe darkness .all day 

long? 
And to the stir of Cdrmnerce, driving slow. 
And thundering loud, with his ten thousand 

wheels; 
They would be, were not madness in the head, 
And folly in the heart; were England now 
What England was, — plain, hospitable, kind. 
And undebauched. But we have bid farewell 
To all the virtues of those better days. 
And all their honest pleasures. Mansions once. 
Knew their own masters; and laborious hinds, 
Who had survived the father, served the son. 
Now the legitimate and rightfiil lord 
Is but a transient guest, newly arrived. 
As soon to be supplanted. He, that saw 



THE TASK. 



His patrimonial timber cast its leaf, 

Sells the last scantling, and transfers the price 

To some shrewd sharper, ere it buds again. 

Estates are landscapes, gazed upon awhile 

Then advertised, and auctioneered away. 

The country starves, and they, that feed th' o'er- 

charged 
And surfeited lewd town with her fair dues, 
By a just judgment strip and starve themselves. 
The wings, that waft our riches out of sight. 
Grow on the gamester's elbows ; and th' alert 
And nimble motion of those restless joints. 
That never tire, soon fans them all away. 
Improvement too, the idol of the age; 
Is fed with many a victim. Lo, he comes ! 
The omnipotent magician. Brown, appears ! 
Down falls the venerable pile, th' abode 
Of our forefathers — a grave whiskered race, 
But tasteless. Springs a palace in its stead, 
But in a distant spot; where more exposed 
It may enjoy th' advantage of the north. 
And aguish east, till time shall have transformed 
Those naked acres to a sheltering grove. 
He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lavm; 
"Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise ; 
And streams, as if created for his use, 
Pursue the tract of his directing wand. 
Sinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow, 
Now murmuring soft, now roaring in cascades — 
E'en as he bids ! Th' enraptured owner smiles. 
'Tis finished, and yet, fijtiished as it seems, 
Still wants a grace, the loveHest it could show, 
A mine to satisfy th' enormous cost. 
Drained to the last poor item of its wealth. 
He sighs, departs, and leaves th' accomplished 

plan 
That he has touched, retouched, many a long day 
Laboured, and many a night pursued in dreams, 
Just when it meets his hopes, and proves the 

heaven 
He wanted, for a wealthier to enjoy ! 
And now perhaps the glorious hour is come. 
When, having no stake left, no pledge t' endear 
Her interests, or that gives her sacred cause 
A moment's operation on his love, 
He burns with most intense and flagrant zeal 
To serve his country. Ministerial grace 
Deals him out money from the public chest; 
Or, if that mine be shut, some private purse 
SuppUes his need with a usurious loan, 
To be refunded duly, when his vote, 



Well-managed, shall have earned its worthy price. 
O innocent, compared with arts like these, 
Crape, and cocked pistol, and the wlristhng ball 
Sent through. the traveller's temples ! He that finds 
One drop of heaven's sweet mercy in his cup. 
Can dig, beg, rot, and perish, well content, 
So he may wrap hhiiself in honest rags 
At liis last gasp; but could not for a world 
Fish up liis dirty and dependent bread 
From pools and ditches of the commonwealth, 
Sordid and sickening at his own success. 

Ambition, avarice, penury incurred 
By endless riot, vanity, the lust 
Of pleasme and variety, despatch, 
As duly as the swallows disappear, 
The world of wandering knights and squires to 

town. 
London ingulfs them all! The shark is there. 
And the shark's prey; the spendthrift, and the 

leech 
That sucks him; there the sycophant, and he 
Who with bareheaded and obsequious bows 
Begs a warm office, doomed to a cold jail 
And groat per diem, if his patron frown. 
The levee swarms, as if in golden pomp 
Were charactered on every statesman's door, 
' Battered and bankrupt fortunes mended here} 
These are the charms, that sully and eclipse 
The charms of nature. 'Tis the cruel gripe, 
That lean, hard-handed Poverty inflicts. 
The hope of better things, the chance to win, 
The wish to shine, the thirst to be amused. 
That at the sound of Winter's hoary wing 
Unpeople all our counties of such herds 
Of fluttering, loitering, cringing, begging, loose, 
And wanton vagrants, as make London, vast 
And boundless as it is, a crowded coop. 

O thou, resort and mart of all the earth, 
Checkered with all complexions of mankind. 
And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see 
Much that I love, and more that I admire, 
And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair, 
That pleasest and yet shock'st me, I can laugh, 
And I can weep, can hope, and can despond, 
Feel wrath and pity, when I think on thee! 
Ten righteous woidd have saved a city once, 
And thou hast many righteous. — Well for thee — 
That salt preserves thee; more- coiTupted else, 
And therefore more obnoxious, at this hour, 
Than Sodom in her day had power to be, 
For whom God heard his Abraham plead in vain. 



78 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



STfte 2ra.^» 



BOOK IV. 



THE WINTER EVENING, 



ARGUMENT. 

The post cornea in. — ^The newspaper is read. — Tlio world contemplated at a distance. — Address to Winter.— The rural 
amusements of a winter evening compared with the fashionable ones. — Address to Evening. — A brown study. — Fall of snow 
in the evening. — ^The wagoner. — A poor family-piece. — The rural thief— Public houses. — The multitude of them cen- 
sured.— The fanner's daughter ; what she was — what she is. — The simplicity of country manners almost lost. — Causes of 
the change. — Desertion of the coimtry by the rich. — Neglect of maglstratea — The miUtia principally in fault. — The new 
recruit and his transformation. — Reflection on bodies corporate. — The love of rural objects natural to all, and nbver to be 
totally extinguished. 

Hark ! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge, 
That with its wearisome but needful length 
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon 
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright ; — 
He come?, the herald of a noisy world, 
With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen 

locks ; 
News from all nations lumbering at his back. 
True to his charge, the close packed load behind. 
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern 
Is to conduct it to the destined inn ; 
And, having dropped th' expected bag, pass on. 
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, 
Cold and yet cheerful : messenger of grief 
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some ; 
To him indifferent whether grief or joy. 
Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks. 
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet 
With tears, that trickled dowia the waiter's cheeks. 
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill. 
Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains. 
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect 
His horse and him, unconscious of them all. 
But O, th' important budget ! ushered in 
With such heart-shaking music, who can say. 
What are its tidings 1 have our troops -awaked "? 
Or do they still, as if with opium drugged. 
Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave 1 
Is India free 1 and does she wear her plumed 
And jewelled turban with a smile of peace, 
Or do we grind her still 1 The grand debate. 
The popular harangue, the tart reply. 
The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit, 
And the loud laugh — I long to know them all ; 
I burn to set th' imprisoned wranglers free. 
And give them voice and utterance once again. 

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast. 
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, 
And, while the bubbhng and loud hissing urn 
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, 
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, 
So let us welcome peaceful evening in ; 
Not such his evening, who with shining face 



Sweats in the crowded theatre, and, squeezed 

And bored with elbow-points through both his sides, 

Outscolds the ranting actor on the stage : 

Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb. 

And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath 

Of patriots, bursting with heroic rage, 

Or placemen, all tranquillity and smiles. 

This folio of four pages, liappy work, 

Which not e'en critics criticise ; that holds 

Inquisitive attention, wliile I read. 

Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, 

Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break ; 

What is it, but a map of busy life. 

Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns 1 

Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge, 

That tempts ambition. On the summit see 

The seals of office ghtter in his eyes : 

He clunbs, he pants, he grasps them ! At his heels, 

Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends. 

And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down, 

And wins them, but to lose them ih his turn. 

Here rills of oily eloquence in soft 

Meanders lubricate the course they take ; 

The modest speaker is ashamed and grieved, 

T' engross a moment's notice ; and yet begs, 

Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts^ 

However trivial all that he conceives. 

Sweet bashfulness ! it clauns at least tills praise ; 

The dearth of information and good sense. 

That it foretells us, always comes to pass. 

Cataracts of declamation thunder here ; 

There forests of no meaning spread the page. 

In which all comprehension wanders lost ; 

Wliile fields of pleasantry amuse us there 

With merry descants on a nation's woes. 

The rest appears a wilderness of strange 

But gay confusion ; roses for the cheeks, 

And lilies for the brows of faded age, 

Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald, 

Heaven, earth, and ocean, plundered of their sweets, 

Nectareous essences, Olympian dews. 

Sermons, and city feasts, and favourite airs, 

JEthereal journeys, submarine exploits. 



THE TASK. 



79 



And Katterfelto, with his hcoir on end 

At his own wonders, wondering for his bread. 

'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, 
To peep at such a world ; to see the stir 
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd ; 
To hear the roar she sends through all her gates 
At a safe distance, where the dying sound 
Falls a soft murmur on th' uninjured ear. 
Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease 
The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced 
To some secure and more than mortal height, 
That liberates and exempts me from them all. 
It turns submitted to my view, turns round 
With all its generations ; I behold 
The tumult, and am still. The sound of war 
Has lost its terrors ere it reaches me ; 
Grieves, but alarms me not. I mourn the pride 
And avarice that makes man a wolf to man ; 
Hear the faint echo of those brazen throats, 
By which he speaks the language of his heart, 
And sigh, but never tremble at the sound. 
He travels and expatiates, as the bee 
From flower to flower, so he from land to land : 
The manners, customs, poUcy of all 
Pay contribution to the store he gleans ; 
He sucks intelligence in every clime, 
And spreads the honey of his deep research 
At his return — a rich repast for me. 
He travels, and I too. I tread his deck, 
Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes 
Discover countries, with a kindred heart 
Suffers his woes, and share in his escapes; 
While fancy, like the finger of a clock, 
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home. 

O Winter, ruler of th' inverted year. 
Thy scattered hair with sleet like ashes filled, 
Thy breath congealed upon thy hps, thy cheeks 
Fringed with a beard made white with other 

snows 
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in 

clouds, 
A leafless brancli thy sceptre, and thy throne 
A sliding car, indebted to no wheels. 
But urged by storms along its slippery way, 
I love thee, all imlovely as thou seem'st, 
And dreaded as thou art ! Thou hold'st the sun 
A prisoner in the yet undawning east. 
Shortening his journey between mom and noon. 
And hurrying him, impatient of his stay, 
Down to the rosy west ; but kindly still 
Compensating his loss with added hours 
Of social converse and instructive ease. 
And gathering, at short notice, in one group 
The family dispersed, and fixing thought, 
Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares. 
I crown thee king of intimate delights, 
Fireside enjoyments, homeborn happiness. 
And all the comforts, that the lowly roof 
Of undisturbed Retirement, and the hours 



Of long uninterrupted evening, know. 

No ratthng wheels stop short before these gates; 

No powdered pert proficient in the art 

Of sounding an alarm assaults these doors 

Till the street rings; no stationary steeds 

Cough their owm knell, while heedless of the souad, 

The silent circle fan themselves, and quake: 

But here the needle plies its busy task. 

The pattern grows, the well depicted flower, • 

Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn. 

Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs, 

And curUng tendrils, gracefully disposed. 

Follow the nimble finger of the fair ; 

A wreath that can not fade, of flowers, that blow 

With most success when all besides decay. 

The poet's or historian's page by one 

Made vocal for th' amusement of the rest ; 

The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds 

The touch from many a trembling chord shakes 

out ; 
And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct. 
And in the channing strife triumphant still, 
Beguile the night, and set a keener edge 
On female industry: the threaded steel 
Flies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds. 
The volume closed, the customary rites 
Of the last meal commence. A Roman meal; 
Such as the mistress of the world once found 
Delicious, when her patriots of high note, 
Perhaps by moonlight, at their humble doors, 
And under an old oak's domestic shade. 
Enjoyed, spare feast ! a radish and an egg. 
Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull. 
Nor such as with a frown forbids the play 
Of fancy, or prescribes the sound of mirth. 
Nor do we madly, like an impious world. 
Who deem religion frenzy, and the God 
That made them, an intruder on their joys. 
Start at his awM name, or deem his praise 
A jarring note. Themes of a graver tone. 
Exciting oft our gratitude and love. 
While we retrace with Memory's pointing wand, 
That calls the past to our exact review. 
The dangers we have 'scaped, the broken snare, 
The disappointed foe, dehverance found 
Unlooked for, life preserved, and peace restored, 
Fruits of onmipotent eternal love. 
O evenings worthy of the gods ! exclaimed 
The Sabine bard. O evenings, I reply. 
More to be prized and coveted than yours. 
As more illumined, and vfith. nobler truths. 
That I, and mine, and those we love, enjoy. 

Is Winter hideous m a garb like tins'? 
Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps, 
The pent-up breath of an unsavomy throng. 
To thaw him into feeling; or the smart 
And snappish dialogue, that flippant wits 
Call comedy, to prompt him with a smile's 
The self-complacent actor, when he views 



80 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



(Stealing a sidelong glance at a full house) 

The slope of faces from the floor to th' roof 

(As if one master-spring controlled them all) 

Relaxed into a universal grin, 

Sees not a countenance there that speaks of joy 

Half so refined or so sincere as ours. 

Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricks, 

That idleness has ever yet contrived 

To- fill the void of an unfurnished brain. 

To palliate dullness, and give time a shove. 

Time, as he passes us, ha^ a dove's vnng, 

Unsoiled and swift, and of a silken somid; 

But the world's Time is Time in masquerade! 

Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledged 

With motley plumes; and, where the peacock 

shows 
His azure eyes, is tinctured black and red 
With spots quadrangular of diamond form. 
Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife. 
And spades, the emblem of untimely graves. 
What should be, and what was an hour-glass 

once. 
Becomes a dice-box, and a bilUard mace 
Well does the work of his destructive scji;he. 
Thus decked, he charms a world whom fashion 

blinds 
To his true worth, most pleased when idle most ; 
Whose only happy are their wasted hours. 
E'en misses, at whose age their mothers wore 
The backstring and the bib, assume the dress 
Of womanhood, fit pupils in the school 
Of card-devoted Time, and night by night 
Placed at some vacant corner of the board. 
Learn every trick, and soon play all the game. 
But truce with censure. Roving as I rove, 
Where shall I find an end, or how proceed'? 
As he who travels far oft turns aside. 
To view some rugged rock or mouldering tower. 
Which seen delights lum not ; then coming home, 
Describes and prints it, that the world may know 
How far he went for what was nothing worth ; 
So I, with brush in hand, and palette spread, 
With colours mixed for a far different use. 
Paint cards, and dolls, and every idle thing. 
That Fancy finds in her excursive flights. 

Come, Evening, once again, season of peace ; 
Return, sweet Evening, and continue long! 
Methinks I see thee in the streaky west. 
With matron step slow moving, while the Night 
Treads on thy sweeping train ! one hand employed 
In letting fall the curtain of repose 
On bird and beast, the other charged for man 
With sweet oblivion of the cares of day : 
Not sumptuously adorned, not needing aid. 
Like homely-featured Night, of clustering gems ; 
A star or two just tvnnlcling on thy brow, 
Suffices thee ; save that the moon is thine 
No less than hers, not worn indeed on high 
With ostentatious pageantry, but set 



With modest grandeur in thy purple zone, 
Resplendent less, but of an ampler round. 
Come then, and thou shalt find thy votary calm, 
Or make nie so. Composure is thy gift: 
And, whether I devote thy gentle hours 
To books, to music, or the poet's toil ; 
To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit ; 
Or twining silken threads round ivory reels. 
When they coimnand whom man was bom to 

please 
I sUght thee not, but make thee welcome still. 

Just when our drawing-rooms begin to blaze 
With fights, by clear reflection multiplied 
From many a mirror, in which he of Gath, 
Gofiah, might have seen his giant bulk 
Whole without stooping, towering crest and all. 
My pleasures too begin. But me perhaps 
The glowing hearth may satisfy awhile 
With faint illumination, that uplifts 
The shadows to tlie ceifing, there by fits 
Dancing uncouthly to the quivering flame. 
Not undehghted is an hour to me 
So spent in parlour twilight : such a gloom 
Suits well the thoughtful or unthinking mind, 
The mind contemplative, with some new theme 
Pregnant, or indisposed alike to all. 
Laugh ye, who boast your more mercurial powers, 
That never felt a stupor, know no pause, 
Nor need one ; I am conscious, and confess 
Fearless, a soul that does not always think. 
Me oft has Fancy ludicrous and wild 
Soothed me with a waking dream of houses, towers, 
Trees, churches, and strange visages, expressed 
In the red cinders, while with poring eye 
I gazed, myself creating what I saw. 
Nor less amused have I quiescent watched 
The sooty films, that play upon the bars 
Pendulous, and foreboding in the view 
Of superstition, prophesying still, 
Though still deceived, some stranger's near ap- 
proach, 
'Tis thus the understanding takes repose 
In indolent vacuity of thought. 
And sleeps, and is refreshed. Meanwhile the face 
Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask 
Of deep deliberation, as the man 
Were tasked to his full strength, absorbed and lost. 
Thus oft, reclined at ease, I lose an hour 
At evening, till at length the freezing blast. 
That sweeps the bolted shutter, summons home 
The recollected powers ; and snapping short 
The glassy threads, with which the fancy weaves 
Her brittle toils, restores me to myself. 
How calm is my recess ; and how the frost, 
Raging abroad, and the rough wind endear 
The silence and the warmth enjoyed within 1 
I saw the woods and fields at close of day 
A variegated show ; the meadows green, 
Though faded ; and the lands, where lately waved 



THE TASK. 



81 



The golden harvest, of a mellow brown, 
Upturned so lately by the forceful share. 
I saw far off" the weedy fallows smile 
With verdure not unprofitable, grazed 
By flocks, fast feeding ; and selecting each 
His favourite herb ; while all the leafless groves 
That skirt the horizon, wore a sable hue, 
Scarce noticed in the kindred dusk of eve. 
To-morrow brings a change, a total change ! 
Which even now, though silently performed, 
And slowly, and by most unfelt, the face 
Of universal nature vmdergoes. 
Fast falls a fleecy shower : the downy flakes 
Descending, and, with never -ceasmg lapse, 
Softly alighting upon all below. 
Assimilate all objects. Earth receives 
Gladly the thickening mantle ; and the green 
And tender blade, that feared the chilUng blast, 
Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil. 

In such a world, so thorny, and where none 
Finds happiness unblighted, or, if found, 
Without some tliistly sorrow at its side. 
It seems the part of wisdom, and no .sin 
Against the law of love, to measure lots 
With less distinguished than ourselves ; that thus 
We may with patience bear our moderate ills, 
And sjrmpathize with others suffering more. 
Ill fares the traveller now, and he that stalks 
In ponderous boots beside his reeking team. 
The wain goes heavily, impeded sore 
. By congregated loads adhering close 
To the clogged wheels ; and in its sluggish pace 
Noiseless appears a moving hill of snow. 
The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide, 
While every breath, by respiration strong 
Forced downward, is consolidated soon 
Upon their jutting chests. He,. formed to bear 
The pelting brunt of the tempestuous night. 
With half-shut eyes, and puckered cheeks and 

teeth 
Presented bare against the storm, plods on. 
One hand secures his hat, save when with both 
He brandishes his pliant length of whip, 
Resoimding oft, and never heard in vain. 
O happy; and in my account denied 
That sensibility of pain, with which 
Refinement is endued, thrice happy thou! 
Thy frame, robust and hardy, feels indeed 
The piercing cold, but feels it unimpaired. 
The learned finger never need explore 
The vigorous pulse ; and the unhealthful east, 
That breathes the spleen, and searches every bone 
Of the infirm, is wholesome air to thee. 
Thy days roll on exempt firom household care ; 
Thy wagon is thy wife ; and the poor beasts; 
That drag the dull companion to and fro, • 
Thine helpless charge, dependent on thy care. 
Ah treat them kindly ! rude as thou appear'st. 
Yet show that thou hast mercy ! which the great, I 



With needless hurry whirled from place to place, 
Humane as they would seem, not always show. 
Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat. 
Such claim compassion in a night like this, 
And have a friend in every feeling heart. 
Warmed, while it lasts, by labour, all day long 
They brave the season, and yet find at eve, 
111 clad and fed but sparely, time too cool. 
The frugal housewife trembles when she hghts 
Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear, 
But dying soon, lilte all terrestrial joys. 
The few small embers left she nurses well ; 
And, while her infant race, with outspread hands, 
xlnd crowded knees sit cowering o'er the sparks, 
Retires, content to quake, so they be warmed. 
The man feels least, as more inured than she 
To vsdnter and the current in his veins 
More briskly moved by his severer toil ; 
Yet he too finds his own distress in theirs. 
The taper soon extinguished, which I saw 
Dangled along at the cold finger's end 
Just when the day declined ; and the brown loaf 
Lodged on the shelf, half eaten without sauce 
Of savoury cheese, or butter, costlier still ; 
Sleep seems their only refuge ; for alas ! 
Where penury is felt the thought is chained, 
And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few. 
With all this thrift they thrive not. All the care 
Ingenious parsimony takes, but just 
Saves the small inventory, bed, and stool. 
Skillet, and old carved chest, from pubhc sale. 
They Uve, and live without extorted alms 
From grudging hands ; but other boast have none 
To soothe their honest pride, that scorns to beg. 
Nor comfort else, but in their mutual love. 
I praise you much, ye weak and patient pair, 
For ye are worthy ; choosing rather far 
A dry but independent crust, hard earned, 
And eaten with a sigh, than to endure 
The rugged frowns and insolent rebufTs 
Of knaves in office, partial in the work ■ 
Of distribution; liberal of their aid 
To clamorous Importunity in rags. 
But ofttimes deaf to suppliants, who would blush 
To wear a tattered garb, however coarse. 
Whom famine can not reconcile to filth: 
These ask with painful shyness, and, refused 
Because deserving, silently retire ! 
But be ye of good courage ! Time itself 
Shall much befriend you. Time shall give in- 
crease. 

And all your numerous progeny, well trained 
But helpless, in few years shall find their hands, 
And labour too. Mean-while ye shall not want 
What, conscious of your virtues, we can spare, 
Nor what a wealthier than ourselves may send. 
I mean the man, who, when the distant poor 
Need help, denies them nothing but his name. 
But poverty with most, who whimper forth 



82 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Their long complaints, is self-inflicted wo; 
The effect of laziness or sottish waste. 
Now goes the nightly thief prowlmg abroad 
For plunder : much soUcitous how best 
He may compensate for a day of sloth 
By works of darkness and nocturnal wrong. 
Wo to the gardener's pale, the farmer's hedge. 
Plashed neatly, and secured with driven stakes 
Deep in the loamy bank. Uptorn by strength, 
Resistless in so bad a cause, but lame 
To better deeds, he bundles up the spoil, 
An ass's burthen, and, when laden most 
And heaviest, hght of foot steals fast away. 
Nor does the boarded hovel better guard 
The well-stacked pile of riven logs and roots, 
From his pernicious force. Nor will he leave 
Unwrenched the door, however well secured. 
Where chanticleer amidst liis haram sleeps 
In unsuspecting pomp. Twitched from the perch 
He gives the princely bird, with all his wives. 
To his voracious bag, struggling in vain, 
And loudly wondering at the sudden change. 
Nor this to feed his own. 'Twere some excuse, 
Did pity of their sufferings warp aside 
His principle, and tempt him mto sin 
For their support, so destitute. But they 
Neglected pine at home ; themselves, as more 
Exposed than others, with less scruple made 
His victims, robbed of their defenceless all. 
Cruel is all he docs. 'Tis quenchless thirst 
Of ruinous ebriety, that prompts 
His every action, and unbrutes the man. 
O for a law to noose the villain's neck, 
Who starves his own; who persecutes the blood 
He gave them in his children's veins, and hates 
And wrongs the woman he has sworn to love ! 
Pass where we may, through city or through 
town. 
Village, or hamlet, of this merry land. 
Though lean and beggared, every twentieth pace 
Conducts the unguarded nose to such a whiff 
Of stale debauch, forth issuing from the styes 
That law has licensed, as makes temperance reel. 
There sit, involved and lost in curling clouds 
Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor, 
The lackey, and the groom: The craftsman there 
Takes Lethean leave of all his toil ; 
Smith, cobler, joiner, he that plies the shears. 
And he that kpcads the dough; all loud alike, 
All learned, and all drunk ! the fiddle screams 
Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wailed 
Its wasted tones and harmony unheard : 
Fierce the dispute whate'er the theme ; while she. 
Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate. 
Perched on the .signpost, holds with even hand 
Her undecisive scales. In this she lays 
A weight of ignorance; in tliat, of pride: 
And smiles dcliglited with th' eternal poise 
Dire is the frequent curse, and its twin sound, 



The cheek distending oath, not to be praised 

As ornamental, musical, poUte, 

Like those, vvliich modern senators employ. 

Whose oath is rhetoric, and who swear for fame! 

Behold the schools in which plebeian minds, 

Once simple, are initiated in arts 

Which some may practise with politer grace, 

But none with readier skill ! — 'tis here they learn 

The road, that leads from competence and peace 

To indigence and rapine ; till at last 

Society, grown weary of the load, 

Shakes her encumbered lap, and casts them out. 

But censure profits Uttle: vain th' attempt, 

To advertise in verse a pubUc pest. 

That, like the filth with which the peasant feeds 

His hungry acres, stinks, and is of use. 

Th' excise is fattened with the rich result 

Of all this riot ; and ten thousand casks. 

For ever dribbhng out their base contents, 

Touched by the Midas finger of the state, 

Bleed gold for ministers to sport away. 

Drink, and be mad then; 'tis your comitry bids! 

Gloriously drunk obey th' important call ! 

Her cause demands th' assistance of your throats; 

Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more. ^ 

Would I had fallen upon those happier days, 
That poets celebrate; those golden times. 
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings, 
And Sidney, Warbler of poetic prose. • 
Nymphs were Dianas then, and swains had hearts 
That felt their virtues : Innocence, it seems. 
From courts dismissed, found shelter in the groves ; 
The footsteps of Simphcity, impressed 
Upon the yielding herbage, (so they sing) 
Then were not all effaced: then speech profane. 
And manners prolate, were rarely found. 
Observed as prodigies, and soon reclaimed. 
Vain wish ! those days were never: airy dreams 
Sat for the picture : and the poet's hand. 
Imparting substance to an empty shade, 
Imposed a gay delirium for a truth. 
Grant it: I still must envy them an age. 
That favoured such a dream; in days like these 
Impossible, when virtue is so scarce, 
That to suppose a scene where she presides. 
Is tramontane, and stumbles all belief 
No: we are polished now. The rural lass 
Whom once her virgin modesty and grace, 
Her artless manners, and hei; neat attire. 
So dignified, that she was hardly less 
Than the fair shepherdess of old romance, 
Is seen no more. The character is lost ! 
Her head, adorned with lappets pinned aloft, 
And ribands streaming gay, superbly raised. 
And magnified beyond all human size, 
Indebted to some smart wig- weaver's hand 
For more than half the tresses it sustaires; 
Her elbows ruffled and her tottering frame 



THE TASK. 



83 



Ill-propped upon French heels; she might be 

deemed 
(But that the basket dangling on her arm 
Interprets her more truly) of a rank 
Too proud for dairy-work, or sale of eggs. 
Expect her soon with footboy at her heels, 
No longer blushing for her awkward load, 
Her train and her umbrella all her care ! 

The town has tinged the country; and the state 
Appears a spot upon a vestal's robe. 
The worse for what it soils. The fashion runs 
Down into scenes still rural ; but, alas, 
Scenes rarely graced with rural manners now! 
Time was when in the pastoral retreat 
Th' unguarded door was safe ; men did not watch 
T' invade another's right, or guard their own. 
Then sleep was undisturbed by fear, unscared 
By drunken howhngs ; and the chilling tale 
Of midnight murder was a wonder heard 
With doubtful credit, told to frighten babes. 
But farewell now to unsuspicious nights, 
And slumbers unalaniied ! Now, ere you sleep, 
See that your polished arms be primed with care. 
And drop the nightbolt ; ruffians are abroad , 
And the fii'st larum of the cock's shrill throat 
May prove a trumpet, summoning j^our ear 
To horrid sounds of hostile feet within. 
E'en daylight has its dangers; and the walk 
Through patliless wastes and woods, unconscious 

once 
Of other tenants than melodious birds. 
Or harmless flocks, is hazardous and bold. 
Lamented change ! to which full many a cause 
Inveterate, hopeless of a cure, conspires. 
The course of hiunan things from good to ill 
From ill to worse, is fatal, never fails. 
Increase of power begets increase of wealth. 
Wealth luxury, and luxury excess ; 
Excess the scrofulous and itchy plague, 
That seizes first the opulent, descends 
To the next rank contagious, and in time 
Taints downward all the graduated scale 
Of order, from the chariot to the plough. 
The rich, and they that have an arm to check 
The license of the lowest in degree, 
Desert their office; and themselves, intent 
On pleasure, haunt the capital, and thus 
To all the violence of lawless hands 
Resign the scenes their presence might protect. 
Authority herself not seldom sleeps, 
Though resident, and witness of the wrong. 
The plump convivial parson often bears 
The magisterial. sword in vain, and lays 
His reverence and his worship both to rest 
On the same cushion of habitual sloth. 
Perhaps timidity restrains his arm; 
When he should strike he trembles, and sets free, 
Himself enslaved by terror of the band, 
Th' audacious convict whom he dares not bind. 



Perhaps, though by profession ghostly pure, 
He too may have his vice, and sometimes prove 
Less dainty than becomes his grave outside 
In lucrative concerns. Examine well 
His milkwliite hand; the palm is hardly cleans— 
But here and there an ugly smutch appears. 
Fob! 'twas a bribe that left it: he has touched 
Corruption. AVhoso seeks an audit here 
Propitious, pays his tribute, game or fish, 
Wild fowl or venison ; and his errand speeds. 

But faster far, and more than all the rest, 
A noble cause, which none, who bears a spark 
Of public virtue, ever wished removed, 
Works the deplored and mischievous effect 
'Tis universal soldiership has stabbed 
The heart of merit in the meaner class. 
Arms, through the vanity and brainless rage 
Of those that bear them, in whatever cause, 
Seem most at variance with all moral good, 
And incompatible with serious thought. 
The clown, the cliild of nature, without guile, 
Blest with ^n infant's ignorance, of all 
But his own simple pleasures; now and then 
A wrestling match, a foot-race, or a fair; 
Is balloted, and trembles at the news: 
Sheepish he doffs his hat, and mumbling swears 
A Bible oath to be whate'er they please. 
To do he knows not what. The task performed^ 
That instant he becomes the sergeant's care, 
His pupU, and his torment, and his jest. 
His awkward gait, his introverted toes, 
Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks, 
Procure him many a curse. By slow degrees, 
Unapt to learn, and formed of stubborn stuff, 
He yet by slow degrees puts off himself. 
Grows conscious of a change, and likes it well ; 
He stands erect; his slouch becomes a walk; 
He steps right onward, martial in his air, 
His form, and movement; is as smart above 
As meal and larded locks can make him; wears 
His hat, or his plumed helmet, with a grace; 
And, his three years of heroship expired^ 
Returns indignant to the slighted plough. 
He hates the field, in which no fife or drum 
Attends him ; drives his cattle to a march ; 
And sighs for the smart comrades he has left. 
'Twere well if his exterior change were all — 
But with his clumsy port the wretch has lost 
His ignorance and harmless manners too. 
To swear, to game, to drirdi; to show at home 
By lewdness, idleness, and sabbath-breach. 
The great proficiency he made abroad ; 
T' astonish and to grieve his gazing friends. 
To break some maiden's and his mother's heart ; 
To be a pest where he was useful once; 
Are his sole aim, and all his glory, now, 

Man in society is like a flower 
Blown in its native bed : 'tis there alone 
His faculties, expanded in fiill bloom, 



84 



COWPER'S WORKS, 



Shine out; there only reach their proper use. 

But man, associated and leagued with man 

By regal warrant, or self-joined by bond 

For interest sake, or swarming into clans 

Beneath one head, for purposes of war, 

Like flowers selected from the rest, and bound 

And bundled close to fill some crowded vase, 

Fades rapidly, and, by compression marred, 

Contracts defilement not to be endured. 

Hence chartered boroughs are such pubhc plagues ; 

And burghers, men immaculate perhaps 

In all their private functions, once combined, 

Become a loathsome body, only fit 

For dissolution, hurtful to the main. 

Hence merchants, unimpeachable of sin 

Against the charities of domestic hfe, 

Incorporated, seem at once to lose 

Their nature ; and, disclauning all regard 

For mercy and the' conunon rights of man. 

Build factories with blood, conducting trade 

At the sword's point, and dying the white robe 

Of innocent commercial Justice red. 

Hence too the field of glory, as the world 

Misdeems it, dazzled by its bright array, 

With all its majesty of thundering pomp, ' 

Enchanting music and immortal wreaths. 

Is but a school, where thoughtlessness is taught 

On principle, where foppery atones 

For folly, gallantry for every vice. 

But slighted as it is, and by the great 
Abandoned, and, wliich still I more regret, 
Infected with the manners and the modes 
It knew not once, the country wins me stUl. 
I never framed a wish, or formed a plan, 
That flattered me with hopes of eartlily bliss, 
But there I laid the scene. There early strayed 
My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice 
Had found me, or the hope of being firee. 
My very dreams were rural ; rural too 
The first-born efforts of my youthful muse, 
Sportive and jingling her poetic bells, 
Ere yet her ear was mistress of their powers. 
No bard could please me but whose lyre was 

tuned 
To Nature's praises. Heroes and their feats 
Fatigued me, never weary of the pipe 
Of Tityrus, assembling, as he sang. 
The rustic throng beneath his favourite beech. 
Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms : 
New to my taste his Paradise surpassed 
The struggling eflbrts of my boyish tongue 
To speak its excellence. I danced for joy. 
I marvelled much, that, at so ripe an age 
As twice seven years, his beauties had then first 
Engaged my wonder ; and admiring still, 
And still admiring, with regret supposed 
The joy half lost, because not sooner found. 
There too enamoured of the Ufe I loved. 
Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuit 



Determined, and possessing it at last 
With transports, such as favoured lovers feel, 
I studied, prized, and wished that I had known 
Ingenious Cowley ! and, though now reclaimed 
By modern hghts from an erroneous taste, 
I can not but lament thy splendid wit 
Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools. 
I still revere thee, courtly though retired ! 
Though stretched at ease in Chertsey's silent 

bowers. 
Not unemployed; and finding rich amends 
For a lost world in solitude and verse. • 
'Tis born with all : the love of Nature's works 
Is an ingredient in the compound man 
Infused at the creation of the kind. 
And, though th' Almighty Maker has throughout 
Discrimuiated each from each, by strokes 
And touches of his hand, with so much art 
Diversified, that two were never found 
Twins at all points — ^yet this obtains in all, 
That all discern a beauty in his works, 
And all can taste them : minds that • have been 

formed 
And tutored with a reUsh more exact, 
But none without some relish, none unmoved. ' 
It is a flame, that dies not even there. 
Where nothing feeds it : neither business, crowds, 
Nor habits of luxurious city life. 
Whatever else they smother of true worth 
In human bosoms, quench it or abate. 
The villas with wliich London stands begirt, 
Like a swarth Indian, with his belt of beads, 
Prove it. A breath of unadulterate air, 
The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer 
The citizen, and brace his languid frame ! 
E'en in the stifling bosom of the town, 
A garden, in which notliing thrives, has charms 
That soothe the rich possessor ; much consoled. 
That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint, 
Of nightshade, or valerian, grace the well 
He cultivates. These serve him with a hint. 
That nature Uves ; that sight-refreshing green 
Is still the hvery she delights to wear. 
Though sickly samples of th' exuberant whole 
What are the casements Uned with creeping herbs. 
The prouder sashes fronted with a range 
Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed, 
The Frenchman's darhng 1* are they not all proofs, 
That man, immured in cities, still retains 
His inborn inextinguishable thirst 
Of rural scenes, compensating his loss 
By supplemental shifts, the best he may 1 
The most unfurnished with the means of life, 
And they, that never pass their brick-wall bounds, 
To range the fields, and treat their lungs with air, 
Yet fool the burning instinct : over head 
Suspend their crazy boxes, planted thick 



• Mignonnette. 



THE TASK. 



85 



And watered duly. There the pitcher stands 
A fragment, and the spoutless tea-pot there ; 
Sad witnesses how close-pent man regrets 
The country, with what ardour he contrives 
A peep at Nature, when he can no more. 

Hail, therefore, patroness of health and ease, 
And contemplatioii, heart consoling joys. 
And harmless pleasures, in the thronged abode 
Of multitudes imlinown ; hail, rural life ! 
Address himself who will to the pui'suit 
Of honours, or emolument, or fame ; 
I shall not add myself to such a chase, 
Thwart his attempts, or envy, his success. 



Some must be great. Great offices will have 

Great talents. And God gives to every mail 

The virtue, temper, understanding, taste, 

That lifts liim into life, and lets him fall 

Just in the niche he was ordained to fill. 

To the deliverer of an injured land 

He gives a tongue t' enlarge upon, a heart 

To feel, and courage to redress her wrongs j 

To monarchs dignity ; to judges sense ; 

To artists ingenuity and skill ; 

To me, an unambitious mind, content 

In the low vale of life, that early felt 

A vnsh for ease and leisure, and ere long 

Found here that leisure, and that ease I wished. 



Kfit KUUU. 



THE WINTER MORNING WALK. 



ARGUMENT. 

A frosty morning.— The foddering of cattle.— The woodman and his dog.— The poultry.— Whiinsical effects of frost at a 

waterfall.— The empress of Russia's palace of ice.— Amusements of monarchs.— War, one of them.— Wars, whence. 

And whence monai-chy.— The evils of it.— English and French loyalty contrasted.— The Bastile, and a prisoner there.— Li- 
berty the chief recommendation of this country.— Modem patriotism questionable, and why.— The perishable nature of the 
best human institutions.— Spiritual liberty not perishable.— The slavish state of man by nature. — Deliver him, Deist, if you 
can.— Grace must do it.— The respective merits of patriots and martyrs stated.— Their different a-eatme«nt.—Happy freedom 
of the man whom grace makes free. — His relish of the works of God. — ^Address to the Creator. 



'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb 
Ascending, fires th' horizon ; while the clouds, 
That crowd away before the driving wind, 
More ardent as the disk emerges more,' 
Resemble most some city in a blaze, 
Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray 
SHdes ineffectual down the snovs^^ vale, 
And, tinging all with his own rosy hue, 
From every herb and every spiry blade 
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field. 
Mine, spindling into longitude immense, 
In spite of gravity, and sage remark 
That I myself am but a fleeting shade. 
Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance 
I view the muscular proportioned limb 
Transformed to a lean shank. The shapeless pair 
As they designed to mock me, at my side 
Take step for step ; and, as I near approach 
The cottage, walk along the plastered wall. 
Preposterous sight ! the legs without the man. 
The verdure of the plain Ues buried deep 
Beneath the dazzling deluge ; and the bents, 
And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest, 
Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine 
Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad. 
And, fledged with icy feathers, not superb. 
The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence 
Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep 
In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait 



Their wonted fodder ; not like hungering man, 
Fretful if mrsupplied ; but silent, meek. 
And patient of the slow paced swain's delay. 
He from the stack carves out th'' accustomed load, 
Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft, 
His broad keen knife into the sohd mass ; 
Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands. 
With such undeviating and even force 
He severs it away : no needless care. 
Lest storms should overset the leaning pile 
Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. 
Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned 
The cheerful haunts of man ; to wield the axe. 
And drive the wedge, in yonder forest drear. 
From morn to eve his solitary task. 
Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears, 
And tail cropped short, half lurcher and half cur 
His dog attends him. Close behind his heel 
Now creeps he slow ; and now, with many a frisk 
Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow 
With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout ; 
Then shakes his powdered coat, and barks for joy. 
Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl 
Moves right toward the mark ; nor stops for aught 
But now and then vdth pressure of his thumb 
T' adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube, 
That fiimes beneath his nose ; the trailing cloud 
Streams far behind him, scenting all the air. 
Now from the roots, or from the neighbouring pale, 



86 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam 
Of smiling day, they gossip'd side by side, 
Come trooping at the Jiousewifc's well-known call 
The feathered tribes domestic. Half on wing, ► 
And half on foot, tliey brush the fleecy flood, 
Conscious and fcarfid of too deep a plunge. 
The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves, 
To seize the fair occasion ; well they eye 
The scattered grain, and tliievishly resolved 
T' escape th' impending famine, often scared 
As oft return, a pert voracious kind. 
Clean riddance quickly made, one only care 
Remains to each, the search of sunny nook. 
Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned 
To sad necessity, the cock foregoes 
His wonted strut ; and wading at their head 
With well-considered steps, seems to resent 
His altered gait and stateliness retrenched. 
How find the myriads, that in summer clieer 
The hills and valleys vrith their ceaseless songs, 
Due sustenance, or where subsist they now 1 
Earth yields them nought : th' imprisoned worm is 

safe 
Beneath the frozen clod ; all «eeds of herbs 
Lie covered close ; and berry-bearing thorns, 
That feed the thrush, (whatever some suppose) 
Afford the smaller minstrels no supply. 
The long protracted rigour of the year 
Thins all their rfumerous flocks. In cMnks and 

holes 
Ten thousand seek an unmolested end. 
As instinct prompts ; self-buried ere they die. 
The very rooks and daws forsake the fields, 
Where neither grub, nor root, nor earth-nut, now 
Repays their labour more ; and perched aloft 
By the wayside, or stalldng in the path. 
Lean pensioners upon the traveller's track. 
Pick up their nauseous dole, though sweet to them, 
Of voided pulse or half-digested grain. 
The streams are lost amid the splendid blank, 
O'erwhelming all distinction. On the flood. 
Indurated and fixed, the snowy weight 
Lies undissolved ; wlulc silently beneath. 
And unpcrceived, the current steals away. 
Not so where, scornful of a check, it leaps 
The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel, 
And wantons in the pebbly gulf below : 
No frost can bind it there ; its utmost force 
Can but arrest the fight and smoky mist. 
That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide. 
And see where it has hung the embroidered banks 
With forms so various, that no powers of art. 
The pencil or the pen, may trace the scene ! 
Here glittering turrets rise, upbearing high 
(Fantastic misarrangement !) on the roof 
Large growth 'of what may seem the sparkUng 

trees 
And shrubs of I'airy land. The crystal drops, 
That trickle down the branches, fast congealed, 



Shoot into pillars of pellucid length. 

And prop the pile they but adorned before. 

Here grotto within grotto safe defies 

The sunbeam ; there, embossed and fretted wild, 

The grovwng wonder takes a thousand shapes 

Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain 

The lUteness of some object seen before. 

Thus Nature works as if to mack at Art, 

And in defiance of her rival powers ; 

By these fortuitous and random strokes 

Performing such inimitable feats, 

As she vdth all her rules can never reach. 

Less worthy of applause, though more admired, 

Because a novelty, the work of man, 

Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ, 

Thy most magnificent and mighty freak, 

The wonder of the North. No forest fell, 

When thou wouldst build; no quarry sent his 

stores 
T' enrich thy walls : but thou didst hew the floods, 
And make thy marble of the glassy wave. 
In such a palace Aristseus found 
Cyrene, when he bore the plaintiff tale 
Of his lost bees to her maternal ear ; 
In such a palace Poetry might place 
The armory of Winter ; where his troops, 
The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy sleet, 
Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail. 
And snow, that often bfinds the traveller's course. 
And wraps him in an unexpected tomb. 
Silently as a dream the fabric rose ; 
No sound of hammer or of saw was there : 
Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts 
Were soon conjoined, nor other cement asked • 
Than water interfused to make them one. 
Lamps gracefully disposed, and of all hues. 
Illumined every side : a watery light 
Gleamed through the clear transparency, that 

seemed 
Another moon new risen, or meteor fallen 
From Heaven to Earth, of lambent flame serene. 
So stood the brittle prodigy ; though smooth 
And shppery the materials, yet frost-bound 
Firm as a rock. Nor wanted aught within. 
That royal residence might well befit. 
For grandeur or for use. Long wavy wreaths 
Of flowers that feared no enemy but warmth, 
Blushed on the pannels. Mirror needed none 
Where all was vitreous ; but in order due 
Convivial table and commodious seat 
(What seemed at least commodious seat) were 

there ; 
Sofa, and couch, and high-built throne august. 
The same lubricity was found in all. 
And all was moist to the warm touch ; a scene 
Of evanescent glory, once a stream,* 
And soon to slide into a stream again. 
Alas! 'twas but a mortifying stroke 
Of undeserved severity that glanced 



THE TASK. 



(Made by a monarch) on her own estate, 
On human grandeur and the courts of kings. 
'Twas transient in its nature, as in show 
'Twas durable ; as worthless as it seemed 
Intrinsically precious ; to the foot 
Treacherous and false; it smiled, and it was 

cold. 
Great princes have great playtliings. Some 

have played 
At hewing mountains into men, and some 
At building human wonders mountain high. 
Some have amused the dull, sad years of life, 
(Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad) 
With schemes of monumental fame; and sought 
By pyramids and mausolean pomp, 
Short-lived themselves, t' immortaUze their bones. 
Some seek diversion in the tented field, 
And make the sorrows of mankind their sport. 
But war's a game, which, were their subjects 

wise. 
Kings would not play at. W ations would do well 
T' extort their truncheons from the puny hands ■ 
Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds 
Are gratified with mischief; and who spoil, 
Because men suffer it, their toy the world. 

When Babel was confounded, and the great 
Confederacy of projectors wild and vain 
Was spUt into diversity of tongues, 
Then, as a shepherd separates his flock, 
These to the upland, to the valley those, 
God drave asunder, and assigned their lot 
To all the nations. Ample was the boon 
He gave them, in his distribution fair 
And equal ; and he bade them dwell in peace. 
Peace was awhile their care: they ploughed and 

sowed, 
And reaped their plenty without grudge or strife. 
But violence can never longer sleep. 
Than human passions please. In every heart 
Are sowai the sparks, that kindle fiery war : 
Occasion needs but fan them, and they blaze. 
Cain had already shed a brother's blood: 
The deluge washed it out; but left unquenched 
The seeds of miurder in the breast of man. 
Soon by a righteous judgment in the line 
Of his descending progeny was found 
The first artificer of death; the shrewd 
Contriver, who first sweated at the forge. 
And forced the blunt and yet unbloodied steel 
To a keen edge, and made it bright for war.. 
Him Tubal named, the Vulcan of old times, 
The sword and falchion their inventor claim; 
And the first smith was the first murderer's son. 
His art survived the waters; and ere long. 
When man was multiplied and spread abroad 
In tribes and clans, and had begun to call 
These meadows, and that range of hills his own, ■ 
The tasted sweets of property begat 
Desire of more, and industry in some, 



T' improve and cultivate their just demesne, 
Made others covet what they saw so fair. 
Thus war began on earth : these fought for spoil, 
And those in self-defence. Savage at first 
The onset, and irregular. At length 
One eminent above the rest for strength, 
For stratagem, for courage, or for all. 
Was chosen leader; him they served in war, 
And him in peace, for sake of warlike deeds 
Reverenced no less. Who could with him com- 
pare'? 
Or who so worthy to control themselves. 
As he, whose prowess had subdued their foesl 
Thus war, affording field for the display 
Of virtue, made one chief, whom times of peace, 
Which have their exigencies too, and call 
For skill in government, at length made king. 
King was a name too proud for man to wear 
With modesty and meekness; and the crown, 
So dazzling in their eyes, who set it on. 
Was sure t' intoxicate .the brows it bound. 
It is the abject property of most. 
That, being parcel of the common mass, 
And destitute of means to raise themselves. 
They sink, and settle lower than they need. 
They know not what it is to feel witliin 
A comprehensive faculty, that grasps 
Great purposes with ease, that turns and wields, 
Almost without an effort, plans too vast 
For their conception, which they can not move. 
Conscious of impotence they soon grow driuilc 
With gazing, vvhen they see an able man 
Step forth to notice: and, besotted thus, 
Build him a pedestal, and say, " Stand there, 
And be our admiration and our praise." 
They roll themselves before him in the dust. 
Then most deserving, in their owm account, 
When most extravagant in his applause, 
As if exalting him they raised themselves. 
Thus by degrees, self-cheated of their sound 
And sober judgment, that he is but man, 
They demi-deify and fume him so, 
That in due season he forgets it too. 
Inflated and astrut with self- conceit, 
He gulps the windy diet; and ere long. 
Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks 
The world was made in'vain, if not for him. 
Thenceforth they are his cattle; drudges, born 
To bear his burthens, dravring in his gears. 
And sweating in his service, his caprice 
Becomes the soul that animates them all. 
He deems a thousand, or ten thousand, lives, 
Spent in the purchase of renovm for him. 
An easy reckoning; and they think the same. 
Thus kings were first invented, and thus kings 
Were burnished into heroes, and became 
The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp ; 
Storks among frogs, that have but croaked and 
died. 



88 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Strange, that such folly, as Ufts bloated man 
To eminence fit only for a god, 
Should ever drivel out of human lips. 
E'en in the cradled weakness of the world ! 
Still stranger much, that when at length man- 
kind 
Had reached the sinewy firmness of their youth. 
And could discriminate and argue well 
On subjects more mysterious, they were yet 
Babes in the cause of freedom, and should fear 
And quake before the gods themselves had made ; 
But above measure strange, that neither proof 
Of sad experience, nor example set 
By some, whose patriot virtue has prevailed, 
Can even now, when they are grown mature 
In wisdom, and with philosophic deeds 
Familiar, serve t' emancipate the rest ! 
Such, dupes arc men to custom, and sp prone 
To reverence what is ancient, and can plead 
A course of long observance for its use, 
That even servitude, the worst of ills. 
Because delivered down from sire to son, 
Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing. 
But is it fit, or can it bear the shock 
Of rational discussion, that a man. 
Compounded and made up like other men 
Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust 
And folly in as ample measure meet. 
As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules. 
Should be a despot absolute, and boast 
Himself the only freeman of liis land"? 
Should, when he pleases, and on whom he will. 
Wage war, with any or with no pretence 
Of pro vocation given, or wrong sustained. 
And force the beggarly last doit by means . 
That his own humour dictates, from the clutch 
Of Poverty, that thus he may procure 
His thousands, weary of penurious life. 
A splendid opportunity to die"? 
Say ye, who (with less prudence than of old 
Jotham ascribed to his assembling trees 
In politic convention) put your trust 
I' th' shadow of a bramble, and reclined 
In fancied peace beneath his dangerous branch, 
Rejoice in him; and celebrate his sway. 
Where find ye passive fortitude 1 Whence springs 
Your self-denying zeal, that holds it good. 
To stroke the prickly grievance, and to hang 
His thorns with streamers of continual praise "? 
We too are friends to loyalty. We love 
The king, who loves the law, respects his bounds 
And reigns content within them : liim we serve 
Freely and with delight, who leaves us free : 
But recollecting still, tliat he is man. 
We trust him not too far. King though he be, 
And king in England too, he may be weak, 
And vain enough to be ambitious still ; 
• May exercise amiss his proper powers. 
Or covet more than freemen choose to grant : 



Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours, 
T' administer, to guard, t' adorn the state, 
But not to warp or change it. We are his, 
To serve liim nobly in the common cause, 
True to the death, but not to be his slaves. 
Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love 
Of kings, between your loyalty and ours. 
We love the man, the paltry pageant you: 
We the cliief patron of the conmionwealth, 
You the regardless- author of its woes: 
We for the sake of hberty a king, 
You chains and bondage for a tyrant's sake/ 
Our love is principle, and has its root 
In reason, is judicious, manly, firee; 
.Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod, 
And licks the foot that treads it in the dust. 
Were kingship as true treasure as it seems, 
Sterhng and worthy of a wise man's wish 
I would not be a king to be beloved 
Causeless, and daubed with midiscerning praise, 
Where love is mere attachment to the throne, 
Not to the man, who fills it as he ought. 

Whose freedom is by sufferance, and at will 
Of a superior, he is never free. 
Who lives, and is not weary of a life 
Exposed to manacles, deserves them well. 
The state, that strives for liberty, though foiled. 
And forced t' abandon what she bravely sought, 
Deserves at least applause for her attempt 
And pity for her loss. But that's a cause 
Not often unsuccessful : power usurped 
Is weakness when opposed ; conscious of wrong, 
'Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight. 
But slaves, that once conceive the glowing thought 
Of freedom, in that hope itself possess 
All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength, 
The scorn of danger, and united hearts; 
The surest presage of the good they seek.* 

Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more 
To France than all her losses and defeats, 
Old or of later date, by sea or land. 
Her house of bondage, worse than that of old 
Which God a,vengedon Pharaoh — the Bastille. 
Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts; 
Ye dungeons and .ye cages of despair. 
That monarchs have supplied from age to age 
With music, such as suits their sovereign ears. 
The sighs and groans of miserable rrien ! 
There's not an English heart that would riot leap 
To hear that ye were fallen at last; to know ' 
That e'en our enemies, so oft employed 
In forging .chains for us, themselves were free. ■ 
For he, who values Liberty, confines 
His zeal for her predominance within 



' Tlie author hopes, that he shall not be censured for unne- 
cessary warmth upon so interesluig a subject. He is aware, 
lliat it is become almost fasliionable to stigmatize such senti- 
ments as no botteV tlian empty declamation ; but' it is an ill 
symptom, and peciUiar to modern times. 



THE TASK. 



89 



No narrow bounds; her cause engages" him 

Wherever pleaded. 'Tis tlie cause of man. 

There dwell the most forlorn of human kind, 

Immured though unaccused, condemned untried. 

Cruelly spared, and hopeless of escape. 

There, like the ^^sionary emblem seen 

By him of Babylon, hfe stands a stump, 

And, filleted about with hoops of brass. 

Still lives, though all his pleasant boughs are gone 

To count the hour-bell and expect no change ; 

And ever as the sullen sound is heard. 

Still to reflect, that, though a joyless note 

To him, whose moments all have one dull pace. 

Ten thousand rovers in the world at large 

Account it music; that it summons some 

To theatre, or jocund feast or ball ; 

The wearied hireling finds it a release 

From labour; and the lover, who has chid 

Its long delay, feels every welcome stroke 

Upon his heart-strings, trembhng with delight — 

To fly for refuge from distracting thought 

To such amusements as ingenious wo 

Contrives, hard-shifting, and without her .tools — 

To read engraven on the mouldy walls. 

In staggering types, his predecessor's tale; 

A sad rnemorial, and subjoin his own — 

To turn purveyor to an overgorged 

And bloated spider, till the pampered pest 

Is made familiar, watches liis approach, 

Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend — 

To wear out time in numbering to and fro 

The studs, that thick emboss his iron door; 

Then downward and then upward, then aslant 

And then alternate ; with a sickly hope 

By dint of change to give his tasteless task 

Some relish ; till the sum, exactly found 

In all directions, he begins again — ■ 

Oh comfortless existence ! hemmed around 

With woes, which who that suffers would not 

kneel 
And beg for exile, or the pangs of dfeath"? 
That man should thus encroach on fellow-man. 
Abridge him of his just and native rights, 
Eradicate him, tear him from his hold 
Upon the endearments of domestic life 
And social, nip his frxiitfulness and use. 
And doom him for perhaps a heedless word 
To barrenness, and solitude, and tears. 
Moves indignation, makes the name of king 
(Of king whom such prerogative can please) 
As dreadful as the Manichean god : 
Adored through fear, strong only to destroy. 

'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower 
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume ; 
And we are weeds without it. All constraint, 
Except what wisdom lays, on evil men. 
Is evil : hurts the faculties, impedes • 
Their progress in the road of science, bhnd.s 
The eyesight of Discovery ; and begets, 



In those that sufller it, a sordid mind. 

Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit 

To be the tenant of man's noble form. 

Thee therefore still, blame- worthy as thou art, 

With all thy loss of empire, and though squeezed 

By public exigence, till annual food 

Falls for the craving hunger of the state. 

Thee I account still happy, and the chief 

Among the nations, seeing thou art free ; 

My native nook of earth ! Thy clime is rude. 

Replete with vapours, and disposes much 

All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine : 

Thine unadulterate manners are less soft 

And plausible than social life requires. 

And thou hast need of discipline and art. 

To give thee what politer France receives 

From nature's bounty — that hUmane address 

And sweetness, without which no pleasure is 

In converse, either starv'ed by cold reserve, 

Or flushed with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl. 

Yet being free I love thee : for the sake 

Of that one feature can he well content. 

Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art. 

To seek no sublunary rest beside. 

But, once enslaved, farewell ! I could endure 

Chains no where patiently; and chains at home, 

Wliere I am free by birthright, not at all. 

Then what were left of roughness in the grain 

Of British natures, wanting its excuse 

That it belongs to freemen, would disgust 

And shock me. I should then with double pain 

Feel all the ligour of thy fickle clime ; 

And if I must bewail the blessing lost, 

For which our Hampdens and our Sidneys bled, 

I would at least bewail it under skies 

Milder, among a people less austere ; 

In scenes, which, having never known me free, 

Would not reproach me wdth the loss I felt. 

Do I forebode impossible events, 

And tremble at vain dreams 1 Heaven grant I may ! 

But th' age of virtuous poUtics is past. 

And we are deep in that of cold pretence. 

Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere, 

And we too wise to ti-ust them. He that takes 

Deep in his soft creduUty the stamp 

Designed by loud declaimers on the part 

Of liberty, themselves the slaves of hist. 

Incurs derision for his easy faith, 

And lack of knowledge, and wdth cause enough : 

For when was public-virtue to be found 

Where private was not 1 Can he love the whole 

Who loves no part 1 He be a nation's friend. 

Who is in truth the friend of no man there 1 

Can he be strenuous in his country's cause, 

Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake 

That country, if at all, must be beloved-l 

Tis therefore sober and good men are sad 
For England's glory, seeing it wax pale 
And sickly, while her champions wear their hearts 



90 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



So loose to private duty, that no brain, 
Healthful and undisturbed by factious fumes, 
Can dream them trusty to the general weal. 
Such were not they of old, whose tempered blades 
Dispersed the shackles of usurped control. 
And hewed them link from link ; then Albion's sons 
Were sons indeed : they felt a filial heart 
Beat high within them at a mother's wrongs ; 
And, shining each in his domestic sphere, 
Shone brighter still, once called to pubUc view. 
'Tis therefore many, whose sequestered lot 
Forbids their interference, looliing on, 
Anticipate perforce some dire event; 
And, seeing the old castle of the state, 
That promised once more firmness, so assailed, 
That all its tempest-beaten turrets shake, . 
Stand motionless expectants of its fall. 
All has its date below ; the fatal hour 
Was registered in heaven ere time began. 
We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works 
Die too : the deep foundations that we lay, 
Time ploughs them up, and not a trace remains. 
We build with what we deem eternal rock: 
A distant age asks where the fabric stood ; 
And in the dust, sifted and searched in vain, 
The undiscoverable secret sleeps. 

But there is yet a liberty, unsung 
By poets, and by senators unpraiscd, 
Wliich monarchs can not grant, lior all the powers 
Of earth and hell confederate take away : 
A liberty, which persecution, firaud. 
Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind ; 
Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more. 
'Tis liberty of heart derived from Heaven, 
Bought with his blood, who gave it to mankind, 
And sealed with the same token. It is held 
By charter, and that charter sanctioned sure . 
By th' unimpeachable and awful oath 
And promise of a God. His other gifts 
All bear the royal stamp, that speaks them his. 
And are august ; but this transcends them all. 
His other works, the visible display 
Of all creating energy and might, 
Are grand, no doubt, and worthy of the word, 
That finding an interminable space 
Unoccupied, has filled the void so well, 
And made so sparkling what was dark before. 
But these are not his glory. Man, 'tis true, 
Smit with the beauty of so fair a scene. 
Might well suppose th' artificer divine 
Meant it eternal, had he not himself 
Pronounced it transient, glorious as it is, 
And still designing a more glorious far, 
Doomed it as insuflicicnt for his {)raisc. 
These therefore arc occasional, and ])ass ; 
Formed for' the confutation of the fool. 
Whose lying heart dis])utes against a God; 
That ofllce served, they must he swept away. 
Not so the labours of liis love ; they shine 



In other heavens than these that we behold, 
And fade not. There is Paradise that fears 
No forfeiture, and of its fruits he send§ 
Large prelibation oft to saints belpw. 
Of these the first in order, and the pledge, 
And confident assurance of the rest, 
Is liberty ; a flight into his arms, 
Ere yet morality's fine threads give way, 
A clear escape from tyrannizing lust, 
And full ioununity from penal wo. 

Chains are the portion of revolted man, 
Stripes and a dungeon ; and his body serves 
The triple purpose. In that sickly, foul, 
Opprobrious residence he finds them all. 
Prepense his heart to idols, he is held 
In silly dotage on created things, 
Careless of their Creator. And that low 
And sordid gi'avitation of his powers 
To a vile clod so draws him, with such force 
Resistless from the centre he should seek, 
That he at last forgets it. All liis hopes 
Tend downward; his ambition is to sink. 
To reach a depth profounder still, and stUl 
Profounder, in the fathomless abyss 
Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death-. 
But ere he gain the comfortless repose 
He seeks, and acquiescence of his soul 
In Heaven-renouncing exile, he endures — 
What does he not, from lusts opposed in vain, 
And self-reproaching conscience'? He foresees 
The fatal issue to his health, fame, peace, 
Fortune and dignity ; the loss of all 
That can ennoble man, and make frail life. 
Short as it is, supportable. Still worse. 
Far worse than all the plagues, with which his 

sins 
Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes 
Ages of hopeless misery. Future death. 
And death still future. Not a hasty stroke. 
Like that which sends hun to the dusty grave ; 
But unrepealalale enduring death. 
Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears ; 
What none can prove a forgery may be true ; 
What none but bad men wish exploded must. 
That scruple checks him. Riot is not loud 
Nor drunk enough to drown it. ■ In the midst 
Of laughter his comprmctions are sincere; 
And he abhors the jest by which he shines. 
Remorse begets reform. His master lust 
Falls first before his resolute rebuke, 
And seems .dethroned and vanquished. Peace 

ensues, . . • 

But spurious and short-lived; the ptmy child 
Of self-congratulating Pride, begot 
On fancied Innocence. Again he falls, 
And fights again ; but finds his best essay 
A jtresageominious, portending still 
Its own dishonour by a worse relapse, 
Till Nature, unavailins Nature, foiled 



THE TASK. 



91 



So oft, and ■wearied in the vain attempt, 
Scoffs at her own performance. Reason now 
Takes part with appetite, and pleads the cause 
Perversely, which of late she so condemned ; 
With shallow shifts and old devices, worn 
And tattered in the ser^dce of debauch. 
Covering his shame from his offended sight. 
Hath God indeed given appetites to man, 
And stored the earth so plenteously with means, 
To gratify the hunger of his wish ; 
" And doth he reprobate, and vrill he damn 
The use of liis own bounty"? making first 
So frail a kind, and then enacting laws 
So strict, that less than perfect must despair 1 
Falsehood! which whoso but suspects of truth 
Dishonours God, and makes a slave of man. 
Do they themselves, who undertake foT hire 
The teacher's office, and dispense at large 
Their weekly dole of edifying strains. 
Attend to their own music "? have they faith 
In what with such solemnity of tone 
And gesture they propound to our belief? 
Nay — conduct hath the loudest tongue. The 

voice 
Is but an instrument, on which the priest 
May play what tune he pleases. In the deed, 
The unequivocal, authentic deed, 
We find sound argument, we read the heart." 
Such reasonings (if that name must needs be- 
long 
T' excuses in which reason has no part) 
Serve to compose a spirit well inchned 
To hve on terms of amity with vice, 
And sin without disturbance. Often urged 
(As often as libidinous discourse 
Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes 
Of theological and grave import) 
They gain at last his unreserved assent; 
Till, hardened his heart's temper in the forge 
Of lust, and the anvU of despair, 
He slights the strokes of conscience. Nothing 

moves, ' . 

Or nothing much, his constancy in iU ; 
Vain tampering has but fostered his disease ; 
'Tis desperate, and he sleeps the sleep of death. 
Haste, now^, philosopher, and set him free. 
Charm the deaf serpent wisely. Make him hear 
Of rectitude and fitness, moral truth 
riow lovely, and the moral sense how sure, 
Consulted and obeyed, to guide his steps 
Directly to the first and only fair. 
Spare not in such a cause. Spend all the powers 
Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise : 
Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand. 
And with poetic trappings grace thy prose. 
Till it unmantle all the pride of verse. — 
Ah, tinkling cymbal, and high-soimding brass, 
Smitten in vain ! such music can not charm 
The eclipse, that intercepts tratji's heavenly beam, 



And chills and darkens a wide- wandering soul. 
The still small voice is wanted. He must speak, 
Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect ; 
Who calls for things that are not, and they come. 

Grace makes the slave a freeman. 'Tis a change. 
That turns to ridicule the turgid speech 
And stately tone of moralists, who boast, 
As if, like him of fabulous renovra. 
They had indeed ab\lity to smooth 
The shag of savage nature, and were each 
An Orpheus, and oinnipotent in song : 
But transformation of apostate man 
From fool to wise, from earthly to divine. 
Is work for liim that made him. He alone, 
And he by means in philosophic eyes 
Trivial and worthy of disdain, achieves • 
The wonder ; humanizing what is brute 
In the lost kind, extracting from the lips 
Of asps their venom, overpowering strength 
By weakness, and hostility by love. 

Patriots have toiled, and in their.country's cause 
Bled nobly ; and then* deeds, as they deserve. 
Receive proud recompense. We give in charge 
Their names to the sweet lyre. Th' historic muse, 
Proud of the treasure, marches vsdth it down 
To latest tunes ; and Sculptiu*e, in her turn. 
Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass 
To guard them, and t' immortalize her trust ; 
But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid, 
To those, who, posted at the shrine of Truth, 
Have fallen in her defence. A patriot's blood, 
Well spent in such a strife, may earn indeed, 
And for a time ensm-e, to Ms loved land 
The sweets of hberty and equal laws ; 
But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize, 
And win it with more pain; Their blood is shed 
In confirmation of the noblest claim, 
Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, 
To walk with God, to be divinely free, 
To soar, and to anticipate the skies. 
Yet few remember them. They lived unknown, 
Till persecution dragged them into fame, 
And chased them up to Heaven. .Their ashes flew 
— No marble tells us whither. With their name 
No bard embalms and sanctifies his song : 
Arid history, so warm on meaner themes, 
Is cold on this. She execrates indeed 
The tyranny that doomed them to the fire, 
But gives the glorious sufferers little praise.* 

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free. 
And all are slaves besides. There's not a chain. 
That hellish foes, confederate for his harm. 
Can wind around him, but he casts it off 
With as much ease as Samson his green withs. 
He looks abroad into the varied field 
Of nature, and though poor perhaps, compared • 
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, 



See Hume. 



93 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Calls the delightful scenery all his own. . 
His arc the mountains, and the valleys his, 
And the resplendent rivers, his t' enjoy 
With a propriety that none can feel, 
But who, with filial confidence inspired. 
Can lil't to heaven an unprcsumptuous eye, 
And smiling say — "My father made them all!" 
Are they not his by a peculiar right, 
And by an emphasis of interest his, 
Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy. 
Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind 
With worthy thoughts of that miwearicd love, 
That planned, and built, and still upholds, a world 
So clothed with beauty for rebellious man '? 
Yes^ — ye may fill your garners, ye that reap 
The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good 
In senseless riot ; but ye will not find 
In feast, or in the chase, in song or dance, 
A liberty like his, who unimpeached 
'Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong, 
Appropriates nature as his Father's work. 
And has a richer use of yours than you. 
He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth ; 
Of no mean city ; ■ planned or ere the hills 
Were built, the fountains opened, or the sea 
With all his roaring multitude of waves: 
His freedom is the same in every state ; 
And no condition of this changeful life, 
So manifold in cares, whose every day 
Brings its own evil with it, makes it less : 
For he has wings, that neither sickness, pain. 
Nor penury, can cripple or confine. 
No nook so narrow but he spreads them there 
With ease, and is at large. Th' oppressor holds 
His body bound, but knows not what a range 
His spirit takes unconscious of a chain ; 
And that to bind him is a vain attempt. 
Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells. 

Acquaint thyself with God, if thou wouldst taste 
His works. Admitted once to his embrace. 
Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before ; 
Thine eye shall be instructed ; and thine heart 
Made pure shall relish, with divine delight. 
Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought. 
Brutes graze the mountain top, with face's prone. 
And eyes intent upon the scanty herb 
It yields them ; or, recumbent on its brow. 
Ruminate Jieedless of the scene outspread 
Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away 
From inland regions to the distant main. 
Man views it and admires ; but rests content 
With what he views. The landscape has his 

praise, 
But not its Author. Unconcerned who formed 
The paradise he sees, he finds it such, 
And such wrell-pleased to find it, asks no more. 
Not so the mind, that has been touched from 

Heaven. 
And in the school of sacred wisdom taught 



To read his wonders, in whose thought the world, 

Fair as it is, existed ere it was. 

Not for his own sake merely, but for his 

Much more, who fashioned it, he gives it praise; 

Praise that from Earth resulting, as it ought 

To earth's acknowledged Sovereign, finds at once 

Its only just proprietor in Him. 

The soul that sees him, or receives sublimed 

New faculties, or learns at least t' employ 

More worthily the powers she owned before, 

Discerns in all things what, with stupid gaze 

Of ignorance, till then she overlooked 

A ray of heavenly light, gilding all forms 

Terrestrial in the vast and the minute ; 

The unambiguous footsteps of the God. 

Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing, 

And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds. 

Much conversant with Heaven, she often holds 

With those fair ministers of light to man, 

That fill the skies nightly with silent pomp, 

Sweet conference. Inquires what strains were 

they • ■ 

With which Heaven rang, when every star in 

haste 
To gratulate the new-created earth, 
Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of God 
Shouted for joy. — "Tell me, ye'shining hosts, 
That navigate a sea that knows no storms, 
Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud. 
If from your elevation,, whence ye view 
Distinctly scenes invisible to man. 
And systems of whose birth no tidings yet 
Have reached this netherworld, ye spy a race 
Favoured as ours ; transgressors from the womb, 
And hasting to a grave, yet doomed to rise. 
And to possess a brighter heaven than yours 1 
As one, who, long detained on foreign shores, 
Pants to return, and when he sees afar 
His country's weather-Heached and battered rocks 
From the green wave emerging, darts an eye 
Radiant with joy towards the happy land ; 
So I with animated hopes behold. 
And many an aching wish, your beamy fires. 
That show like beacons in the blue abys^ 
Ordained to guide th' embodied spirit home 
From toilsome life to never-ending rest. 
Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desires 
That give assurance of tlieir own success. 
And that, inluscd from tieaven, must thither 

tend." 
So reads he nature, whom the lamp of truth 
Illuminates. Thy lamp, mysterious Word ! 
Which whoso sees no longer wanders lost. 
With intellects bemazed in endless doubt. 
But runs the road of wdsdom. Thou hast built. 
With means that were not till by thee employed, 
Worlds that had never been, hadst thpuin strength 
Been less, or less benevolent than strong. 
They are thy wii nesses, who speak thy power 



THE TASK. 



93 



And goodness infinite, but speak in ears 
That hear not, or receive not their report. 
• In vain thy creatures testify of thee, 
Till thou proclaim thyself. Theirs is indeed 
A teaching voice; but ?tisthe praise of thine, 
That whom it teaches it makes prompt to learn. 
And with the boon gives talents for its use. 
Till thou art heard, imaginations vain 
Possess the heart, and fables false as hell; 
Yet, deemed oracular, lure down to death 
The uninformed and heedless souls of men. 
We give to chance, blind chance, ourselves as 

blind. 
The glory of thy work wliich yet appears 
Perfect and unimpeachable of blame. 
Challenging human, scrutiny, and proved 
Then skilfid most when most severely judged. 
But chance is not; or is not where thou reign'st: 
Thy providence forbids that fickle power 
(K power she be, that works but to confound) 
To mix her wild vagaries with thy laws. 
Yet thus we dote, refusing while we can 
Instruction, and inventing to ourselves 
Gods such as guilt makes welcome; gods that 

sleep, 
.Or disregard our follies, or that sit 
Amused spectatoi's of this bustling stage. 
Thee we reject, unable to abide 



Thy purity, till pure as thou art pure. 

Made such by thee, we love thee for thy cause. 

For which we shunned and hated thee before. 

Then we are free. Then liberty, like day. 

Breaks on tliesoul, and by a flash from Heaven 

Fires all the faculties with glorious joy. 

A voice is heard, that mortal ears hear not. 

Till thou liast touched them; 'tis the voice of 

song, 
A loud hosanna sent from all thy works. 
Which he that hears it with a shout repeats, 
And adds his rapture to the general praise. 
In that blest moment Nature, throwing wide 
Her veil opaque, discloses with a smile 
The author of her beauties, who, retired 
Behind his own creation, works unseen 
By the impure, and hears liis power denied. 
Thou art the source and centre of all minds. 
Their only point of rest, eternal Word 1 
From thee departing they are lost, and rove 
At random without honour, hope, or peace. 
From thee is all that soothes the life of man. 
His high endeavour, and his glad success. 
His strength to suffer, andhis vdll to. serve. 
But O thou bounteous Giver of all good. 
Thou art of all thy gifts thyself the crown! 
Give what thou canst, without thee we are poor, 
And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away. 



Kilt Km'k. 



BOOK VI. 



THE WINTER WALK AT NOON. 



ARGUMENT. 

Bells at a distance. — Their effect. — A fine noon in winter. — ^A sheltered walk. — Meditation better than books. — Our fami- 
liarity with the course of nature makes it appear less wonderful than it is.— The transformation that spring effects in a shrub- 
bery described. — A mistake concerning the course of nature con-ected. — God maintains it by an unremitted act. — The 
amusements fashionable at this hour of The day reproved. — Animals happy, a delightful sight. — Origin of cruelty to animals. 
— That it is a great crime proved from Scripture. That proof illustraled by a tale. — A line drawn between the lawful and 
unlawful destruction of them. — Their good and useful properties insisted on. — Apology for the encomiums bestowed by the 
author on animals. — Instances of man's extravagant praise of man. — The groans of the creationshall have an end. — A view 
taken of the restoration of all things. — An invocation and an invitation of him, who shall bring ft to pass. — The retired man 
vindicated from the charee of uselessness. — ^.Conclusion. 



There is in souls a sympathy with sounds; 
And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased 
With melting airs of martial, brisk or grave ; 
Some chord in unison with what we hear 
Is touched within us, and the heart replies. 
How soft the music of those village bells, 
Falhng at intervals upon the ear 
In cadence sweet, now dying all away. 
Now pealing loud again, and louder still 
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on ! 
With easy force it opens all the cells 
Wliere Memory slept. Wherever I have heard 
A kindred melody, the scene recurs, 



And with it all its pleasures and its pains. 

Such, comprehensive views the spirit takes, 

That in a few short moments I retrace 

(As in a map the voyager his course) 

The windings of my way through many years. 

Short as in retrospect the journey seems, 

It seemed not always short; the rugged path, 

And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn. 

Moved many a sigh at its disheartening length. 

Yet feeling present evils, while the past 

Faintly impress the mind, or not at all, 

How readily we wish time spent revoked, 

That we inight try the ground again wheie once 



94 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



(Through inexperience, as we now perceive) 
"We missed that happiness we might have found ! 
Some friend is gone, perhaps liis son's best friend, 
A father, whose authority, in show 
When most severe and mustering all its force, 
Was but the graver countenance of love; 
Whose favour, hke the clouds of spring, might 

lower. 
And utter now and then an awful voice. 
But had a blessing in its darkest firown. 
Threatening at once and nourishing the plant. 
We loved, but not enough, the gentle hand 
That reared us. At a thoughtless age, allured 
By every gilded folly, we renounced 
His sheltering side, and wilfully forewent 
That converse, which wo now in vain regret. 
How gladly would the man recall to hfe 
The boy's neglected sire! a mother too, 
That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still, 
Might he demand them at the gates of death. 
Sorrow has, since they went, subdued and tamed 
The playful humour ; he could now endure, 
(Himself gro^vn sober in the vale of tears) 
And feel a parent's presence no restraint. 
But not to understand a treasure's worth. 
Till time has stolen away the slighted good. 
Is cause of half the poverty we feel, 
And malces the world the wilderness it is. 
The few that pray at all pray oft amiss. 
And seeking grace t' improve the prize they hold. 
Would urge a wiser suit than asldng more. 

The night was winter in its roughest mood; 
The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon 
Upon the southern side of the slant hills, 
And where the woods fence off the northern blast. 
The season smiles, resigning all its rage, 
And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue 
Without a cloud, and white without a sjjeck 
The dazzling splendour of the scene below. 
Again the harmony comes o'er the vale ; 
And through the trees I view th' embattled tower, 
Whence all the music. I again perceive 
The soothing influence of the Wafted strains. 
And settle in soft nmsin&s as I tread 
The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms. 
Whose outspread branches overarcli the glade. I 
The roof, though moveable through all its length ' 
As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed, 
And, intercepting in their silent fall 
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me. 
No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. 
The redbreast warbles still, but is content 
With slendef notes, and more than half sup- 
pressed ; 
Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light 
From spray to spay, where'er he rests he shakes 
From many a twig the pendant drops of ice. 
That tinkle in the withered leaves below. 
Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, 



Charms more than silence. Meditation here ■ 
May think down hours to moments. Here the 

heart 
May give a useful lesson to the head, 
And learning wiser grow wdthout his books. 
Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, 
Have ofttunes no connexion. Knowledge dwells 
In heads replete with thoughts of other men; 
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. 
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass. 
The mere materials with winch Wisdom builds. 
Till smoothed, and squared, and fitted to its place, 
Does but encumber whom it seems t' enrich. 
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much ; 
Wisdom is hmnble that he krjows no more. 
Books are not seldom talismans and spells, 
By which the magic art of shrewder wits 
Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled. 
Some to the fascination of a name 
Surrender judgment, hoodwinked. Some the style 
Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds 
Of error leads them, by a tune entranced. 
While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear 
The insupportable fatigue of thought. 
And swallowing therefore without pause or choice, 
The total grist unsifted, husks and all. 
But trees and rivulets, whose rapid coui-se 
Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer, 
And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs, 
And lanes in which the primrose ere her time . 
Peeps through the moss, that clothes the hawthorn 

root, 
Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth, 
Not shy, as in the world, and to be won 
By slow solicitation, seize at once 
The roving thought, and fix it on themselves. 
What prodigies can power divine perform 
More grand than it produces year by year. 
And all in sight of inattentive man"? 
Familiar with the effect we slight the cause, 
And in the constancy of nature's course, 
The regular return of genial months. 
And renovation of a faded world, 
Sec nought to wonder at. Should God again, 
As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race 
Of the undeviating and punctual sun, 
1 low would the world admire ! but speaks it less 
An agency divine, to make him know 
PI is moment when to sink and when to rise, 
Age after age, than to arrest his course 1 
All we behold is miracle; but seen 
So duly, all is miracle in vain. 
Where now the vital energy that moved. 
While smiimer was, the pure and subtle lymph 
Through the imperceptible meandering veins 
Of leaf and flower 1 It sleeps; and th' icy touch 
Of unprolific winter has impressed 
A cold stagnation on th' intestine tide. 
But let the months go round, a few short months, 



THE TASK. 



05 



And all shall be restored. These naked shoots, 
Barren as lances, among which the wind 
Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes, 
Shall put their graceful foUage on again, 
And more aspiring, and with ampler spread, 
Shall boast new charms, and more than they have 

lost. 
Then each in its peculiar honours clad. 
Shall publish even to the distant eye 
Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich 
In streaming gold ; syiinga, ivory pure ; 
The sceiitless and the scented rose ; this red 
•And of an humbler growth, the other* tall. 
And throwing up into the darkest gloom 
Of neighbouring cypress, or more sable yew, 
Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf 
That the wind severs- from the broken wave 
The lilac, various in array, now white. 
Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now sot 
With purple spikes pyramidal, as if 
Studious of ornament, yet Unresolved 
Which hue she most approved, she chose them all ; 
Copious of flowers the woodbine, pale and wan 
But well compensating her sickly looks 
With never-cloying odours, early and late ; 
Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm 
Of flowers Uke flies clothing her slender rods. 
That scarce a leaf appears ; mezereon too. 
Though leafless, well-attired, and thick beset 
With blushing wreaths, investing every spray; 
Althsea with the purple eye ; the broom. 
Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloyed, 
Her blossoms; and luxuriant above all 
The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, 
The deep dark green of whose unvarnished leaf 
Makes more conspicuous, and illumines .more, 
The bright profusions of her scattered stars. — 
These have been, and these shall be, in their day; 
And all this uniform uncoloured scene 
Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load, 
Arid flush into variety again. 
From dearth to plenty, and from death to life, 
Is Nature's progress, when she lectures man 
In heavenly truth; evincing, as she makes 
The grand transition, that there lives and works 
A soi\l in all things, and that soul is God. 
The beauties of the wilderness are his, 
That makes so gay the sohtary place, 
Where no eye sees them. And the fairer forms. 
That cultivation glories in, are his. 
He sets the bri^t procession on its way, 
And marshals all the order of the year; 
He marks the bounds, which winter may not 

pass, 
And blunts his pointed fury; in its case, 
Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ, 
Uninjured with inimitaljle art; 
And, ere one flowery season fades and dies, 



' The Guelder-rose. 



Designs the blooming wonders of the next. 

Some say that in the origin of things, 
When all creation started into birth, 
The infant elements received a law. 
From which they swerved not since. That ua !er 

force 
Of that controlling ordinance they move, . 
And need not his immediate hand, who first 
Prescribed their course, to regulate it now. 
Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God 
Th' encumbrance of his own concerns, and spare 
The great artificer of all that moves 
The stress of a continual act, the pain 
Of unremitted vigilance and care. 
As too laborious and severe a task. 
So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems, 
To span omnipotence, and measure might, 
That knows no measure, by the scanty rule 
And standard of his own, that is to-day. 
And is not ere to-morrow's sun go down. 
But how should matter occupy a charge, 
Dull as it is, and satisfy a law 
So vast in its demands, unless impelled 
To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force, 
And under pressure of some conscious cause 1 
The Lord of all, himself through all diffused. 
Sustains, and is the life of all that lives. 
Nature is but a name for an effect. 
Whose cause is God. He feeds the sacred fire 
By which the mighty process is maintained; 
Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight 
Slow circUng ages are as transient days; 
Whose work is without labour; whose designs 
No flaw deforms, no diflSculty thwarts; 
And whose beneficence no change exhausts. 
Him blind antiquity profaned, not served. 
With self-taught rites, and under various names, 
Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan, ■ 
And Flora, and Vertumnus ; peophng earth 
With tutelary goddesses and gods. 
That were not; and commending as they would 
To each some province, garden, field, or grove. 
But all are under one. One spirit — His, 
Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding 

brows, — 

Rules universal nature. Not a flower 
But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain. 
Of his unrivalled pencil. He inspires 
Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues. 
And bathes their eyes with nectar, arid includes. 
In grains as countless as the seaside sands. 
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth. 
Happy who walks with him ! whom what he finds " 
Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flower, 
Or what he views of beautiful or grand 
In nature, from the broad majestic oak 
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun, 
Prompts vdth remembrance of a present God. 
His presence, who made aU so fair, perceived, 



96 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Makes all still fairer. As with him no scene 
Is dreary, so with him all seasons please. 
Though -mnier liad been none, had man been true, 
And earth be punished for its tenant's sake, 
Yet not in vengeance; as this smiling sky, 
So soon succeeding such an angry night, • 
And these dissolving snows, and this clear stream 
Recovering fast its liquid music, prove. 

Who then, that has a mind well strung and 
tuned 
To contemplation, and within his reach 
A scene so friendly to his favourite task, 
Would waste attention at the checkered board. 
His host of wooden warriors to and fro 
Marching and counter-marching, with an eye 
As fixed as marble, with a forehead ridged 
And furrowed into storms, and with a hand 
Trembling, as if eternity were himg 
In balance on his conduct of a pin 1 
Nor eaivies he aught more their idle sport, 
Who pant with application misapplied 
To trivial toys, and pushing ivory balls 
Across a velvet level, feel a joy 
Akin to rapture, when the bauble finds 
Its destined goal, of difliicult access. 
Nor deems he vnser him, who gives his noon 
To Miss, the mercer's plague, from shop to shop 
Wandering, and; littering with unfolded silks 
The polished counter, and approving none. 
Or promising with smiles to call again. 
Nor him, who by his vanity seduced, 
And soothed into a dream that he discerns 
The difference of a Guido from a daub. 
Frequents the crowded auction : stationed there 
As duly as the Langford of the show. 
With glass' at eye, and catalogue in hand. 
And tongue accomplished in the fulsome cant. 
And pedantry, that coxcombs learn with case ; 
Oft as the price deciding hammer falls, 
He notes it in his book, then raps his box, 
Swears 'tis a bargain, rails at his hard fate, 
That he has let it pass— but never bids. 

Here unmolested, through whatever sign 
The sun proceeds, I wander. Neither mist, 
Nor freezing sky nor sultry, checking me. 
Nor stranger, intermeddling with my joy. 
E'en in the spring and playtime of the year. 
That calls th' unwonted villager abroad 
With all her little ones, a sportive train, 
To gather kinecups in the yellow m6ad. 
And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick 
A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook. 
These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, 
, Grown so familiar with her frequent guest. 
Scarce shuns me ; and the stockdove unalarmed 
Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends . 
His long love-ditty for my near approach. 
Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm. 
That age or injury has hollowed deep 



Where, on his bed of wool and matted leaves, 
He has outslept the winter, ventures forth 
To frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun, 
The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play; 
He sees me, and at once; swifl as a bird, 
Ascends the neighbouring beech ; there whisks his 

brush, 
And perks his ears, and stamps, and .cries aloud, 
With all the prettiness of feigned alarm, 
And anger insignificantly fierce. 

The heart is hard in nature and unfit 
For himian fellowship, as being void 
Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike 
To love and friendship both, that is not pleased 
With sight of animals enjoying life, 
Nor feels their happiness augment his own. 
The bounding fawn, that darts across the glade. 
When none pursues, through rriere delight of heart, 
And spirits buoyant with excess of glee ; 
The horse as wanton, and almost as fleet, 
That skims the spacious'meadow at full-speed. 
Then stops, and snorts, and, throwing high his 

heels, 
Starts to the voluntary race again ; 
The very kine, that gambol at high noon, 
The total herd receiving first from one, 
That leads the dance, a summons to be gay. 
Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouth 
Their efforts, yet resolved with one consent 
To give such act and utterance as they may 
To ecstacy too big to be suppressed — 
These, and a thousand images of bliss. 
With which kind Nature graces every scene. 
Where cruel man defeats not her design, 
Impart to the benevolent, who wish 
All that are capable of pleasure pleased, 
A far superior happiness to theirs. 
The comfort of a reasonable joy. 

Man scarce had risen, obedient to his call 
Who formed him from the dust, his future grave, 
When he was crowned as never king was since. 
God set the diaderh upon his head, 
And angel choirs attended. Wondering stood 
The new-made monarch, while before him passed, 
All happy, and all perfect in their kind. 
The creatures, summonedfrom their various haunts, 
To see their sovereign, and confess his sway. 
Vast was his empire, absolute his power. 
Or bounded only by a law, whose force 
'Twas his sublimest privilege to feel 
And own, the law of universal lov^' 
He ruled with meekness, they obeyed with joy ; 
No cruel purpose lurked withiri his heart. 
And no distrust of his intent in theirs. 
So Eden was a scene of harmless sport. 
Where kindness on his part who rvded the whole, 
Begat a tranquil confidence in all. 
And fear as yet was not, nor cause for fear. . 
But sin marred all ; and the revolt of man, 



THE TASK. 



97 



That source of evils not exhausted yet, 

Was punished with revolt of his from him. 

Garden of God, how terrible the change 

Thy groves and lawns then witnessed! Every 

heart, 
Each animal, of every name, conceived 
A jealousy, and an instinctive fear. 
And, conscious of ^me danger, either fled 
Precipitate the loathed abode of man. 
Or growled defiance in such angry sort, 
As tauglit him too to tremble in his turn. 
Thus harmony and family accord 
Were driven from Paradise ; and in that hour 
The seeds of cruelty, that since have swelled 
To such gigantic and enormous growth. 
Were sown in human nature's fruitful soil. 
Hence date the persecution and the pain, 
That man inflicts on all inferior kinds. 
Regardless of their plaints. To make him sport, 
To gratify the frenzy of his vfrath, 
Or his base gluttony, are causes good 
And just in his account, why bird and beast 
Should suffer torture, and the streams be dyed 
With blood of their inhabitants impaled. 
Earth groans beneath the burden of a war 
Waged with defenceless innocence, while he, 
Not satisfied to prey on all around, 
Adds tenfold bitterness to death by pangs 
Needless, and first tonnents ere he devours. 
Now happiest they, that occupy the scenes 
The most remote from his abhorred resort. 
Whom once, as delegate of God on earth, 
They feared, and as his perfect image loved. 
The wilderness is theirs, with all its caves, 
Its hollow glens, its thickets, and its plains, 
Unvisited by man. There they are free, 
And howl and roar as likes them, uncontrolled : 
Nor ask his leave to slumber or to play. 
Wo to the tyrant, if he dare intrude 
Witliin the confines of their v/ild domain : 
The lion tells him — I am monarch here — 
And, if he spare him, spares him on the terms 
Of royal mercy, and through generous scorn 
To rend a victim trembling at his foot. 
In measure, as by force of instinct drawn. 
Or. by necessity constrained, they hve 
Dependant upon man ; those in his fields. 
These at his crib, and some. beneath his roof 
They prove too often at how dear a' rate 
He sells protection. — Witness at his foot 
The spaniel dying for some venial fault. 
Under dissection of the knotted scourge ; 
Witness the patient ox, with stripes and yells 
Driven to the slaughter, goaded, as he runs. 
To madness ; while the savage at liis heels 
Lauglis at the frantic sufl^erer's fury, spent 
Upon the guiltless passenger o'erthrown. 
He too is witness, noblest of the train 
That wait on man, the flioht-performing horse; 



With unsuspecting readiness he takes 
His murderer on liis back, and pushed all day 
With bleeding sides and flanks, that heave for life, 
To the far distant goal, arrives and (hes. 
So little mercy sliows who needs so much! 
Does law, so jealous in the cause of man, 
Denounce no doom on tlte delinquent'! None. 
He Uvcs, and o'er liis brimming beaker boasts 
(As if barbarity were high'desert) 
Th' inglorious feat, and clamorous in praise 
Of the poor brute, seems wisely to suppose 
The honours of liis matchless horse his ovm. 
But many a crime, deemed innocent on earth. 
Is registered in heaven ; and these no doubt 
Have each their record, with a curse annexed. 
Man ma}' dismiss compassion from liis heart, 
But God will never. When he charged the Jew 
T' assist his foe's down faUen beast to rise; 
And when the bush-exploring boj^, that seized 
The young, to let the parent bird go free; 
Proved he not plainl}', that his meaner works 
Are yet his care, and have an interest all, 
All, in the universal Father's love % 
On Noah, and in him on all mankind. 
The charter was conferred, by which we hold 
The flesh of animals in fee, and clami 
O'er all we feed on, power of life and death. 
But read the instrument and mark it well : 
Th' oppression of a tyrannous control 
Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield 
Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous, through sin, 
Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute ! 

The Governor of all, himself to all 
So bountiful, in whose attentive ear 
The unfledged raven and the hon's whelp 
Plead not in vain for pity on the pangs 
Of hunger unassuaged, has interposed, 
Not seldom, his avenging arm, to smite 
Th' injurious trampler upon nature's law. 
That claims forbearance even for a brute. 
He hates the hardness of a Balaam's heart; 
And prophet as he was, he might not strike 
The blameless animal, without rebuke, ■ 
On which he rode. Her opportune offence 
Saved him, or th' unrelenting seer had died. 
He sees that human equity is slack 
To interfere, though in so just a cause; 
And makes the task his own. Inspiring dumb 
And helpless victims with a sense so keen 
Of injury, with such knowledge of their strength, 
And such sagacity to take revenge, 
That oft the beast has seemed to judge the man. 
An ancient, not a legendary tale,. 
By one of Sound intelligence rehearsed, 
(If such who plead for Providence may seem 
In modem eyes,) shall maie the doctrine clear. 

Where England, stretched towards the setting 
sun, 



98 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Narrow and long, o'erlooks the western wave, 
Dwelt young Misagathus; a scorner he 
Of God and goodness, atheist in ostent, 
Vicious in act, in temper savage-fierce. 
He journeyed; and his chance wag, as he went, 
To join a traveller, of far different note, 
Evander, famed for piety, for years 
Deser^^ng honour, but for wisdom more. 
Fame had not left the venerable man 
A stranger to the manners of the youth, 
Whose face too was familiar to his view. 
Their way was on the margin of the land, 
O'er the green smnmit of the rocks, whose base 
Beats back the roaring surge, scarce heard so high. 
The charity, that warmed his heart, was moved 
At sight of the man-monster. With a smile. 
Gentle, and affable, and full of grace. 
As fearful of offending whom he wished 
Much to persuade, he plied his ear with truths 
Not harshly thundered forth, or rudely pressed. 
But, like his purpose, gracious, kind, and sweet. 
" And dost thou dream," th' impenetrable man 
Exclaimed, " that me the lullabies of age," 
And fantasies of dotards such as thou, 
Can cheat, or move a moment's fear in me"? 
Mark now the proof I give thee, that the brave 
Need no such aids, as superstition lends. 
To steel their hearts against the dread of death." 
He spoke, and to the precipice at hand 
Pushed with a madman's fury. Fancy shrinks 
And the blood thrills and cm-dies, at the thought 
Of such a gulf as he designed his grave. 
But, though the felon on his back could dare 
The dreadful leap, more rational, his steed 
Dechned the death, and wheeling swiftly round. 
Or e'er his hoof had pressed the crmnbhng verge, 
BafHed his rider, saved against his will. 
The frenzy of the brain may be redressed 
By medicine well applied, but without grace 
The heart's insanity admits no cure. 
Enraged the more, by what might have reformed 
His horrible intent, again he sought 
Destruction, with a zeal to be destroyed. 
With sounding whip, and rowels dyed ut blood. 
But still in vain. The Providence that meant 
A longer date to the far nobler beast. 
Spared yet again th' ignoble for his sake. 
And now, his prowess proved, and his sincere 
Incurable obduracy evinced. 
His rage grew cool; and, pleased perhaps t' have 

earned 
So cheaply the renown of that attempt, 
With looks of some complacence he resumed 
His road, deriding much the blanli amaze 
Of good Evander, still where he was left 
Fixed motionless, and petrified with dread. 
So on they fared. Discourse on other themes 
Ensuing seemed t' obliterate the past; 
And tamer far for so much fury shown. 



(As in the course of rash and fiery men) 
The rude companion smiled, as if transformed. 
But 'twas a transient calm. A storm was near, 
An unsuspected storm. His hour was come. 
The impious challenger of Power divine 
Was now to learn, that Heaven, though- slow to 

wrath. 
Is never wdth impunity defied.' 
His horse, as he had caught his master's mood. 
Snorting, and starting into sudden rage, 
Unbidden, and not now to be controlled. 
Rushed to the cliff, and, having reached it, stood. 
At once the shock uiiseatedhim; he flew 
Sheer o'er the craggy barrier; and; immersed 
Deep in the flood, found, when he sought it not, 
The death he had deserved, and died alone. 
So God wrought double justice ; made the fool 
The victim of his o^vn tremendous choice. 
And taught a brute the way to safe revenge. 
I would not enter on my list of friends 
(Though graced with poUshed manners and fine 

sense. 
Yet wanting sensibility) the man 
Who needlessly sets foot upoii a worm. 
An inadvertent step may crush the snail, 
That crawls at evening in the public path ; 
But he tha,t has humanity, forewarned. 
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live. 
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight. 
And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes, 
A visiter unwelcome, into scenes 
Sacred to neatness and repose, th' alcove, 
The chamber, or refectory, may die: 
A necessary act incurs no blame. 
Not so when, held within their proper bounds. 
And guiltless of offence, they range the air, 
Or take their pastime in the spacious field ; 
There they are privileged ; and he that hunts 
Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong, 
Disturbs the economy of Nature's realm, 
Who, when she formed, designed them an abode. 
The sum is this. If man's convenience, health, 
Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims 
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs. 
Else they are all — the meanest things that are-^ 
As free to live, and to enjoy that life. 
As God was free to form them at the first. 
Who in his sovereign wisdom made them all. 
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons 
To love it too. The springtime of our years 
Is soon dishonoured and defiled in most 
By budding ills, and ask a prudent hand 
To check them. But alas ! none sooner shoots, 
If unrestrained, into luxuriant growth. 
Than cruelty, most devilish of them all. 
Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule 
And righteous limitation of its act. 
By which Heaven moves in pardoning guilty man 
And he that shows none, being ripe in years, 



THE TASK, 



d9 



And conscious of the outrage he commits, 
Shall seek it, and not find it, in his turn. 

. Distinguished much by reason, and still more 

By our capacity of grace divine, 

From creatures, that exist but for our sake. 

Which, having served us, perish, we are held 

Accountable ; and God some future day 

Will reckon wdth us roundly for the abuse 

Of what he deems no mean or trivial trust. 

Superior as we are, they yet depend 

Not more on human help than we on theirs 

Their strength, or speed, or vigilance were given 

In aid of our defects. In some are found 

Such teachable and appreliensive parts, 

That man's attainments in liis own concerns, 

Matched with th' expertness of the brutes in 

theirs. 
Are ofttimes vanquished, and thrown far behind. 
Some show that nice sagacity of smell. 
And read with such discernment, in the port 
And figure of the man, his secret aim. 
That ofl we owe our safety to a skill 
We could not teach, and must despair to learn ; 
But learn we might, if not too proud to stoop 
To quadraped instructers, many a good 
And useful quality, and virtue too. 
Rarely exemplified among ourselves; 
Attaclmient never to be weaned, or changed 
By any change of fortune; proof alike 
Against unkindness, absence, and neglect; 
Fidelity, that neither bribe nor threat 
Can move or watp; and gratitude for small 
And trivial favours, lasting as the life, 
And glistening even in the dying eye. 
Man praises man. Desert in arts or arms 
Wins public honour; and ten thousand sit 
Patiently present at a sacred song, 
Commemoration-mad; content to hear 
(O wonderful effect of music's power!) 
Messiah's eulogy for Handel's sake. 
But less, methinks, than sacrilege might serve — 
(For, was it less, what heathen would have. dared 
To strip Jove's statue of his oaken wreath, 
And hang it up in honour of a man 1) 
Much less might serve, when all that we design 
Is but to gratify an itching ear, 
And give the day to a musician's praise. 
Remember Handel 1 Who, that was not born 
Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets. 
Or can, the more than Homer of his agel 
Yes^we remember him : and while we praise 
A talent so divine, remember too 
That His most holy book, from whom it came, 
Was never meant, was never used before. 
To buckram out the memory of a man. 
But hush! — the muse perhaps is too severe; 
And with a gravity beyond the size 
And measure of th' offence, rebukes a deed 
Less impious than abLaird, and owing more 



To want of judgment than to wrong design.' 

So in the chapel of old Ely House, 

When wandering Charles, who meant to be the 

third. 
Had fled from William, and the news was firesh, 
The simple clerk, but loyal, did announce, 
And eke did rear right merrily, two staves, 
Svmg to the praise and glory of King George! 
— Man praises man ; and Garrick's memory next, 
When time had somewhat mellowed it, and made 
The idol of our worship while he lived 
The God of our idolatry once more, 
Shall have its altar ; and the world shall go 
In pilgrimage to bow before his shrine. 
The theatre too small shall suffocate 
Its squeezed contents, and more than it admits 
Shall sigh at their exclusion, and return 
Ungratified: for there some noble lord 
Shall stuff his shoulders with king Richard's 

bunch. 
Or v^rrap himself in Hamlet's inky cloak. 
And strut and storm, and straddle, stamp and 

stare. 
To show the world how Garrick did not act. 
For Garrick was a worshipper himself; 
He drew the liturgy, and framed the rites 
And solemn ceremonials of the day, 
And called the world to worship on the banks 
Of Avon, famed in song. Ah, pleasant proof 
That piety has still in human hearts 
Someplace, a spark or two not yet extinct. 
The mulberry-tree was hung with blooming 

WTreaths; 
The mulberry-tree stood centre of the dance; 
The mrdberry-tree was hymned with dulcet airs; 
And from his touchwood trunk the mulberry-tree 
Supplied such relics as devotion holds 
Still sacred, and preserves with pious care. 
So 'twas a hallowed time : decorum reigned, 
And mirth without offence. No few returned, 
Doubtless, much edified, and all refreshed. — 
Man praises man. The rabble all ahve 
From tippling benches, cellars, stalls, and styes, 
Swarm in the streets. The statesman of the day, 
A pompous and slow-moving pageant, comes. 
Some shout him, and some hang upon his car. 
To gaze in's eyes, and bless hinx Maidens wave 
Their 'kerchiefs, and old women weep for joy : 
While others, not so satisfied, unhorse 
The gilded equipage, and, turning loose 
His steeds, usurp a place they well deserve. 
Whyl what has charmed them"? Hath he saved 

the state 1 
No. Doth he purpose its salvation 1 No. 
Enchanting novelty, that moon at full. 
That finds out every crevice of the head 
That is not sound and perfect, hath in theirs 
Wrought this disturbance. But the wane is near, 
And his own cattle must suffice Mm soon. 



100 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Thus idly do we waste the breath of praise, 
And dedicate a tribute, in its use 
And just direction sacred, to a thing 
Doomed to the dust, or lodged already there. 
Encomium in old time was poets' work ; • 
But poets, having lavishly long since 
Exhausted all materials of the art. 
The task now falls into the public hand; 
And I, contented wdth an humbler theme, 
Have poured my stream of panegyric down 
The vale of Nature, where it creeps, and winds 
Among her lovely works witli a secure 
And unambitious course, reflecting clear. 
If not the virtues, yet the worth, of brutes. 
And I am recompensed, and deem the toils 
Of poetry not lost, if verse of mine 
May stand between an animal and wo. 
And teach one tyrant pity for his drudge. 

The groans of Nature in this nether world. 
Which Heaven has heard for ages, have an end. 
Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung, 
Whose fire was kindled at the prophet's lamp, 
The time of rest, the promised sabbath, comes. 
Six thousand years of sorrow have well-nigh 
Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course 
Over a sinful world ; and what remains 
Of this tempestuous state of human things 
Is merely as the working of a sea 
Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest: 
For He,' whose car the winds are, and the clouds 
The dust that waits upon his sultry march. 
When sin hath moved them, and his wrath is hot, 
Shall visit earth in mercy; shall descend 
Propitious in his chariot paved with love; 
And what his storms have blasted and defaced 
For man's revolt shall with a smile repair. 

Sweet is the harp of prophecy ; too sweet 
Not to be wronged by a mere mortal touch: 
Nor can the wonders it records be sung 
To meaner music, and not suffer loss. 
But when a poet, or when one hke me, 
Happy to rove among poetic flowers, 
Though poor in skill to rear them, lights at last, 
On some fair theme, some theme divinely fair, 
Such is the impulse and the. spur he feels. 
To give it praise proportioned to its worth. 
That not t' attempt it, arduous as he deems 
The labour, were a task more arduous still. 

O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true, 
Scenes of accomplished bliss! which who can see, 
Thougli but in distant prospect, and not feel 
His soul refreshed witli foretaste of the joy 1 
Rivers of gladness water all the earth. 
And clothe all climes with beauty; the reproach 
Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field 
Laughs with abundance; and the land, once lean. 
Or fertile only in its own disgrace, 
Exults to see its thistly taiise repealed, 
The various .seasons woven into one, 



And that one season an eternal spring. 
The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence, 
For there is none to covet, all are full. 
The hon, and the hbbard, and the bear. 
Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon 
Together, or all gambol in the shade 
Of the same grove, and drink one common stream. 
Antipathies are none. No foe to man 
Lurks in the serpent now; the mother sees. 
And smiles to see, her infant's playful hand 
Stretched forth to dally with the crested worm, 
To stroke his azure neck, or to receive 
The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue. 
All creatures worship man, and all mankind 
One Lord, one Father. Error has no place: 
That creeping pestilence is driven away ; 
The -breath of heaven has chased it. In the heart 
No passion tojiches a discordant string. 
But all is harmony and love. Disease • 
Is not ; the pure and uncontaminate blood 
Holds its due course, nor. fears the frost of age. 
One song employs all nations ; and all cry, 
" Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us !" 
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks 
Shout to each other, and the mountain tops 
From distant mountains catch the flying joy ; 
Till, nation after nation taught the strain. 
Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round. 
Behold the measure of the promise filled ; 
See Salem built, the labour of a God ! 
Bright as the sun the sacred city shines ; 
All kingdoms and all princes of the earth . 
Flock to that light ; the glory of all lands 
Flows into her ; unbounded is her joy. 
And endless her increase. Thy rams are there, 
Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there :* 
The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind, 
And Saba's spicy groves pay tribute there. 
Praise is in all her gates ; upon her walls. 
And in her streets, and in her spacious courts 
Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there 
Kneels with the native of the farthest west ; 
And .Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand, 
And worships. Her report has travelled forth 
Into all lands. From every cUirie they come 
To see thy beauty, and to share thy joy, 
O Sion ! an assembly such as earth 
Saw never, such as heaven stoops down to see. 
Thus heavenward all things tend. For all were 
once 
Perfect, and all must be at length restored. 
So God has greatly purposed ; who could else 
In his dishonoured works himself endure 
Dishonour, and be wronged without redress. 
Haste then, and wheel away a shattered world, • 



■ Nebaioth and Kedar, the sons of Ishmael, and progenitors 
of liie Arabs, in the prophetic scripture here alluded to, may 
be reasonably considered aa representatives of the Gentiles at 
large. 



THE TASK. 



101 



Ye slow-revolving seasons! we would see 
(A sight to which onr eyes are strangers yet) 
A world,, that does not dread and hate his laws, 
And suffer for its crime; would learn how fair 
The creature is that God pronounces good, 
How pleasant in itself what pleases him. 
Here every drop of honey hides a sting; . 
Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flowers J 
And e'en the joy, that haply some poor heart 
Derives from Heaven, pvue as the fountain is. 
Is sullied in the stream, taking a taint 
From touch of human hps, at best impure. 
O for a world in principle as chaste 
As this is gross and selfish ! over which 
Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway, 
That govern all things here, shouldering aside 
The meek and modest Truth, and forcing her 
To seek a refuge from the tongue 'of strife 
In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men ; 
Where violence shall never lift the sword, 
Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong. 
Leaving the poor no remedy but tears ; 
Where he, that fills an office, shall esteem 
Th' occasion it presents of doing good 
More than the perquisite : where law shall speak 
Seldom, and never but as wisdom prompts 
And equity 1 not jealous more to guard 
A worthless form, than to decide aright: 
Where fashion shall not sanctify abuse. 
Nor smooth good-breeding (supplemental grace) 
With lean performance ape the work of love ! 
Come then, and added to thy many crowns. 
Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth, 
Thou who alone art worthy ! It was thine 
By ancient covenant, ere Nature's birth ; 
And thou hast made it thine by purchase since, 
And overpaid its value \vitli thy blood. 
Thy saints proclaim thee king ; and in their hearts 
Thy title is engraven with a pen 
Dipped in the fountain of eternal love. 
Thy saints proclaim thee king ; and thy delay 
Gives courage to their foes, who, could they see 
The dawn of thy last advent, long-desired, 
Would creep into the bowels of the liills, 
And flee for safety to the falling rocks. 
The very spirit of the world is tired 
Of its owm taunting question, asked so long, 
" Where is the promise of your Lord's approach?" 
The infidel has shot his bolts away. 
Till, his exhausted quiver yielding none. 
He gleans the blunted shafts, that have recoiled, 
And amis them at the shield of Truth again. 
The veil is rent, rent too by priestly hands. 
That hides divinity from mortal eyes ; 
And all the mysteries to faith proposed, 
Insulted and traduced, are cast aside. 
As useless, to the moles and to the bats. 
They now are deemed the faithful, and are praised, 
Who constant only in rejecting thee, 



Deny thy Godhead with a martyr's zeal, 
And quit their oflSce for their error's sake. 
Blind, and in love with darkness ! yet, e'en these 
Worthy, compared with sycophants, who knee 
Thy name adoring, and then preach thee man ! 
So fares thy church. But how. thy church may fare 
The world takes little thought. Who will may 

preach. 
And what they will. All pastors are alike 
To wandering sheep, resolved to follow none. 
Two gods divide them all — Pleasure and Gain ; 
For these they live, they sacrifice to these, 
And in their service wage perpetual war 
With conscience and with thee. Lust in their 

hearts. 
And mischief in their hands, they roam the earth 
To prey upon each other : stubborn, fierce. 
High-minded, foaming out their own disgrace. 
Thy prophets speak of such ; and, noting down 
The features of the last degenerate times 
Exhibit every hneament of these. 
Come then, and, added to thy many crowns, 
Receive yet one, as radiant as the rest. 
Due to thy last and most effectual work. 
Thy word fulfilled, the conquest of a world ! 
He is the happy man, whose life e'en now 
Shows somewhat of that happier fife to come ; 
Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state, 
Is pleased with it, and, were he free to choose. 
Would make his fate his choice ; whom peace, the 

fruit 
Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith. 
Prepare for happiness ; bespeak him one 
Content indeed to sojourn while he must, 
Below the skies, but having there his home. 
The world o'erlooks him in her busy search 
Of objects, more illustrious in her view ; 
And, occupied as earnestly as she. 
Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the World. 
She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not j 
He- seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain. 
He can not skim the ground like smnmer birds 
Pursuing gilded flies ; and .such she deems 
Her honours, her emoluments her joys. 
Therefore in contemplation is his bliss. 
Whose power is such, that whom she lifts from 

earth 
She makes familiar with a heaven unseen. 
And shows him glories yet to be revealed. 
Not slothful he, though seeming'unemployed. 
And censured oft as useless. Stillest streams 
Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird 
That flutters least is longest on the wing. 
Ask him, indeed, what trophies he has raised, 
Or what achievements of uumortal fame 
He purposes, and he shall answer — None. 
His warfare is within. .There unfatigued 
His fervent spirit labours. There he fights. 
And there obtains fresh triumphs o'er himself, 



102 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



And never-withering •wreaths, compared with 

which, 
The laurels that a Csesar reaps are weeds. . 
Perhaps the self-appro\'ing haughty world, 
That as she sweeps him with her whistling silks 
Scarce deigns to notice him, or, if she see, 
Deems him a cipher in the works of God, 
Receives advantage from his noiseless hours, 
Of which she little dreams. Perhaps she owes 
Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring 
And plenteous harvest, to the prayer he makes, 
When, Isaac like, the solitary saint 
Walks forth to meditate at eventide. 
And think on her, who thinks not for herself. 
Forgive him then, thou bustler in concerns 
Of Uttle worth, an idler in the best. 
If, author of no mischief and some good. 
He seek his proper happiness by means 
That may advance, but can not hinder, tliine. 
Nor, though he tread the secret, path of life, 
Engage no notice, and enjoy much ease, 
Account him an encumbrance on the state, 
Receiving benefits, and rendering none. 
His sphere though humble, if that humble sphere 
Sliine with his fair example, and though small 
His influence, if that influence all be spent 
In soothing sorrow, and in quenching strife, 
In aiding helpless indigence, in works. 
From which at least a grateful few derive 
Some taste of comfort in a world of wo ; 
Then let the supercilious great confess 
He serves his comitry, recompenses well 
The state, beneath the shadow of whose vine 
He sits secure, and in the scale of life 
Holds no ignoble, though a slighted, place. 
The man whose virtues are more felt than seen, 
Must drop indeed the hope of public praise ; 
But he may boast, what few that win it can. 
That if his country stand not by his skill. 
At least his follies have not wrought her fall, 
PoUte Refinement offers him in vain 
Her golden tube, through which a sensual world 
Draws gross impurity, and likes it well. 
The neat conveyance hiding all th' offence. 
Not that he peevishly rejects a mode 



Because that world adopts it. If it bear 
The stamp and clear impression of good sense, 
And be not costly more than of true worth, 
He puts it on, and for decorum sake 
Can wear it e'en as gracefully as she. 
She judges of refinement by the eye. 
He by the test of conscience, and a heart 
Not soon deceived; aware that what is base 
No polish can make sterling ; and that vice. 
Though well perfumed and elegantly dressed. 
Like an unburied carcase tricked with flowers, 
Is but a garnished nuisance, fitter far 
For cleanly riddance, than for fair attire. 
So life ghdes smoothly and by stealth away, 
More golden than that age of fabled gold 
Renowned in ancient song ; not vexed with care 
Or stained with guilt, beneficent, approved 
Of God and man, and peacefiil in its end. 
So glide my life away, and so at last, 
My share of duties decently fulfilled. 
May some disease, not tardy to perform 
Its destined office, yet with gentle stroke, 
Dismiss me weary to a safe retreat. 
Beneath the turf that I have often trod. 

It shall not grieve me then, that once, when cal- 
led . 
To dress a Sofa with the flowers of verse, 
1 played awhile, obedient to the fair. 
With that light task ; but soon, to please her more, 
Whom flowers alone I knew would httle please; 
Let fall th' unfinished wreath, and roved for fruit •, 
Roved far, and gathered much : some harsh, 'tis 

true, 
Picked from the thorns and briers of reproof, 
But wholesome, well digested ; grateful some 
To palates that can taste iminortal truth; . 
Insipid else, and sure to be despised ; 
But all is in His hand, whose praise I seek. 
In vain the poet sings, and the world hears. 
If He regard not, though divine the theme. 
'Tis not in artful measures, in the chime 
And idle tinkling of a minstrel's lyre, 
To charm his ear, whose eye is on the heart ; 
Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain, 
Whose approbation— prosper even mine. 



AN EPISTLE 



JOSEPH HILL., ESQ. 



Dkar Jo.yKPH — five and twenty years ago— 
Alas, how time escapes ! — 'tis even so — 
With frequent intercourse, and always sweet. 
And always friendly, we were wont to cheat 
A tedious hour — and now we never meet ! 



As some grave gentlemen in Terence saj's, 
('Twas therefore much the same in ancient days) 
Good lack, we know not what to-morrow brings — 
Strange fluctuation of all human things ! 
True. Changes will befall, and friends may part. 



AN EPISTLE TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 



103 



But distance only can not change the heart: 
And, were I called to prove th' assertion true, 
One proof should serve — a reference to you. 

Whence comes it then, that in the wane of life, 
Though notliing have occurred to kindle strife. 
We find the friends we fancied we had won. 
Though numerous once, reduced to few or none 1 
Can gold grow worthless, that has stood the touch 7 
No; gold they seemed, but they were never such. 

Horatio's servant once, with bow and cringe, 
Swinging the parlour door upon its hinge. 
Dreading a negative, and overawed 
Lest he should trespass, begged to go abroad. 
Go, fellow'? — whither'? — turning short about — 
Nay. Stay at home — ^you're always going out. 
'Tis but a step, sir, just at the street's end — • 
For whaf? — An please you, sir, to see a friend. — 
A friend f Horatio cried, and seemed to start — 
Yea, marry shalt thou, and with all my heart. — 
And fetch my cloak; for, though the night be raw, 
I'll see him too — the first I ever saw. 

I knew the man, and knew his nature mild, 
And was his plaything often when a child; 
But somewhat at that moment pinched him close. 
Else he was seldom bitter or morose. 
Perhaps his confidence just then betrayed, 
His grief might prompt him with the speech he 
made; 



Perhaps 'twas mere good humour gave it birth, 
The harmless play of pleasantry and mirth. 
Howe'er it was, his language, in my mind, 
Bespoke as least a man that knew mankind. 

But not to moralize too much, and strain 
To prove an evil, of which all complain, 
(I hate long arguments verbosely spun) 
One story more, dear Hill, and I have done. 
Once on a time an emperor, a wise man, 
No matter where, in China, or Japan, 
Decreed, that whosoever should offend 
Against the well known duties of a friend, 
Convicted once should ever after wear 
But half a coat, and show his bosom bare. 
The punislmient importing this, no doubt, 
That all was naught witliin, and all found out. 

O happy Britain! we have not to fear 
Such hard and arbitrary measure here; 
Else, could a law, like that which I relate. 
Once have the sanction of our triple state, 
Some few, that I have known in days of old. 
Would run most dreadful risk of catching cold ; 
While you, my friend, whatever wind should 

blow. 
Might traverse England safely to and fro, 
An honest man, close buttoned to the chin, 
Broad cloth without, and a warm heart within. 



Eivotinium: 



A REVIEW OF SCHOOIiS. 

Ki^!tKiov S'n TfaiSiieis oj>S)i Tpo<p>i. Plato. 

^PX" "■'""^Tsw? uvua-ns vim 'rfo<pct, Diog. Laert,' 



TO THE 

REV. WM. CAWTHORNE UNWIN, 



RECTOR OP STOCK IN ESSEX, THE TUTOR' OP HIS TWO SONS, THE FOLLOWING POEM, RECOMMENDING 
PRIVATE TUITION, IN PREFERENCE TO AN EDUCATION AT SCHOOL, IS INSCRIBED, BY HIS AFFECTION- 
ATE FRIEND, 

Olney, Nov. 6th, 1784. WILLIAM COWPER. 



It is not ftom his form, in which we trace 
Strength joined with beauty, dignity with grace, 
That man, the master of tliis globe, derives 
His right of empire over all that lives. 
That form indeed, th' associate of a mind 
Vast in its powers, ethereal in its kind, 
That form the labour of almighty skill, 
Framed for the service of a freeborn will. 
Asserts precedence, and bespeaks control, 
But borrows all its grandeur from the soul. 



Hers is the state, the splendour, and the throne^ 
An intellectual kingdom, all her own. 
For her the Memory fills her ample page 
With truths poured down from every distant age 
For her amasses an imbounded store, 
The wisdom of great nations, now no more; 
Though laden, not encumbered with her spoil; 
Laborious, yet unconscious of her toil; 
When copiously supplied, then most enlarged; 
Still to be fed, and not to be surcharged. 



104 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



For her the Fancy, roving unconiined, 
The present muse of every pensive mind, 
Works magic wonders; adds a brighter hue 
To Nature's scenes than Nature ever knew. 
At her command winds rise, and waters roar, 
Again she lays them slumbering on the shore; 
With flower and fruit the wilderness suppUes, 
Or bids the rocks in ruder pomp to rise. 
For her the Judgment, umpire in the strife, 
That Grace and Nature have to wige through 

hfe, 
Q.uick-sighted arbiter of good and ill. 
Appointed sage preceptor to the Will, 
Condemns, approves, and with a faithful voice 
Guides the decision of a doubtful choice. 
Why did the fiat of a God give birth 
To yon fair Sun, and his attendant Earth *? 
And, when descending, he resigns the skies, 
Why takes the gentler Moon her turn to rise. 
Whom Ocean feels through all his countless 

waves, i 

And owns her power on every shore he laves? 
Why do the seasons still enrich the year, 
Fruitful and young as in their first career? 
Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, 
Rocked in the cradle of the western breeze ; 
Summer in haste the thriving charge receives 
Beneath the shade of her expanded leaves, 
Till Autumn's fiercer heats and plenteous dews 
Dye them at last in all their glowing hues. — 
'Twere wild confusion all, and bootless waste, 
Power misemployed, munificence misplaced, 
Had not its author dignified the plan. 
And crowned it with the majesty of man. 
Thus formed, thus placed, intelligent, and taught, 
Look where he wUl, the wonders God has wrought. 
The wildest scorner of his Maker's laws 
Finds in a sober moment time to pause. 
To press th' important question on his heart, 
"Why formed at all, and wherefore as thou art?" 
If man be what he seems, tliis hour a slave, 
The next mere dust and ashes in the grave; 
Endued with reason only to descry 
His crimes and follies with an aching eye; 
With passions, just that he may prove, with pain, 
The force he spends against their fury vain; 
And if, soon after having burnt, by turns. 
With every lust, with which frail Nature burns, 
His being end, where death dissolves the bond, 
The tomb take all, and all be blank beyond; 
Then he, of all that Nature has brought forth. 
Stands self-impeached the creature of least worth. 
And useless while he lives and when he dies. 
Brings into doubt the wisdom of the skies. 

Truths, that the learned pursue with eager 

thought. 
Are not important always as dear-bought. 
Proving at last, though told in pompous strains, 
A childish waste of philosophic pains; 



But truths, on which depends our main concern, 
That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn, 
Shine by the side of every path we tread 
With such a lustre, he that runs may read. 
'Tis true that, if to trifle hfe away 
Down to the sunset of their latest day, 
Then perish on futurity's wide shore 
Like fleeting exhalations, found no more, 
Were all that Heaven required of human kind, 
And all the plan their destiny designed, 
What none could reverence all might justly blame. 
And man would breathe but for his Maker's 

shame, 
But reason heard, and nature well perused, 
At once the dreaming mind is disabused. 
If all we find possessing earth, sea, air. 
Reflect his attributes, who placed them there, 
Fulfil the purpose, and appear designed 
Proofs of the wisdom of th' all-seeing mind, 
'Tis plain the creature, whom he chose t' invest 
With kingship and dominion o'er the rest, 
Received his nobler nature, and "was made 
Fit for the power in which he stands arrayed; 
That first, or last, hereafter, if not here. 
He too might make his author's wisdom clear, 
Praise him on earth, or, obstinately dumb, 
Suffer his justice in a world to come. 
This once believed, 'twere logic misapplied, 
To prove a consequence by none denied. 
That we are bound to cast the minds of youth 
Betimes into the mould of heavenly truth, 
That taught of God they may indeed be wise, 
Nor ignorantly wandering miss the skies. 
In early days the conscience has in most 
A quickness, which in later hfe is lost: 
Preserved from guilt by salutary fears, 
Or guilty soon relenting into tears. 
Too careless often, as our years proceed, 
What friends we sort with, or what books we 

read, ^ 
Our parents yet-exert a prudent care, 
To feed our infant minds with proper fare; 
And wisely store the nursery by degrees 
With wholesome learning, yet acquired with ease. 
Neatly secured from being soiled or torn 
Beneath a pane of thin translucent horn, 
A book (to please us at a tender age, 
'Tis called a book, though but a single page) 
Presents the prayer the Saviour deigned to teach, 
Which children use, and parsons — when they 

preach; 
Lisping our syllables, we scramble next 
Through moral narrative, or sacred text; 
And learn with wonder how this world began, 
Who made, who marred, and who has ransomed 

man: 
Points, which, unless the Scripture made them 

plain. 
The wisest heads might agitate in vain. 



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105 



thou, whom, borne on Fancy's eager wing 
Back to the season of life's happy spring, 

1 pleased remember, and, while memory yet 
Holds fast her office here, can ne'er forget; 
Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told tale 
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail; 
Whose hmnorous vein, strong sense, and simple 

style. 
May teach the gayest, make the gravest smUe ; 
Witty, and well employed, and, like thy Lord, 
Speaking in parables his shghted word; 
I name thee not, lest so despised a name 
Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame; 
Yet e'en in transitory life's late day. 
That mingles all my brown with sober gray, 
Revere the man, whose pilgrim marks the road, 
And guides the progress of the soul to God. 
'Twere well with most, if books, that could engage 
Their childhood, pleased them at a riper age; 
The man, approving what had charmed the boy, 
Would die at last in comfort, peace, and joy; 
And not with curses on his heart, who stole 
The gem of truth from his unguarded soul. 
The stamp of artless piety impressed 
By kind tuition on his yielding breast, 
The youth now bearded, and yet pert and raw. 
Regards with scorn, though once received with 

awe; 
And, warped into the labyrinth of lies. 
That babblers, called philosophers, devise, 
Blasphemes his creed, as founded on a plan 
Replete with dreams, unworthy of a man. 
Touch but his nature in its aihng part. 
Assert the native evil of his heart. 
His pride resents the charge, although the proof* 
Rise in his forehead, and seem rank enough : 
Point to the cure, describe a Saviour's cross 
As God's expedient to retrieve his loss, 
The young apostate sickens at the view. 
And hates it with the malice of a Jew. 

How weak the barrier of mere nature proves. 
Opposed against the pleasures Nature loves! 
While self-betrayed, and wilfully undone. 
She longs to yield, no sooner wooed than won. 
Try now the merits of this blest exchange 
Of modest truth for wit's eccentric range. 
Time was, he closed as he began the day 
With decent duty, not ashamed to pray ; 
The practice was a bond upon his heart, 
A pledge he gave for a consistent part; 
Nor could he dare presmnptuously displease 
A power, confessed so lately on his knees. 
But now farewell all legendary tales. 
The shadows fly, philosophy prevails ; 
Prayer to the winds, and caution to the waves; 
Religion makes the free by nature slaves. 



• See 2 Chron. ch. xxvi. ver. 19. 



Priests have invented, and the world admired 

What knavish priests promulgate as inspired; 

Till reason, now no longer overawed. 

Resumes her powers, and spurns the clumsy fraud; 

And, common-sense diffusing real day, 

The meteor of the Gospel dies away. 

Such rhapsodies our shrewd discerning youth 

Learn from expert inquirers after truth ; 

Whose only care, might truth presume to speak, 

Is not to find what they profess to seek. 

And thus, well-tutored only while we share 

A mother's lectures and a nurse's care; 

And taught at schools much mythologic stuff,* 

But sound religion sparingly enough; 

Our early notices of truth, disgraced. 

Soon lose their credit, and are all effaced. 

Would you your son should be a sot or dunce, 

Lascivious, headstrong, or all these at once ; 

That in good time the stripling's finished taste 

For loose expense, and fashionable waste. 

Should prove your ruin, and his own at last ; 

Train laim in public with a mob of boys, 

Cliildish in mischief only and in noise. 

Else of a manish grovrth, and five in ten 

In infidelity and lewdness men. 

There shall he learn, ere sixteen winters old. 

That authors are most useful pawned or sold; 

That pedantry is all that schools impart. 

But taverns teach the knowledge of the heart , 

There waiter Dick, vsdth Bacchanalian lays, 

Shall win his heart, and have his drunken praise, 

His counsellor and bosom friend shall prove, 

And some street-pacing harlot his first love. 

Schools, unless discipline were doubly strong, 

Detain their adolescent charge too long; 

The management of tyros of eighteen 

Is difficult; their punishment obscene. 

The stout tall captain, whose superior size 

The minor heroes view with envious eyes, 

Becomes their pattern, upon whom they fix 

Their whole attention, and ape all his tricks. 

His pride, that scorns t' obey or to submit. 

With them is courage ; his effrontery wit. 

His wild excursions, window-breaking feats, 

Robbery of gardens, quarrels in the streets. 

His hairbreadth 'scapes, and all Ins daring schemes 

Transport them, and are made their favourite 

themes. 
In little bosoms such achievements strike 
A kindred spark: they burn to do the like. 
Thus, half-accomplished ere he yet begin 
To show the peeping down upon his chin; 



* The author begs leave to explain.— Sensible that, -without 
such knowledge, neither the ancient poet nor historians can be 
tasted, or indeed understood, he does not mean to censiu'e the 
pains that are talren to instnict a schoolboy in the religion of 
the Heathen, but merely that neglect of Christian culture 
which leaves hini shamefully ignorant of his own. 



106 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



And, as maturity of years comes on, 
Made just th' adept that you designed your son ; 
T' ensure the perseverance of this course, 
And give your monstrous project all its force, 
Send him to college. If he there be tamed, 
Or in one article of vice reclaimed, 
Where no regard of ord'nances is shown 
Or looked for now, the fault must be his own. 
Some sneaking virtue lurks in him, no doubt. 
Where neither strumpets' charms, nor drinking 

bout. 
Nor gambhng practices, can find it out. 
Such youths of spirit, and that spirit too, . 
Ye nurseries of our boys, we owe to you : 
Though from om'selves the miscliief more proceeds, 
For public schools 'tis public folly feeds. 
The slaves of custom and established mode. 
With packhorse constancy we keep the road. 
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells. 
True to the jinghng of our leader's bells. 
To follow foolish precedents, and wink 
With both our eyes, is easier than to think: 
And such an age as ours balks no expense. 
Except of caution, and of common-sense; 
Else sure notorious fact, and proof so plain. 
Would turn our steps into a wiser train. 
I blame not those, who with what care they can, 
O'erwatch the numerous and unruly clan; 
^ Or, if I blame, 'tis only that they dare 
Promise a work, of which they must despair. 
Have ye, ye sage intendants of the whole. 
An ubiquarian presence and control, 
Elisha's eye, that, when Gehazi stra3'ed. 
Went with him, and saw all the game he played "? 
Yes — yc are conscious; and on all the shelves 
Your pupils strilie upon, have struck yourselves. 
Or if, by nature sober, ye had then. 
Boys as ye were, the gravity of men; 
Ye knew at least, by constant proofs addressed 
To ears and eyes, the vices of the rest. 
But ye connive at what ye can not cure, 
And evils, not to be endured, endure, 
Lest power exerted, but without success, 
Should make the little ye retain still less. 
Ye once were justly famed for bringing forth 
Undoubted scholarship and genuine worth; 
And in the firmament of fame still shines 
A glory, bright as that of all the signs. 
Of poets raised by you, and statesmen, and divines. 
Peace to them all ! those brilliant times are fled. 
And no such lights are kindling in their stead. 
Our striplings shine indeed, but with such rays. 
As set the midnight riot in a blaze ; 
And seem, if judged by their expressive looks. 
Deeper in none than in their surgeons' books. 

Say, muse, (for education made the song. 
No muse can hesitate, or linger long) 
What causes move us, knowing as we must, 
That these menageries all fail their trust, 



To send our sons to scout and scamper there. 
While colts and puppies cost us so much care'? 

Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise, 
We love the playplace of our early days ; 
The scene is touching, and the heart is stone, 
That feels not at the sight, and feels at none. 
The wall on which we tried our graving skill, 
The very name we carved subsisting still ; 
The bench on which we sat while deep employed, 
Tho' mangled, hacked, and hewed, not yet de- 
stroyed ; 
The little ones, unbuttoned, glowing hot, 
Playing our games, and on the very spot ; 
As happy as we once, to kneel and draw 
The chalky ring, and knuckle dowm at taw; 
To pitch the ball into the grounded hat. 
Or drive it devious with a dexterous pat; 
The pleasing spectacle at once excites 
Such recollection of our own delights. 
That, viewing it, we seem almost t' obtain 
Our innocent sweet simple years again. 
This fond attaclunent to the well-known place, 
Whence first we started into life's long race. 
Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway. 
We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day. 
Hark ! how the sire of chits, whose future share 
Of classic food begins to be his care, 
With his own hkeness placed on either knee, 
Indulges all a father's heart-felt glee ; 
And tells them, as he strokes their silver locks. 
That they must soon learn Latin, and to box ; 
Then turning he regales his listening wife 
With all th' adventures of his early life ; 
His skill in coachmanship, or driving chaise. 
In bilking tavern bills, and spouting plays ; 
What shifts he used, detected in a scrape, " 
How he was flogged, or had the luck t' escape, 
What sums he lost at play, and how he sold 
Watch, seals, and all — till all his pranks are told. 
Retracing thus his frolics, ('tis a name 
That palliates deeds of folly and of shame) 
He gives the local bias all its sway ; 
Resolved that where he played his sons shall play, 
And destines their bright genius to be shown 
Just in the scene where he displayed his own. 
The meek and bashful boy will soon be taught 
To be as bold and forv/ard as he ought ; 
The rude will scuffle through with ease enough, 
Great schools suit best the sturdy and the rough. 
Ah happy designation, prudent choice, 
Th' event is sure; expect it ; and rejoice ! 
Soon see your wish fxilfilled in either child. 
The pert made perter, and the tame made wild. 

The great indeed; by titles, riches, birth. 
Excused th' encumbrance of more solid worth. 
Are best disposed of where with most success 
They may acquire that confident address, 
Those habits of profuse and lewd expense. 
That scorn of all delights but those of sense. 



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107 



Which, though in plain plebeians we condemn, 
With so much reason aU expect from them. 
But families of less illustrious fame. 
Whose chief distinction is their spotless name, 
Whose heirs, their honours none, their income 

small, 
Must shine by true desert, or not at all. 
What dream they of, that with so little care 
They risk their hopes, their dearest treasure, there "? 
•They dream of Uttle Charles or William graced 
With wig prolix, down flowing to his waist ; 
They see th' attentive crowds his talents draw. 
They hear him speak — the oracle of law. 
The father, who designs Ms babe a priest, 
Dreams him episcopally such at least ; 
And, whUe the playful jockey scours the room 
Briskly, astride upon the parlour broom, 
In fancy sees him more superbly ride 
In coach with purple lined, and mitres on its side. 
Events improbable and strange as these, 
Which only a parental eye foresees, 
A public school shall bring to pass with ease. 
But how '? resides such virtue in that air, 
As must create an appetite for prayer"? 
And will it breathe into him all the zeal. 
That candidates for such a prize should feel, 
To take the lead and be the foremost still 
In all true worth and literai-y sldll 1 
" Ah blind to bright futurity, imtaught 
The knowledge of the world, and dull of thought! 
Church ladders are not always mounted best 
By learned clerks, and Latinists professed. 
Th' exalted prize demands an upward look, 
Not to be found by poring on a book. 
Small skill in Latin, and still less in Greek, 
Is more than adequate to all I seek. 
Let erudition grace him, or not grace, 
I give the bauble but the second place : 
His wealth, fame, honours, all that I intend, 
Subsist and centre in one point — a friend. 
A friend, whate'er he studies or neglects. 
Shall give him consequence, heal all defects. 
His intercourse with peers and sons of peers — 
There dawns the splendour of his future years : 
In that blight quarter his propitious skies 
Shall blush betimes, and there his glory rise. 
Your Lordship, and Your Grace! what school 

can teach 
A rhetoric equal to those parts of speech 1 
What need of Homer's verse, or Tully's prose, 
Sweet interjections ! if he learn but those 1 
Let reverend churls his ignorance rebuke. 
Who starve upon a dogs-eared Pentateuch, 
The Parson knows enough, who knows a duke." 
Egregious purpose ! worthily begun 
In barbarous prostitution of your son ; 
Pressed on his part by means that would disgrace 
A scriv'ner's clerk, or footman out of place. 



And ending, if at last its end be gained. 
In sacrilege, in God's own house profaned. 
It may succeed; and, if his sins should call 
For more than common punishment it shall ; 
The wretch shall rise, and be the thing on earth 
Least qualified in honour, learning, worth. 
To occupy a sacred, awful post, 
In which the best and worthiest tremble most. 

The royal letters are a tiling of course, 
A King, that would, might recommend his horse; 
And deans, no doubt, and chapters, with one voice. 
As bound in duty, would confirm the choice. 
Behold your bishop! well he plays his part, 
Christian in name, and infidel in heart, 
Ghostly in office, earthly in his plan, 
A slave at court, elsewhere a lady's man. 
Dumb as a senator, and as a priest 
A piece of mere church-furniture at best; 
To live estranged from God his total scope. 
And his end sure, without one glimpse of hope. 
But fair although and feasible it seem. 
Depend not much upon your golden dream; 
For Providence, that seems concerned t' exempt 
The hallowed bench from absolute contempt, 
In spite of all the wrigglers into place, 
StiU keeps a seat or two for worth and grace, 
And therefore 'tis, that, though the sight be rare, 
We sometimes see a Lowth or Bagot there. 
Besides, school-friendships are not always found. 
Though fair in promise, permanent and sound, 
The most disint'rested and virtuous minds, 
In early years connected, time unbinds ; 
New situations give a dijSerent cast 
Of habit, inclination, temper, taste; 
And he, that seemed our comiterpart at first, 
Soon shows the strong similitude reversed. 
Young heads are giddy, and yomig hearts are 

warm. 
And make mistakes for manhood to reform. 
Boys are at best but pretty buds unblown, 
Whose scent and hues are rather guessed than 

known; 
Each dreams that each is just what he appears, 
But learns his error in maturer years. 
When disposition, like a sail unfurled. 
Shows all its rents and patches to the world. 
If, therefore, e'en when honest in design, 
A boyish friendship may so soon decline, 
'Twere wiser sure t' inspire a liffle heart 
With just abhorrence of so mean a part. 
Than set your son to work at a vile trade 
For wages so unlikely to be paid. 

Our public hives of puerile resort, 
That are of chief and most approved report. 
To such base hopes, in many a sordid soul, 
Owe then- repute in partj but not the whole. 
A principle, whose proud pretensions pass 
Unquestioned, though the jewel be but glass — 



108 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



That with a world, not often over-nice, 

Ranks as a virtue, and is yet a \ice ; 

Or rather a gross compound, justly tried, 

Of envy, hatred, jealousy, and pride — 

Contributes most perhaps t' enhance their fame. 

And emulation is its specious name. 

Boys, once on fire with that contentious zeal, 

Feel all the rage, that female rivals feel; 

The prize of beauty in a woman's eyes 

Not blighter than in theirs the scholar's prize. 

The spirit of that competition bm^ns 

With all varieties of ills by turns ; ^ 

Each vainly magnifies his own success. 

Resents his fellow's, wishes it were less, 

Exults in his miscarriage, if he fail, 

Deems his reward too great, if he prevail, 

And labours to sui-pass him day and night, 

Less for improvement than to tickle spite. 

The spur is powerful, and I grant its force; 

It pricks the genius forward in its course, 

Allows short time for play, and none for sloth; 

And, felt alike by each, advances both; 

But judge, where so much e\'il intervenes. 

The end, though plausible, not worth the means. 

Weigh, for a moment, classical desert 

Against a heart depraved and temper hurt ; 

Hurt too perhaps for hfe; for early wrong. 

Done to the nobler part, aflects it long ; 

And you are staunch indeed in learning's cause, 

If you can crown a discipline, that draws 

Such mischiefs after it, with much applause. 

Connexion formed for interest, and endeared 
By selfish views, thus censured and cashiered ; 
And emulation, as engendering hate, 
Doomed to a no less ignominious fate : 
The props of such proud seminaries fall. 
The Jachin and the Boaz of them all. 
Great schools rejected then, as those that swell 
Beyond a size that can be managed well, 
Shall royal institutions miss the bays, 
And small academies win all the praise? 
Force not my drift beyond its just intent, 
I praise a school as Pope a government; 
So take my judgment in his language dressed, 
" Whate'er is best administered is best." 
Few boys are born with talents that excel. 
But all are capable of living well ; 
Then ask not, whether limited or large'? 
But, watch they ^rictly, or neglect their charge? 
If anxious only, that their boys may learn, 
While morals languish, a despised concern. 
The great and small deserve one common blame, 
Different in size, but in effect the same. 
Much zeal in virtue's cause all teachers boast. 
Though motives of mere lucre sway the most; 
Therefore in towns and cities they abound, 
For there the game they seek is easiest found ; 
Though there in spite of all that care can do. 
Traps to catch youth are most abundant too, 



If shrewd, and of a well-constructed brain, 
Keen in pursuit, and vigorous to retain, 
Your son come forth a prodigy of skill; 
As wheresoever taught, so formed, he will; 
The pedagogue, with self-complacent air, 
Claims more than half the praise as his due share. 
But if, with all his genius, he betray, 
Not more intelligent than loose and gay. 
Such vicious habits as disgrace his name. 
Threaten his health, his fortime, and his fame; 
Though want of due restraint alone have bred 
The symptoms, that you see with so much dread ; 
Unenvied there, he may sustain alone 
The whole reproach, the fault was aU his own. 

O 'tis a sight to be with joy perused. 
By all whom sentiment has not abused ; 
New-fangled sentiment, the boasted grace 
Of those who never feel in the right place; 
A sight surpassed by none that we can show. 
Though Vestris on one leg still shine below; 
A father blest with an ingenious son. 
Father, and friend, and tutor, all in one. 
How ! — turn again to tales long since forgot, 
iEsop, and Phaedrus, and the restl — Why not "? 
He will not blush, that has a father's heart. 
To take in childish plays a childish part; 
But bends his sturdy back to any toy. 
That youth takes pleasure in, to please his boy; 
Then why resign into a stranger's hand 
A task as much within your own command. 
That God and nature, and your interest too, 
Seem with one voice to delegate to youl 
Why liire a lodging in a house unknown 
For one whose tenderest thoughts all hover round 

your own? 
This second weaning, needless as it is, 
How does it lacerate both your heart and his! , 
Th' indented stick, that loses day by day 
Notch after notch, till all are smoothed away. 
Bear witness, long ere his dismission come. 
With what intense desire he wants his home. 
But though the joys he hopes beneath your roof 
Bid fair enough to answer in the proof. 
Harmless, and safe, and natural, as they ai'e, 
A disappointment waits him even there: 
Arrived, he feels an unexpected change. 
He blushes, hangs his head, is shy and strange," 
No longer takes, at once, with fearless ease. 
His favourite stand between his father's knees, 
But seeks the corner of some distant seat. 
And eyes the door, and watches a retreat. 
And, least famihar where he should be most. 
Feels all his happiest privileges lost. 
Alas, poor boy ! — the natural effect 
Of love by absence chilled into respect. 
Say, what accomplishments, at school acquired, 
Brings he, to sweeten fruits so imdesiredl 
Thou well deserv'st an ahenated son. 
Unless thy conscious heart acknowledge — none; 



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109 



Noiie that, in thy domestic snug recess, 
He had not made his own with more address, 
Though some, perhaps, that shock thy feeling 

mind. 
And better never learned, or left behind. 
And too, that, thus estranged, thou canst obtain 
By no kind arts his confidence again; 
That here begins with most that long complaint 
Of filial frankness lost, and love grown faint. 
Which, oft neglected, in life's waning years 
A parent pours into regardless ears. 

Like caterpillars, danghng under trees 
By slender threads, and swinging in the breeze. 
Which filthily bewray and sore disgrace 
The boughs in which are bred th' unseemly race; 
While every worm industriously weaves 
And winds his web about the rivelled leaves; 
So numerous are the follies, that annoy 
The mind and heart of every sprightly boy; 
Imaginations noxious and perverse, 
Wliich admonition can alone disperse. 
Th' encroaching nuisance asks a faithful hand. 
Patient, affectionate, of high command, 
To check the procreation of a breed 
Sure to exhaust the plant on which they feed. 
'Tis not enough, that Greek or Roman page, 
At stated hours, his freakish thoughts engage ; 
E'en in his pastimes he requires a friend, 
To warn, and teach him safely to unbend ; 
O'er all his pleasures gently to preside. 
Watch his emotions, and control their tide: 
And levying thus, and with an easy sway, 
A tax of profit from his very play, 
T' impress a value, not to be erased. 
On moments squandered else, and running all to 

waste. 
And seems it nothing in a father's eye, 
That unimproved those many moments fly'? 
And is he well content his son should find 
No nourishment to feed his growing mind 
But conjugated verbs, and nouns declined T 
For such is all the mental food purveyed 
By public hackneys in the schoohng trade; 
Who feed a pupil's intellect with store 
Of syntax, truly, but with little more; 
Dismiss their cares, when they dismiss their flock. 
Machines themselves, and- governed by a clock. 
Perhaps a father, blest with any brains. 
Would deem it no abuse, or waste of pains, 
T' improve this diet, at no great expense. 
With savoury truth and wholesome common sense ; 
To lead his son, for prospects of delight. 
To some not steep, though philosophic height, 
Thence to exhibit to his wondering eyes 
Yon circling worlds, their distance, and tlieir 

size; 
The moons of Jove, and Saturn's belted ball, 
And the harmonious order of them all; 



To show him in an insect or a flower 
Such microscopic proof of skill and power, 
As, hid from ages past, God now displays, 
To combat atheists vnth in modem days} 
To spread the earth before him, and comhiend, 
With designation of the finger's end. 
Its various parts to his attentive note. 
Thus bringing home to him the most remote; 
To teach his heart to glow with generous flame, 
Caught from the deeds of men of ancient fame: 
And, more than all, vnth commendation due, 
To set some living worthy in his view. 
Whose fair example may at once inspire 
A wish to copy what he must admire. 
Such knowledge gained betimes, and which ap- 
pears 
Though solid, not too weighty for his years, 
Sweet in itself, and not forbidding sport, 
When health demands it, of athletic sort, 
Would make him — what some lovely boys have 

been. 
And more than one perhaps that I have seen — 
An evidence and reprehension both 
Of the mere shool-boy's lean and tardy growth. 

Art thou a man professionally tied. 
With all thy faculties elsewhere applied, 
Too busy to intend a meaner care. 
Than how t' enrich thyself, and next thine heir ; 
Or art thou (as though rich, perhaps thou art) 
But poor in knowledge, having none t' impart : 
Behold that figure, neat, though plainly clad ; 
His sprightly mingled with a shade of sad ; 
Not of a nimble tongue, though now and then 
Heard to articulate like other men ; 
No jester, and yet lively in discourse, 
His phrase well chosen, clear, and full of force ; 
And his address, if not quit^ French in ease, 
Not English stiff, but frank, and formed to please ; 
Low in the world, because he scorns its arts ; 
A man of letters, manners, morals, parts ; 
Unpatronized, and therefore little known ; 
Wise for himself and his few friends alone — 
In him thy well appointed proxy see. 
Armed for a work too ditficult for thee ; 
Prepared by taste, by learning, and true worth, 
To form thy son, to strike his genius forth ; 
Beneath thy roof, beneath thine eye, to prove 
The force of discipline, when backed by love ; 
To double all thy pleasure in thy child, 
His mind informed, his morals undefiled. 
Safe under such a wing, the boy shall show 
No spots contracted among grooms below. 
Nor taint his speech with meannesses, designed 
By footman Tom for witty and refined. 
There, in his commerce with the liv'ried herd. 
Lurks the contagion chiefly to be feared ; 
For since (so fashion dictates) all, who claim 
A higher than a mere plebeian fame, 



110 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Find it expedient, come what mischief may, 

To entertain a thief or two in pay, 

(And they that can afford th' expense of more, 

Some lialf a dozen, and some half a score,) 

Great cause occurs, to save liira from a band 

So sure to spoil him, and so near at hand ; 

A pCint secured, if once he be suppUed 

With some such Mentor always at his side. 

Are such men rare 1 perhaps they would abound, 

Were occupation easier to be found. 

Were education, else so sure to fail. 

Conducted on a manageable scale. 

And schools, that have outlived all just esteem. 

Exchanged for the secure domestic scheme. — 

But, having found him, be thou duke or earl, 

Show thou hast sense enough to prize the pearl, 

And, as thou wouldst th' advancement of thine heir 

In all good faculties beneath his care. 

Respect, as is but rational and just, 

A man deemed worthy of so dear a trust. 

Despised by thee, what more can he expect 

From youthful folly than the same neglect ; 

A flat and fatal negative obtains 

That instant upon all his future pains ; 

His lessons tire, his mild rebukes oftend. 

And all th' instructions of thy son's best friend 

Are a stream choked, or trickling to no CTid. 

Doom him not then to soUtary meals ; '"-^ 

But recollect that he has sense, and feels; 

And that, possessor of a soul refined. 

An upright heart, and cultivated mind. 

His post not mean, his talents not unknown, 

He deems it hard to vegetate alone. 

And, if admitted at thy board he sit, 

Accomit him no just mark for idle wit ; 

Offend not him, whom modesty restrains 

From repartee, with jokes that he disdains ; 

Much less transfix his feelings with an oath ; 

Nor frown, unless he varash with the cloth. 

And, trust me, his utility may reach 

To more than he is hired or bound to teach ; 

Much trash unuttercd, and some ills undone, 

Through reverence of the censor of thy son. 

But, if thy table be indeed tmclean. 
Foul with excess, and with discourse obscene, 
And thou a wretch, whom, following her old plan, 
The world accounts an honourable man. 
Because forsooth thy courage has been tried, 
And stood the test, perhaps, on the wrong side ; 
Though thou hadst never grace enough to prove 
That any thing but vice could win thy love ; — 
Or hast thou a polite, card-playing wife, 
Chained to the routs that she frequents for life ; 
Who, just when industry begins to snore, 
Flies, winged with joy , to some coach-crowded door, 
And thrice in every winter throngs thine own 
With half the chariots and sedans in town, 
Thyself meanwhile e'en shifting as thou mayst : 
Not very sober though, nor very chaste ; 



Or is thine house, though less superb thy rarik, 
If not a scene of pleasure, a mere blank, 
And thou at best, and in thy soberest mood, 
A trifler vain, and empty of all good ; 
Though mercy for thyself thou canst have none, 
Hear nature plead, show mercy to thy son. 
Saved from his home, where every day brings forth 
Some rhischief fatal to his future worth, 
Find him a better in a distant spot, 
Within some j)ious pastor's humble cot, 
Where vile example (yours I chiefly mean, 
The most seducing, and the oftenest seen,) 
May never more be stamped upon liis breast, 
Nor yet perhaps incurably impressed. 
Where early rest makes early rising sure, 
Disease or comes not, or finds easy cure. 
Prevented much by diet neat and plain ; 
Or, if it enter, soon starved out again : 
Where all th' attention of his faithful host, 
Discreetly limited to two at most. 
May raise such fruits as shall reward his care, 
And not at last evaporate in air : 
Where, stillness aiding study, and his mind 
Serene, and to his duties much inclined, 
Not occupied in day-dreams, as at home, 
Of pleasures past, or follies yet to come. 
His virtuous toil may terminate at last 
In settled habit and decided taste. — 
But whom do I advise 1 the fashion-led, 
Th' incorrigibly young, the deaf, the dead, 
Whom care and cool deliberation suit 
Not better much than spectacles a brute ; 
Who, if their sons some slight tuition share, 
Deem it of no great moment whose, or where ; 
Too proud t' adopt the thoughts of one unknown, 
And much too gay t' have any of their own. 
But courage, man! mcthought the muse repUed, 
Mankind are various, and the world is wide: 
The ostrich, silliest of the feathered kind. 
And formed of God without a parent's mind. 
Commits her eggs incautious to the dust, 
Forgetful that the foot may crush the trust ; 
And, while on public nurseries they rely. 
Not knowing, and too oft not caring, why. 
Irrational in what they thus prefer. 
No few, that would seem wise, resemble her. 
But all are not ahke. Thy warning voice 
May here and there prevent erroneous choice; 
And some perhaps, who, busy as they are, 
Yet make their progeny their dearest care, 
(Whose hearts will ache, once told what ills may 

reach 
Their offspring, left upon so wild a beach,) 
Will need no stress of argmnent t' enforce 
Th' expedience of a less advent'rous course : 
The rest will slight thy counsel, or condemn ; 
But they have human feelings, turn to them. 
To you then, tenants of life's middle state, 
Securely placed between the small and great. 



TIROCINIUM; OR, A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS. 



Ill 



Whose character, yet undebauched, retains 
Two thirds of all the virtue that remains. 
Who, wise yourselves, desire your son should learn 
Your wisdom and your way g— to you I turn, 
Look round you on a world perversely bUnd ; 
See what contempt is fallen on human kind ; 
See wealth abused, and dignities misplaced, 
Great titles, offices, and trusts disgraced, 
Long lines of ancestry, renowned of old, 
Their noble qualities all quenched and cold ; 
See Bedlam's closeted and hand-cuffed charge 
Surpassed in frenzy by the mad at large ; 
See great commanders making war a trade, 
Great lawyers, lawyers without study made ; 
Churchmen, in whose esteem their best employ 
Is odious, and their wages all their joy, 
Who, far enough from furnishing their shelves 
With Gospel lore, turn infidels themselves ; 
See womanhood despised, and manhood shamed 
With infamy too nauseous to be named. 
Fops at all corners, lady-like in mien, 
Civeted fellows, smelt ere they are seen. 
Else coarse and rude in manners, and their tongue 
On fire with curses, and with nonsense hung, 
Now flushed with drunkenness, now with whore- 
dom pale, 
Their breath a sample of last night's regale ; 
See volunteers in all the vilest arts, 
Men well endowed, of honourable parts, 
Designed by Nature wise, but self-made fools ; 
All these, and more like these, were bred at 

schools : 
And if it chance, as sometimes chance it will, 
That though school-bred, the boy be virtuous still. 
Such rare exceptions, shining in the dark. 
Prove, rather than impeach, the just remark: 
As here and there a twinkling star descried, 
Serves but to show how black is all beside. 
Now look on him, whose very voice m tone 
Just echoes thine, whose features are thine own, 
And stroke his polished cheek of pm-est red. 
And lay tliine hand upon his flaxen head. 
And say. My boy, th' unwelcome hour is come, 
When thou, transplanted from thy genial home, 
Must find a colder soil and bleaker air. 
And trust for safety to a stranger's care ; 
What character, what turn thou vrilt assume 
From constant converse with I know not whom ; 
Who there will court thy friendship, with what 

views. 
And, artless as thou ait, whom thou wilt choose ; 
Though much depends on what thy choice shall be, 
Is aU chance-medley, and vmknown to me. 
Canst thou, the tear just trembling on thy lids, 
And while the dreadful risk foreseen forbids. 
Free too, and luider no constraining force. 
Unless the sway of custom warp thy course, 
Lay such a stake upon the losing side. 
Merely to gratify so blind a guide 1 



Thou canst not ! Nature, pulling at thine heart 
Condemns th' unfatherly, th' imprudent part. 
Thou wouldst not, deaf to Nature's tenderest plea. 
Turn him adrift upon a rolling sea, ■ - 

Nor say. Go thither, conscious that there lay^ 
A brood of asps, or quicksands in his way ; 
Then, only governed by the self-same nils 
Of natural pity, send him not to school. 
No — guard him better. Is he not thine own, 
Thyself in miniature, thy flesh, thy bone 1 
And hop'st thou not ('tis every father's hope) 
That, since thy strength must with thy years elope, 
And thou wilt need some comfort, tq assuage 
Health's last farewell, a staff of thine old age, 
That then, in recompense of all thy cares. 
Thy child shall show respect to thy gray hairs, 
Befriend thee, of all other friends bereft. 
And give thy Ufe its only cordial left 1 
Aware then how much danger intervenes, 
To compass that good end, forecast the means. 
His heart, now passive, yields to thy command, 
Secure it thine, its key is in thine hand. 
If thou desert thy charge, and throw it wide, 
Nor heed what guests there enter and abide. 
Complain not if attachments lewd and base 
Supplant thee in it, and usurp thy place. 
But, if thou guard its sacred chambers sure 
From vici. js inmates, and delights impure, 
Either his gratitude shall hold him fast. 
And keep liim warm and filial to the last ; 
Or, if he prove unkind (as who can say 
But, being man, and therefore frail, he may 1) 
One comfort yet shall cheer thine aged heart, 
Howe'er he slight thee, thou hast done thy part. 

Oh, barbarous ! wouldst thou with a Gothic hand, 
Pull down the schools — what ! — all the schools i' 

th' land ; 
Or throw them up to Uvery-nags and grooms. 
Or turn them into shops and auction-rooms 1 — 
A captious question, sir (and yours is one,) 
Deserves an answer similar, or none. 
Wouldst thou, possessor of a flock, employ 
(Apprised that he is such) a careless boy. 
And feed him well, and give him handsome pay 
Merely to sleep, and let him rim astray 1 
Survey our schools and colleges, and see 
A sight not much unlike my simile. 
From education, as the leading cause. 
The pubUe character its colour draws; 
Thence the prevailing manners take their cast, 
Extravagant or sober, loose or chaste. 
And, though I would not advertise them yet, 
Nor VTrite on each — This building to be let, 
Unless the world were all prepared t' embrace 
A plan well worthy to supply their place ; 
Yet, backward as they are, and long have been. 
To cultivate and keep the moi-als clean, 
(Forgive the crime) I wish them, I confess. 
Or better managed, or encouraged less. 



112 



COWPER'S WORKS. 






THE YEARLY DISTRESS, 

OR 

TITHING TIME AT STOCK, IN ESSEX. 

Verses addi'essed to a country clergyman, complaining of the 
disagreeableness of the day annually appointed for receiving 
the dues at the parsonage. 

Come, ponder well, for 'tis no jest, 

To laugh it would be wrong 
The troubles of a worthy priest. 

The burthen of my song. 

The priest he merry is and blithe 

Three quarters of a year. 
But oh! it cuts him like a scythe. 

When tithing time draws near. 

He then is full of fright and fears, 

As one at point to die, 
And long before the day appears 

He heaves up many a sigh. 

For then the farmers come jog, jog. 

Along the miry road. 
Each heart as heavy as a log, 

To make their payments good. 

In sooth, the sorrow of such days 

Is not to be expressed, 
When he that takes and he that pays 

Are both ahke distressed. 

Now all unwelcome at his gates 

The clumsy swains alight, 
With rueful faces and bald pates — 

He trembles at the sight. 

And well he may, for well he knows 

Each bimipkin of the clan, 
Instead of paying what he owes. 

Will cheat him if he can. 

So in they come — each makes his leg, 

And flings his head before. 
And looks as if he came to beg. 

And not to quit a score. 

" And how does miss and madam do. 

The Uttle boy and alll" 
" All tight and well. And how do you. 

Good Mr. What-d'ye-cain" 

The dinner comes, And down they sit: 

Were e'er such hungry folks'? 
There's little talking, and no wit: 
. It is no time to joke. 



One wipes his nose upon his sleeve, 

One spits upon the floor. 
Yet not to give offence or grieve. 

Hold up the cloth before. 

The pmich goes round, and they are dull 

And lumpish still as ever; 
Like barrels with their belhes full. 

They only weigh the heavier. 

At length the busy time begins. 

" Come, neighbours, we must wag — " 
The money chinks, down di'op their chins, 

Each lugging out his bag. 

One talks of mildew and of frost. 

And one of storms of hail. 
And one of pigs that he has lost 

By maggots at the tail. 

Q,uoth one, " A rarer man than you 

In pulpit none shall hear : 
But yet, methinks, to tell you true, 

You sell it plaguy dear." 

O why are farmers made so coarse, 

Or clergy made so fine'? 
A kick, that scarce would move a horse^ 

May kill a sound divine. 

Then let the boobies stay at home; 

'Twould cost him, I dare say. 
Less trouble taking twice the sum. 

Without the cIowtis that pay. 



SONNET 

ADDRESSED TO HENRY COWPER, ESa. 

On his emphatical and interesting Delivery of the Defence 
of Warren Hastings, Esq., in the House of Lords. 

CowpER, whose silver voice, tasked sometimes 
hard. 
Legends prolix delivers in the ears 
(Attentive when thou read'st) of England's 
peers. 
Let verse at length yield thee thy just reward. 

Thou wast not heard with drowsy disregard. 
Expending late on all that length of plea 
Thy generous powers; but silence honoured 
thee. 

Mute as e'er gazed on orator or bard. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



113 



Thou art not voice alone, but hast beside 
Both heart and head ; and couldst with music 
sweet 
Of Attic phrase and senatorial tone, 
Like thy renowned forefathers, far and wide 
Thy fame diiluse, praised not for utterance meet 
Of others'' speech, but magic of thy own. 



LINES 



ADDRESSED TO .DR. DARWIN, 

Author of the " Botanic Garden." 

Two Poets* (poets, by report, 

Not oft so well agree,) 
Sweet Harmonist of Flora's coiui; ! 

Conspire to honour Thee. 

They best can judge a poet's worth, 
Who oft themselves have known 

The pangs of a poetic birth 
By labours of their own. 

We therefore, pleased, extol thy song, 
Though various yet complete, 

Rich in embellishment, as strong 
And learned as 'tis sweet. 

No envy mingles with our praise. 
Though, could our hearts repine 

At any poet's happier lays, 
They would — ^they must at thine. 

But we in mutual bondage knit 

Of friendship's closest tie. 
Can gaze on even Danvin's wit 

With an unjaundiced eye; 

And deem the Bard, whoe'er he be, 

And howsoever known, 
Who would not tvyine a wreath for Thee, 

Unworthy of his own. 



MRS. MONTAGU'S FEATHER-HANGINGS. 

The birds put off their every hue. 
To dress a room for Montagu. 

The Peacock sends his heavenly dyes. 
His rainbows and his starry eyes; 
The Pheasant plumes, which round infold 
His mantling neck with dovra.y gold; 
The Cock his arched tail's azure show; 
And, river-blanched, the Swan his snow. 
All tribes beside of Indian name. 
That glossy shine, or vivid flame, 



• Alluding to the poem by Mr. Hayley, which accompanied 
these lines. 



Where rises, and where sets the day, 

Whate'er they boast of rich and gay, 

Contribute to the gorgeous plan, 

Proud to advance it all they can. 

This plumage neither dashing shower, 

Nor blasts that shake the dripping bower. 

Shall drench again or discompose. 

But, screened from every storm that blows, 

It boasts a splendour ever new. 

Safe with protecting Montagu. 

To the same patroness resort, 
Secure of favour at her court, 
Strong Genius, from whose forge of thought 
Forms rise, to quick perfection wrought, 
Which, thoiigh new-born, with vigour move. 
Like Pallas springing armed from Jove — 
Imagination scattering round 
Wild roses over furrowed ground. 
Which Labour of his frown beguile, 
And teach Philosophy a smile — 
Wit flashing on Religion's side. 
Whose fires, to sacred Truth applied. 
The gem, though luminous before. 
Obtrudes on human notice more, 
Like simbeams on the golden height 
Of some tall temple playing bright — 
Well-tutored Learning, from his books 
Dismissed with grave, not haughty, looks. 
Their order on his shelves exact. 
Not more harmonious or compact 
Than that, to which he keeps confined 
The various treasures of his mind 
AU these to Montagu's repair, 
Ambitious of a shelter there. 
There Genius, Learning, Fancy, Wit, 
Their rufiled plumage calm refit, 
(For stormy troubles loudest roar 
Around their flight who highest soar) 
And in her eye, and by her aid, 
Shine safe without a fear to fade. 

She thus maintains divided sway 
With yon bright regent of the day; 
The plmne and poet both, we know, 
Their lustre to his influence owe; 
And she the works of Phcebus aiding, 
Both poet saves and plimie from fading. 

VERSES 

Supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk, during hia 
solitary abode in the island of Juan Fernandez. 
I AM monarch of all I survey. 

My right there is none to dispute ; 
From the centre all round to the sea, 

I am lord of the fowl and the brute. 
O solitude ! where are the charms 

That sages have seen in thy face"? 
Better dwell in the midst of alarms. 

Than reign in this horrible place. 



114 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



I am out of humanity's reach, 

Must finish my journey alone, 
Never hear the sweet music of speech, 

I start at the sound of my own. 
The beasts, that roam over the plain, 

My form with indifference see ; 
They are so unacquainted with man. 

Their tameness is shocking to me. 

Society, friendship, and love, 

Divinely bestowed upon man, 
O, had I the vrings of a dove. 

How soon would I taste you again ! 
My sorrows I then might assuage 

In the ways of religion and truth. 
Might learn from the wisdom of age, 

And be cheered by the salUes of youth. 

Religion ! what treasure untold 

Resides in that heavenly word ! 
More precious than silver and gold. 

Or all that this earth can afford. 
But the sound of the church-going bell 

These valleys and rocks never heard. 
Never sighed at the sound of a knell. 

Or smiled when a sabbath appeared. 

Ye winds that have made me your sport, 

Convey to this desolate shore 
Some cordial endearing report 

Of a land I shall visit no more. 
My friends, do they now and then send 

A wish or a thought after me 1 
O tell me I yet have a friend, 

Though a friend I am never to see. 

How fleet is a glance of the mind ! 

Compared with the speed of its flight, 
The tempest itself lags behind, 

And the swift winged arrows of light. 
When I think of my own native land. 

In a moment I seem to be there ; 
But alas ! recollection at hand 

Soon hurries me back to despair. 

But the seafowl is gone to her nest. 

The beast has laid down in his lair ; 
Even here is a season of rest. 

And I to my cabin repair. 
There's mercy in every place, 

And mercy, encouraging thought ! 
Gives even affliction a grace. 

And reconciles man to his lot. 



PROMOTION OF EDWARD THURLOW, ESQ. 

To the Lord High Chancellorship of England. 

Round Thurlow's head in early youth. 
And in his sportive days, 



Fair Science poured the light of truth, 
And Genius shed his rays. 

See ! with united wonder cried 
Th' experienced and the sage, 

Ambition in a boy supplied 
With all the skill of age ! 

Discernment, eloquence, and grace, 
Proclaim him born to sway 

The balance in the highest place. 
And bear the palm away 



wise: 



The praise bestowed was just and wi 
He sprang impetuous forth, 

Secure of conquest, where the prize 
Attends superior worth. 

So the best courser on the plain 
Ere yet he starts is known. 

And does but at the goal obtain, 
What all had deemed his own. 



ODE TO PEACE. 

Come, peace of mind, delightful guest ! 
Return, and make thy downy nest 

Once more in this sad heart : 
Nor riches I nor power pursue, 
Nor hold forbidden joys in view ; 

We therefore need not part. 

Where wilt thou dwell, if not with me, 
From avarice and ambition free. 

And pleasure's fatal wiles 1 
For whom, alas ! dost thou prepare 
The sweets that I was wont to share, 

The banquet of thy smiles "? 

The great, the gay, shall they partake 
The heaven that thou alone canst make, 

And wilt thou quit the stream 
.That murmurs through the dewy mead. 
The grove and the sequestered shed. 

To be a guest with them'? 

For thee I panted, thee I prize'd. 
For thee I gladly sacrificed 

Whate'er I loved before ; 
And shall I see thee start away. 
And helpless, hopeless, hear thee say — 

Farewell ! we meet no more 1 



HUMAN FRAILTY. 

Weak and irresolute is man; 

The purpose of to-day. 
Woven with pains into his plan. 

To-morrow rends away. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



115 



The bow well bent, and smart the spring, 

Vice seems already slain ; 
But passion rudely snaps the string, 

And it revives again. 

Some foe to his upright intent 

Finds out his weaker part; 
Virtue engages his assent, 

But pleasure wins his heart. 

'Tis here the folly of the wise 

Through all his art we view; 
And, while his tongue the charge denies, 

His conscience owns it true. 

Bound on a voyage of awful length, 

And dangers little known, 
A stranger to superior strength, 

Man vainly trusts his own. 

But oars alone can ne'er prevail, 

To reach the distant coast; 
The breath of heaven must swell the sail, 

Or all the toil is lost. 



THE MODERN PATRIOT. 

Rebellion is my theme all day; 

I only wish 't would come 
(As who knows but perhaps it may?) 

A little nearer home. 

Yon roaring boys, who rave and fight 
On t' other side th' Atlantic, 

I always held them in the right, 
But most so when most frantic. 

When lawless mobs insult the court. 
That man shall be my toast. 

If breaking windows be the sport. 
Who bravely breaks the most. 

But oh ! for him my fancy culls 
The choicest flowers she bears, 

Who constitutionally pulls 
Your house about your ears. 

Such civil broils are my delight. 

Though some folks can't endure them, 

Who say the mob are mad outright. 
And that a rope must cure them. 

A rope! I wish we patriot had 
Such strings for all who need 'em — 

What ! hang a man for going mad ! 
Then farewell British freedom. 



ON OBSERVING SOME NAMES OF LITTLE NOTE RE- 
CORDED IN THE BIOGRAPHIA BRITANNICA, 

Oh, fond attempt to give a deathless lot 
To names ignoble, born to be forgot ! 



In vain, recorded in historic page. 
They court the notice of a future age: 
Those twinlding tiny lustres of the land 
Drop one by one from Fame's neglecting hand; 
Lethajan gulfs receive them as they fall, 
And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all. 

So when a child, as playful children use, 
Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news, 
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire — 
There goes my lady, and there goes the squire, 
There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark ! 
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk! 



REPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE, 

NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OP THE BOOKS. 

Between Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose. 
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong ; 

The point in dispute was, as all the world knows. 
To which the said sj)ectacles ought to belong. 

So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause 
With a great deal of sldU, and a wig fvdl of 
learning; 

While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws. 
So famed for his talent in nicely discerning. 

In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear, 
And your lordship, he said, wiU undoubtedly 
find, 

That the Nose has had spectacles always to wear. 
Which amounts to possession time out of mind. 

Then holding the spectacles up to the court — . 

Your lordship observes they are made with a 
straddle 
As wide as the ridge of the Nose is; in short, 

Designed to sit close to it, just like a saddle. 

Again, would your lordship a moment suppose 
('Tis a case that has happened, and may be 
again) 
That the visage or countenance had not a nose, 
Pray who would, or who could, wear spectacles 
then'? 

On the whole it appears, and my argument shows, 
With a reasoning the court will never condemn. 

That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose, 
And the Nose was as plainly intended for them. 

Then shifting his side (as a lawyer knows how,) 
He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes; 

But what were his arguments few people know. 
For the court did not think they were equally wise. 

So liis lordship decreed with a grave solemn tone, 
Decisive and clear, without one if or hut — 

That, whenever the Nose put his spectacles on, 
By daylight or candlelight — Eyes should be shut ! 



116 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



ON THE BURNING 

OF 

LORD MANSFIELD'S LIBRARY, 

TOGETHER WITH HIS MSS., 

By the mob, in the month of June, 17£0. 

So then — the Vandals of our isle, 

Sworn foes to sense and law, 
Have burnt to dust a nobler pile 

Than ever Roman saw! 

And Murray sighs o'er Pope and Swift, 

And many a treasure more. 
The well-judged purchase, .and the gift, 

That graced his lettered store. 

Their pages mangled, burnt and torn. 

The loss was his alone; 
But ages yet to come shall mourn 

The burning of his own. 



ON THE SAME. 

When wit and genius meet their doom 

In all devouring flame. 
They tell us of the fate of Rome, 

And bid us fear the same. 

O'er Murray's loss the Muses wept. 

They felt the rude alarm, 
Yet blest the guardian care that kept 

His sacred head from harm. 

There Memory, like the bee, that's fed 

From Flora's balmy store, 
The quintessence of all he read 

Had treasured up before. 

The lawless herd, with fiuy blind, 
Have done him cruel wrong; 

The flowers are gone — but still we find 
The honey on liis tongue. 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD REPROVED; 

OR 

HYPOCRISY DETECTED.* 

Thus says the prophet of the Turk, 
Good Mussulman, abstain from pork; 
There is a part in every swine 
No friend or follower of mine 



* It may be proper to inform the reader, that this piece has 
already appeared in print, having found its way, though witli 
Bome unnecessary additions by an uni:nown hand, into the 
Leeds Journal witljout the autlior's privily. 



May taste, what'er his inclination, 
On pain of excommunication. 
Such Mahomet's mysterious charge, 
And thus he left the point at large. 
Had he the sinful part expressed, 
They might with safety eat the rest; 
But for one piece they thought it hard 
From the whole hog to be debarred; 
And set their wit at work to find 
What joint the prophet had in mind, 
Much controversy straight arose. 
These choose the back, the belly those; 
By some 'tis confidently said 
He meant not to forbid the head; 
Wliile others at that doctrine rail, 
And piously prefer the tail. 
Thus, conscience freed from every clog, 
Mahometans eat up the hog. 

You laugh — 'tis well. — The tale applied 
May make you laugh on t' other side. 
Renounce the world — ^the preacher cries. 
We do — a multitude repUes. 
While one as innocent regards 
A snug and friendly game at cards; 
And one, whatever you may say, 
Can see no evil in a play; 
Some love a concert, or a race; 
And others shooting, and the chase. 
Reviled and loved, renounced and followed, 
Thus, bit by bit, the world is swallowed; 
Each thinks his neighbour makes too free, 
Yet likes a sUce as well as he ; 
With sophistry their sauce they sweeten, 
Till quite from tail to snout 'tis eaten. 



ON THE DEATH 

OP 

MRS. (now lady) Throckmorton's bulfinch. 

Ye nymphs ! if e'er your eyes were red 
With tears o'er hapless favourites shed, 

O share Maria's grief! 
Her favourite, even in liis cage, 
(What will not hunger's cruel ragel) 

Assassined by a thief. 

Where Rhehus strtiys his vines among, 
The egg was laid from which he sprung ; 

And, though by nature mute, 
Or only with a whistle blest. 
Well-taught he all the sounds expressed 

Of flagelet or flute. 

The honours of his ebon poll 

Were brighter than the sleekest mole ; 

His bosom of the hue 
With which Aurora decks the skies, 
When piping winds shall soon arise, 

To sweep away the dew. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



117 



Above, below, in all the house, 
Dire foe alike of bird and mouse, 

No cat had leave to dwell ; 
And bully's cage supported stood 
On props of smoothest-shaven wood, 

Large built and latticed well. 

Well latticed — but the grate, alas ! 
Not rough with wire of steel or brass, 

For bully's plumage sake, 
But smooth with wands from Ouse's side. 
With which, when neatly peeled and dried, 

The swains their baskets make. 

Night veiled the pole, all seemed secure : 
WTien led by instinct sharp and sure, 

Subsistence to provide, 
A beast forth saUied on the scout. 
Long-backed, long-tailed, with whiskered snout 

And badger-coloui'ed liide. 

He, entering at the study door. 
Its ample area 'gan explore ; 

And something in the vraid 
Conjectured, sniffing round and round, 
Better than all the books he found, 

Food chiefly for the mind. 

Just then, by adverse fate impressed, 
A dream disturbed poor bully's rest ; 

In sleep he seemed to view 
A rat fast clinging to the cage. 
And screaming at the sad presage, 

Awoke and found it true. 

For, aided both by ear and scent. 
Right to his mark the monster went — 

Ah, muse ! forbear to speak 
Minute the horrors that ensued ; 
His teeth were strong, the cage was wood — 

He left poor bully's beak. 

Oh had he made that too his prey ; 
That beak whence issued many a lay 

Of such mellifluous tone. 
Might have repaid him well, I wote. 
For silencing so sweet a throat, 

Fast stuck within his own. 

Maria weeps — the muses mourn — 
So, when by Bachanalians torn, 

On Thracian Hebrus' side 
The tree-enchanter Orpheus fell. 
His head alone remained to teU 

The cruel death he died. 



THE ROSE. 

The Rose had been washed, just washed in a 
shower, 
Which Mary to Anna conveyed, 



The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower, 
And weighed down its beautiiul head. 

The cup was all filled, and the leaves were all wet, 

And it seemed to a fanciful view, 
To weep for the buds it had left with regret, 

On the flourishing bush where it grew. 

I hastily seized it, unfit as it was 
For a nosegay, so dripping and drowned. 

And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas ! 
I snapped it, it fell to the ground. 

And such, I exclaimed, is the pitiless part 

Some act by the deUcate mind. 
Regardless of vmnging and breaking a hearl; 

Already to sorrow resigned. 

This elegant rose, had I shaken it less. 
Might have bloomed with its owner awhile ; 

And the tear that is wiped' with a little address, 
May be followed perhaps by a smile. 



THE DOVES. 

Reasoning at every step he treads, 

Man yet mistakes his way, 
While meaner things, whom instinct leads, 

Are rarely knovra to stray. 

One silent eve I wandered late, 

And heard the voice of love ; 
The turtle thus addressed her mate. 

And soothed the listening dove : 

Our mutual bond of faith and truth 

No time shall disengage. 
Those blessings of our early youth 

Shall cheer our latest age : 

While innocence vdthout disguise. 

And constancy sincere. 
Shall fill the circle of those eyes, 

And mine can read them there 

Those ills that wait on all below. 

Shall ne'er be felt by me. 
Or gently felt, and only so, 

As being shared with thee. 

When lightnings flash among the trees, 

Or kites are hovering near, 
I fear lest thee alone they seize. 

And know no other fear. 

'Tis then I feel myself a wife, ' 

And press thy wedded side, 
Resolved a union formed for life, 

Death never shall divide. 



118 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



But oh ! if fickle and unchaste, 
(Forgive a transient thought) 

Thou couklst become unkind at last, 
And scorn thy present lot. 

No peed of lightnings from on high, 

Or kites with cruel beak ; 
Denied the endearments of thine eye, 

This widowed heart would break. 

Thus sang the sweet sequestered bird. 

Soft as Uie passing wind ; 
And I recorded what I heard. 

A lesson for mankind. 



A FABLE. 



A RAVEN, while with glossy breast 

Her new-laid eggs she fondly pressed, 

And on her wickerwork high mounted. 

Her chickens prematurely counted. 

(A faidt philosophers might blame. 

If quite exempted from the same,) 

Enjoyed at ease the genial day ; 

'Twas April, as the bumpkhis say. 

The legislature called it May. 

But suddenly a wind as liigh 

As ever swept a winter sky. 

Shook the young leaves about her ears, 

And filled her with a thousand fears, 

Lest the rude blast should snap the bough, 

And spread her golden hopes below. 

But just at eve the blowing weather 

And all her fears were hushed together; 

And now, quoth poor imithinking Ralph, 

'Tis over and the brood is safe ; 

(For ravens, though as birds of omen 

They teach both conjurers and old women. 

To tell us what is to befall. 

Can't prophesy themselves at all.) 

The morning came, when neighbour Hodge, 

Who long had marked her airy lodge. 

And destined all the treasure there 

A gift to his expecting fair, 

Climbed like a squirrel to his dray. 

And bore the wortliless prize away. 



'Tis Providence alone secures 
In every change both mine and yours : 
Safety consists not in escape 
From dangers of a frightful shape ; 
An earthquake may be bid to spare 
The man, that's strangled by a hair. 
Fate steals along with silent tread. 
Found oftenest in what least we dread ; 
Frowns in the storm with angry brow, 
But in the sunshine strikes the. blow. 



A COMPARISON. 

The lapse of time and rivers is the same. 

Both speed their journey with a restless stream ; 

The silent pace, with which they steal away. 

No wealth can bribe, no prayers persuade to stay; 

Alike irrevocable both when past. 

And a wide ocean swallows both at last. 

Though each resemble each in every part, 

A diflierence strikes at length the musing heart ; 

Streams never flow in vain where streams abound, 

How laughs the land with various plenty crowned ! 

But time, that should enrich the nobler mind, 

Neglected leaves a dreary waste behind. 



ANOTHER. 

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY. 

Sweet stream, that winds through yonder 
Apt emblem of a virtuous maid- 
Silent and chaste she steals along, 
Far from the world's gay busy throng j 
With gentle yet prevailing force, 
Intent upon her destined course ; 
Graceful and useful all she does. 
Blessing and blest where'er she goes : 
Pure bosomed as that watery glass, 
And heaven reflected in her face. 



THE POET'S NEW-YEAR'S GIFT. 

TO MRS. (now lady) THROCKMORTON. 

Maria ! I have every good 
For thee wished many a time. 

Both sad and in a cheerftd mood, 
But never yet in rhyme. 

To wish thee fairer is no need. 
More prudent or more sprightly, 

Or more ingenious, or more freed 
From temper-flaws unsightly. 

What favour then not yet possessed, 

Can I for thee require, 
In wedded love already blest. 

To thy whole heart's desire 1 

None here is happy but in part ; 

Full bUss is bliss divine ; 
There dwells some wish in every heart. 

And doubtless one in thine. 

That wish, on some fair future day, 
Which Fate shall brightly gild, 

('Tis blameless, be it what it may,) 
I wish it all fulfilled. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



119 



ODE TO APOLLO. 

ON AN INK-GLASS ALMOST DRIED IN THE SUN. 

Patron of all those luckless brains, 
That, to the wrong side leaning. 

Indite much metre with much pains, 
A.nd Uttle or no meaning: 

Ah why, since oceans, livers, streams, 

That water all the nations. 
Pay tribute to thy glorious beams, 

In constant exhalations; 

Why, stooping from the noon of day. 

Too covetous of drink, 
Apollo, hast thou stolen away 

A poet's drop of ink 1 

Upborne into the viewless air 

It floats a vapour now. 
Impelled through regions dense and rare, 

By aU the vvihds that blow. 

Ordained perhaps ere summer flies. 
Combined with millions more. 

To form, an Iris in the skies, 
Though black and foul before. 

Illustrious drop ! and happy then 

Beyond the happiest lot, 
Of all that ever past my pen. 

So soon to be forgot ! 

Phoebus, if such be thy design, 

To place it in thy bow, 
Give wit, that what is left may shine 

With equal grace below. 



PAIRING TIME ANTICIPATED. 



I SHALL not ask Jean Jacques Rosseau,* 
If birds confabulate or no ; 
*Tis clear, that they were always able 
To hold discourse, at least in fable; 
And e'en the child,' that knows no better . 
Than to interpret by the letter 
A story of a cock and bull. 
Must have a most uncommon scull. 

It chanced then on a winter's day. 
But warm, and bright, and calm as May, 
The birds, conceiving a design 
To forestall sweet St. Valentine, 



" It was one of the whimsical speculations of this philoso- 
pher, that all fables which ascribe reason and speech to animals 
should be withheld from children, as being only vehicles of 
deception. But what child was ever deceived by. them, or can 
be, against the evidence of hie senses t 
9 



In many an orchard, copse, and grove, 

Assembled on affairs of love. 

And with much twitter and much chatter, 

Began to agitate the matter. 

At length a Bulfinch, who could boast 

More years and wisdom than the most, 

Entreated, opening wide his beak, 

A moment's liberty to speak ; 

And, silence publicly er\joined, 

Dehvered briefly thus his noind : 

My friends ! be cautious how ye treat 
The subject upon which we meet: 
I fear we shall have winter yet. 

A Finch, whose tongue knew no control. 
With golden wing, and satin poll, 
A last 3'^ear's bird, who ne'er had tried 
What marriage means, thus pert replied: 

Methinks the gentleman, quoth she, 
Opposite in the apple-tree, 
By his good will would keep us single 
Till yonder heaven and earth shall mingle. 
Or (which is likelier to befall) 
Till death exterminate us all. 
I'll marry without more ado. 
My dear Dick Redcap, what say youl 

Dick heard, and tweedling, ogling, bridling, 
Turning short round, strutting and sideling. 
Attested, glad, his approbation 
Of an immediate conjugation. . * 

Their sentiments, so well expressed. 
Influenced mightily the rest ; 
All paired, and each pair built a nest. 

But though the birds were thus in haste, 
The leaves came on not quite so fast, 
And Destiny, that sometimes bears 
An aspect stern on man's affairs. 
Not altogether smiled on theirs. 
The wind, of late breathed gently forth, 
Now shifted east, and east by north ; 
Bare trees and shrubs but ill, you know, 
Could shelter them from rain or snow ; 
Stepping into their nests, they paddled. 
Themselves were chilled, their eggs were addled j 
Soon every father bird and mother . 
Grew quarrelsome and pecked each other, 
Parted without the least regret. 
Except that they had ever met. 
And learned in future to be wiser. 
Than to neglect a good adviser. 



MORAL. 

Misses ! the tale that I relate 

This lesson seems to carry- 
Choose not alone a proper mate,' 
But proper time to marry. 



■^ 



120 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



THE DOG AND THE WATER-LILY. 



The noon was shady, and soft airs 

Swept Ouse's silent tide, 
When, 'scaped from Uterary cares, 

I wandered on his side. 

My spaniel, prettiest of his race, 

And high in pedigree, 
(Two nymphs* adorned with every grace 

That spaniel found for me.) 

Now wantoned lost in flags and reeds, 

Now starting into sight. 
Pursued the swallows o'er the meads 

With scarce a slower flight. 

It was the time when Ouse di played 

His lilies newly blown ; 
Their beauties I intent surveyed. 

And one I wished my own. 

With cane extended far I sought 

To steer it close to land ; 
But still the prize, though nearly caught, 

Escaped my eager hand. 

Beau marked my unsuccessful pains 

With fixed considerate face, 
And puzzling set liis puppy brains 

To comprehend the case. 

But with a cherup clear and strong, 

Dispersing all his dream, 
I thence withdrew, and followed long 

•The windings of the stream. 

My ramble ended, I returned ; 

Beau, trotting far before, 
The floating wreath again discerned, 

And plunging left the shore. 

I saw him with that lily cropped 

Impatient swim to meet 
My quick approach, and soon he dropped 

The treasure at my feet. 

Charmed with the sight, the world, I cried, 

Shall hear of this thy deed : 
My dog shall mortify the pride 

Of man's superior breed 

But cliief myself I will enjoin, 

Awake at duty's call, 
To show a love as prompt as thine 

To Him who gives me all. 



' Sir Robert. Gunning's daughters. 



THE POET, THE OYSTER, AND SEN- 
SITIVE PLANT. 

An Ojster, cast upon the shore, 
Was heard, though never heard before, 
Complaining in a speech well worded — 
And worthy thus to be recorded : — 

Ah, hapless wretch, condemned to dwell 
For ever in my native shell ; 
Ordained to move when others please. 
Not for my own content or ease ; 
But tossed and buffeted about. 
Now in the water and now out. 
'Twere better to be born a stone, 
Of ruder shape, and feeling none, 
Than with a tenderness like mine, 
And sensibilities so fine ! 
I envy that unfeeUng shrub. 
Fast-rooted against every rub. 

The plant he meant, grew not far oflT, 
And felt the sneer with scorn enough ; 
Was hurt, disgusted, mortified, 
And with asperity replied. 

When, cry the botanists, and stare, 
Did plants called sensitive grow there 1 
No matter when — a poet's muse is 
To make them grow just where she chooses. 

You shapeless nothing in a dish, 
You that are but almost a fish, 
I scorn your coarse insinuation. 
And have most plentiful occasion 
To wish myself the rock I view, 
Or such another dolt as you: 
For many a grave and learned clerk. 
And many a gay unlettered spark. 
With curious touch examines me, 
If I can feel as well as he; 
And when I bend, retire and shririk. 
Says— Well, 'tis more than one would think! 
Thus life is spent (oh fie upon 't !) 
In being touched, and crying — Don't! 

A poet, in his evening walk, 
O'erheard and checked this idle talk. 
And your fine sense, he said, and yours, 
Whatever evil it endures, 
Deserves not, if so soon offended. 
Much to be pitied or commended. 
Disputes, though short, are far too long. 
Where both alike are in the wrong; 
Your feelings in their full amount. 
Are all upon your own account. 

You, in your grotto-work enclosed, 
Complain of being thus exposed ; 
• Yet nothing feel in that rough coat, 
Save when the knife is at your throat. 
Wherever driven by wand or tide, 
Exempt from every ill beside. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



121 



And as for you, my Lady Squeaiioisli, 
Who reckon every touch a blemish, 
If all the plants, that can be found 
EmbeUishing the scene around. 
Should droop and wither where they grow, 
You would not feel at all— not you. 
The noblest minds their virtue prove 
By pity, sympathy, and love: 
These, these are feelings truly fine, 
And prove their owner half divine. 

His censure reached them as he dealt it. 
And each by shrinking showed he felt it. 



THE SHRUBBERY. 

WRITTEN IN A TIME OP AFFLICTION. 

Oh, happy shades — -to me unblest ! 

Friendly to peace, but not to me ! 
How ill the scene that offers rest, 

And heart that can not rest, agree! 

This glassy stream, that spreading pine. 
Those alders quivering to the breeze. 

Might soothe a soul less hurt than mine. 
And please, if any thing could please. 

But fixed unalterable Care 

Foregoes not what she feels within, 
Shows the same sadness every where, 

And slights the season and the scene. 

For all that pleased in wood or lawn, 
While Peace possessed these silent bowers, 

Her animating smile withdrawn, 
Has lost its beauties and its powers 

The saint or moralist should tread 
This moss-grown alley musing, slow ; 

They seek like me the secret, shade, 
But not like me to nourish wo !. 

Me fruitful scenes and prospects waste 

Alike admonish not to roam; 
These tell me of enjoyments past. 

And those of sorrows yet to come. 



THE WINTER NOSEGAY. 

What Nature, alas ! has denied 

To the delicate growth of our isle, 
Art has id a measure suppUed, 

And vnnter is decked with a smile. 
See, Mary, what beauties I bring 

From the shelter of that sunny shed, 
_ Where the flowers have the charms of the spring, 

Though abroad they are frozen and dead. 



'Tis a bower of Arcadian sweets, 
Where Flora is still in her prime, 

A fortress to which she retreats 
• From the cruel assaults of the clime. 

While Earth wears a mantle of siiow. 
These pinks are as fresh and as gay 

As the fairest and sweetest that blow 
On the beautiful bosom of May. 

See how they have safely survived 

The frowns of a sky so severe; 
Such Mary's true love, that has Uved 

Through many a turbulent year. 
The charms of the late blowing rose 

Seemed graced with a liveher hue. 
And the winter of sorrow best shows 

The truth of a friend such as you. 



MUTUAL FORBEARANdE 

NECESSARY TO THE HAPPINESS OP THE MARRIED 
STATE. •' • , 

The lady thus addressed her spouse : 
What a mere dungeon is this house! 
By no means large enough : and was it, 
Yet this dull room, and that dark closet, 
Those hangings with their worn out graces. 
Long beards, long noses, and pale faces, 
Are such an antiquated scene. 
They overwhelm me with the spleen. 

Sir Htimplirey, shooting in the dark, 
Makes answer quite beside the mark : 
No doubt, my dear, I bade hifn come, 
Engaged myself to be at home. 
And shall expect Iiim at. the door 
Precisely when the clock strikes four. 

You are so deaf, the lady cried, 
(And raised her voice, and fi-owned beside,) 
You are so sadly deaf, my dear. 
What shall I do to make'you hear 1 

Dismiss poor Harry ! he replies ; 
Some people are more nice than wise : 
For one slight trespass all this stir 1 
What if he did ride whip and spur, 
'T.was but a mile — ^your favourite horse 
Will never look one hair the worse. ■ 

Well, I protest 'tis past all bearing — 
Child ! I am rather hard of hearing — 
Yes, truly ; one must scream and bawl ; 
I tell you, you can't hear at all ! 
Then, with a voice exceeding low, 
No matter if you hear or no. 

Alas! and is domestic strife. 
That sorest ill of human life, 
A plague so Uttle to be feared. 
As to be wantonly incurred, 
To gratify a fretful passion, 
On every trivial provocation ? 



122 



COWP^R'S WORKS. 



The kindest and the happiest pair 
Will find occasion to forbear : 
And something, every day they live, 
To pity, and perhaps forgive. 
But if infirmities, that fall 
In common to the lot of aU, 
A blemish or a sense impaired. 
Are crimes so little to- be spared, 
Then farewell all that must create 
The comfort of the wedded state ; 
Instead of harmony, 'tis jar. 
And tumult, and intestine war. 

The love that cheers life's latest stage, 
Proof against sickness and old age. 
Preserved by virtue from declension, 
Becomes not weary of attention;- 
But lives, when that exterior grace, 
Which first inspired the flame, decays. 
'Tis gentle, deUcate, and kind, 
To faults compassionate or blind, 
And will with sympathy endure 
These evils it would gladly cure ; 
But angry, coarse, and harsh expression, 
Shows love to be a mere profession ; 
Proves that the heart is none of his, 
Gr soon expels him if it is. 



THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT. 

Forced from home and all its pleasures, 

Afric's coast I left forlorn ; 
To increase a stranger's treasures. 

O'er the raging billows borne. 
Men. from England bought and sold me. 

Paid my price in paltry gold ; 
But, though slave they have enrolled me 

Minds- are never to be sold. 

Still in thought as free as ever, 

What'are England's rights, I ask. 
Me from my delights to sever. 

Me to torture, me to task 1 
Fleecy locks and black complexion 

Can not forfeit Nature's claim ; 
Skins may difl!er, but affection 

Dwells in white and black the same. 

Why did all creating Nature 

Make the plant for which we toil 1 
Sighs must fan it, tears must water, 

Sweat of ours must dress the soil. 
Think, ye masters; iron-hearted. 

Lolling at your jovial boards ; 
Think how many backs have smarted 

For the sweets your cane affords. 

Is there, as ye sometimes tell us. 
Is there one who reigns on high 1 

Has he bid you buy and sell us, 
Speaking from his throne the sky % 



'Ask him, if your knotted scourges, 
Matches, blood-extorting-screws, 

Are the means that duty urges 
Agents of his will to use ■? 

Hark ! he answers — ^wild tornadoes, 

Strevring yonder sea with wrecks ; 
Wasting towns, plantations, meadows, 

Are the voice with which he speaks. 
He, foreseeing what vexations 

Afric's sons should undergo, 
Fixed their tyrant's habitations 

Where his whirlwinds answer — no. 

By our blood in Afric wasted. 

Ere our necks received the chain ; 
By the miseries that we tasted," 

Crossing in your barks the main; 
By oiur suffering since ye brought us 

To the man-degrading mart ; 
All, sustained by patience, taught us 

Oidy by a broken heart : flv 

Deem our nation brutes no longer. 

Till some reason ye shall find 
Worthier of regard, and stronger 

Than the colour of our kind: 
Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealiirgs 

Tarnish all your boasted powers, 
Prove that you have human feelings, 

Ere you proudly question ours! 



PITY FOR POOR AFRICANS. 

'Video meliora proboque, 
Deteriora sequor.' — 

I OWN I am shocked at the purchase of slaves, 
And fear those who buy them and sell them are 

tnaves; 
What I hear of their hardships, their tortures, and 

groans, 
Is almost enough to draw pity from stones. 

I pity them greatly, but I must be mum. 

For how could we do without sugar and rum? 

Especially sugar, so needful we see 1 

What, give up our desserts, our coffee, and tea? - 

Besides, if we do, the French, Dutch, and Danes, 
Will heartily thank us, no doubt, for our pains; 
If we do not buy the poor creatures, they will, 
And tortures and groans will be multiplied still. 

If foreigners likewise would give up the trade. 
Much more in behalf of your wish might be said; 
But, while they get riches by purchasing blacks, 
Pray tell me why we may not also go snacks 1 

\ Your scruples and arguments bring to my mind 
I A story so pat, you may think it is coined, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



123 



On purpose to answer you, out of my mint ; 
But I can assure you I saw it in print. 

A youngster at school, more sedate than the rest, 
Had once his integrity put to the test ; 
His comrades had plotted an orchard to- rob, 
And asked him to go and assist in the job. 

He was shocked, sir, like you, and answered — ' Oh 

no! •. ' 

What ! rob our gc(od neighbour! I pray you don't 

go; '. • " 

Besides, the manls poor,his orchard's his bread, 
Then think of his children, for they must be fed.' 

' You speak very fine, and you look very grave, 
But apples we want, and apples we'll have; 
If you will go with us, you shall have a share. 
If not, you shall have neither apple nor pear.' 

They spoke, and Tom pondered-^' I see they will 

go: 
Poor man! what a pity to injure him so! 
Poor man ! I would save him his fruit if I could, 
But staying behind would-do him no good. 

' If the matter depended alone upon me, 
His apples might hang, till they dropped from the 
tree; ' ' . 

But, since they will take theni, I think I'll go too, 
He will lose none by me, though I get a fewJ , 

His scruples thus silenced, Tom felt more at ease, 
And went with his comrades the apples to seize ; 
He blamed and protested, but. joined in the plan 
He shared in the plunder, but pitied the man. 



THE MORNING DREAM. 

'TwAs in the glad season of spring, 

Asleep at the d?,.wn of the day, 
I dreamed what I can not but sing. 

So pleasant it seemed as I lay. 
I dreamed, that, on ocean afloat, 

Far hence to the westward I sailed. 
While the billows high-lifted the boat, 

And the fresh-blowing breeze never failed. 

In the steerage a woman I saw. 

Such at least was the form that she wore, 
Whose beauty impressed me with awe. 

Ne'er taught me by woman before. 
She sat, and a shield at her side 

Shed light, like a sun on the waves 
And, smiling divinely, she cried — 

'I go to make freemen of.slaves.' 

Then raising her voice to a strain 
The 'sweetest that ear ever heard, 

She sung of the slave's broken chain. 
Wherever her glory appeared. 



Some clouds which had over us hung, 
Fled, chased by her melody clear, ^ 

And methought while she Uberty sung, 
'Twas Uberty only to hear. 

Thus swiftly dividing the flood, 

To a slave-cultured island we came. 
Where a demon, her enemy, stood — 

Oppression his terrible name. 
In his hand, as the sign of his sway, 

A scourge hung with lashes he bore, 
And stood looking out for his prey 

From Africa's soiTowful shore. 

But soon as approaching the land 

That goddess-like woman he viewed, 
The scourge he let fall from his hand, 

With the blood of his subjects imbrued. 
I saw him both sicken and die. 

And the moment the monster expired, 
Heard shouts that ascended the sky. 

From thousands mth rapture inspired. 

Awaking how could I but muse 

At what such a dream should betide 1 
But soon ray ear caught the glad news. 

Which served my weak thought for a guide- 
That Britannia, renowned o.'er the waves 

For the hatred she ever has shown, 
To the black-sceptered rulers of slaves, 

Resolves to have none of her own. 



NIGHTINGALE AND GLOW-WORM. 

A NIGHTINGALE, that all day long 
Had cheered the village vrith a song, 
Nor yet at eve his note suspended, 
Nor yet when eventide was ended, 
Began to feel, as well he might, 
The keeri demands of appetite ; 
When, looking eagerly around, 
He spied far off", upon the ground, 
A something shining in the dark, 
And knew the glow-worm by his spark ; 
So, stooping down from hawthorn top, 
He thought to put him in his crop. 
The worm, aware of his intent, 
Harangued him thus, right eloquent : 
Did you admire my lamp, quoth he, 
As much as I your minstrelsy, 
You would abhor to do me wrong, 
As much as I to spoil your song ;• 
For 'twas the selfsame power divine 
Taught you to sing, and me to shine ; 
That you with music, t with light, 
Might beautify and cheer the night. 



124 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



The songster heard this short oration, 
And warhHng out his approbation, 
Released him, as my story tells, 
And found a supper somewhere else ! 

Hence jarring sectaries may learn 
Their real interest to discern ; 
That brother should not war with brother. 
And worry and devour each other : 
But sing and shine by sweet consent, 
Till life's poor transient night is spent. 
Respecting in each other's case 
The gifts of nature and of grace. 

Those Christians best deserve the name. 
Who studiously make peace their aim ; 
Peace, both the duty and the prize 
Of him that creeps and him that flies. 



ON A GOLDFINCH, 

STARVED 'TO DEATH IN HIS CAGE. 

Time was when I was free as air, 
The thistle's downy seed my fare, 

My drink the morning dew ; 
I perched at will on every spray, 
My form genteel, my plumage gay, 

My strains for ever new. 

But gaudy plumage, sprightly strain, 
And form genteel, were all in vain. 

And of a transient date ; 
For caught, and caged, and starved to death, 
In dying sighs my little breath 

Soon passed the wiry grate. 

Thanks, gentle swain, for all my woes, . 
And thanks for this effectual close • 

And cure of every ill ; 
More cruelty could none express ; 
And I, if you had shown me less, 
. Had been your prisoner still. 



THE PINE-APPLE AND BEE. 

The pine-apples, in triple row. 
Were basking hot, and all in blow ; 
A bee of most discerning taste, 
Perceived the fragrance as he passed, 
On eager wing the spoiler came. 
And searched for crannies in the frame. 
Urged his attempt on every side, 
To every pane his trunk applied ; 
But still in vain, the frame was tight. 
And only pervious to the light ; 
Thus having wasted half the day, 
He trimmed his flight another way. 

Mcthinks, I said, in thee I find 
The sin and madness of mankind. 



To joys forbidden man aspires, 

Consumes his soul with vain desires ; 

Folly the spring of his pursuit, 

And disappointment all the fruit. 

While Cynthio ogles, as she passes, 

The nymph between two chariot glasses, 

She is the pine-apple, and he 

The silly unsuccessful bee. 

The maid, who views with pensive air 

The show-glass fraught with glittering ware, 

Sees watches, bracelets, rings, and lockets, 

But sighs at thought of empty pockets ; 

Like thine, her appetite is keen,' 

But ah, the cruel glass between ! 

Our dear delights are often such. 
Exposed to view, but not to touch ; 
The sight our foolish heart inflames. 
We long for pine-apples in frames; 
With hopeless wish one looks and lingers; 
One breaks the glass and cuts his fingers: 
But they whom truth arid wisdom lead, 
Can gather honey from a weed. 



HORACE. BOOK II. ODE X. 

Receive, dear friend, the truths I teach, 
So shalt thou live beyond the reach 

Of adverse Fortune's power; 
Not always tempt the distant deep, 
Nor always timorously creep 

Along the treacherous shore. 

He that holds fast the golden mean. 
And lives contentedly between 

The little and the great, 
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor, 
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door 

Imbittering all his state. 

The tallest pines feel most the power 
Of winter blasts; the loftiest tower 

Comes heaviest to the ground ; 
The bolts, that spare the mountain's side, 
His cloud-capt eminence divide. 

And spread the ruin round. 

The well-informed philosopher 
Rejoices with a wholesome fear. 

And hopes, in spite of pain; 
If Winter bellow from the north, 
Soon the sweet Spring comes dancing forth, 

And Nature laughs again. 

What if thine heaven be overcast, 
The dark appearance will not last; 

Expect a brighter sky. 
The God that strings the silver bow. 
Awakes sometimes the muses too, 

And lays his arrows by. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



125 



If hindrances obstruct thy way, 
Thy magnanimity display, 

And let thy strength be seen ; 
But O ! if fortune fill thy sail 
With more than a propitious gale, 

Take half thy canvass in. 



REFLECTION ON THE FOREGOING ODE. 

And is this all"? Can Reason do no more, 
Than bid me shun the deep, and dread the shore? 
Sweet moralist ! afloat on life's rough sea. 
The Chri-stian has an art imknown to thee. 
He holds no parley with unmanly fears ; 
Where duty bids, he confidently steers,. 
Faces a thousand dangers at her call, 
And, trustmg in his God, surmounts them all. 



THE LILY AND THE ROSE. 

The nymph must lose her female friend, 

If more admired than she — 
But where will fierce contention end, 

If flowers can disagree! 

Within the garden's peaceful scene 

Appeared two lovely foes 
Aspiring to the rank of queen 

The Lily and the Rose.- 

The Rose soon reddened into rage. 

And, swelling with disdain, 
Appealed to many a poet's page 

To prove her right to reign. 

The Lily's height bespoke command, 

A fair imperial flower; 
She seemed designed for Flora's hand, 

The sceptre of her power. 

This civil bickering and debate 
The goddess chanced to hear. 

And flew to save, ere yet too late. 
The pride of the parterre. 

Yours is, she said, the nobler hue, 
And yours the statelier mien; 

And, till a third surpasses you, 
Let each be deemed a 'queen. 

Thus, soothed and reconciled, each seeks 

The fairest British fair: 
The seat of empire is her cheeks. 

They reign united there. 



IDEM LATINE REDDITUM. 

Heu inimicitias quoties parit aemula forma, 
duam raro pulchrse pulchra placere potest 



Sed fines ultra solitos discordia, tendit, 
Cum flores ipsos bills et ira movent. 

Hortus ubi dulces praebet tacitosque recessus, 
Se rapit in partes gens animosa duas; 

Hie sibi regalis Amaryllis Candida ciiltus, 
Illic purpureo vindicat ore Rosa. 

Ira Rosam et meritis qussita superbia tangunt, 
Multaque ferventi vix cohibenda sinu, 

Dum sibi fautorum ciet undique nominavatum, 
Jusque suu^p, multo carmine fulta, probat. 

Altior emicat ilia, et celso vertice nutat, 
Ceu flores inter non habitura parem, 

Fastiditque alios; et nata videtur in usus 
Imperii, sceptriun. Flora quod ipsa gerat. 

Nee Dea non sensit civilis murmura rixae, 
Cui curse est pictas pandere rin-is opes, 

Deliciasque suas nrmquam non prompta tueri, 
Dum Ucet et locus est, ut tueatur, adest. 

Et tibi forma datur procerior omnibus, inquit ; 

Et tibi, principibus qui solet esse, color ; 
Et donee vincat qusedam formosior ambas, 

Et tibi reginse nomen, et esto tibi. 

His ubi sedatus furor est, petit utraque nympham, 
Clualem inter Veneres Anglia sola parit ; 

Hancpenes imperium est, nihil optant amplius, 
hujus 
Regnant in nitidis, et sine Ute, genis. 



THE POPLAR FIELD. 

The poplars are felled; farewell to the shade, 
And the whispering sound of the cool colomiade; 
The winds play no longer and sijULUi the leaves, 
Nor Ouse on his bosom their im" receives. 

Twelve years have elapsed, since I last took a 

view 
Of my favourite field, and the bank where they 

grew; 
And now in the grass behold they are laid, 
And the tree is my seat, that once lent me a 

shade. " • • 

The bla.ckbird has fled to another retreat, 

Where the hazels afi!brd him a screen from the 
heat, • 

And the scene where his melody charmed me be- 
fore, 

Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more. 

I My fugitive years are all hasting away, 

I And I must ere long he as lowly as they, 

i With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head, 

' Ere another such grove shall arise i];^ its stead. 



126 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Tis a sight to engage me, if any thing can, 
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man : 
Though liis life be a dream, his enjoyments, I see. 
Have a- being less durable even than he.* 



■IDEM LATINE REDDITUM. 

P0PUL.E cecidet gratissima copia silvs, 
Conticuere susurri, omnisque evanuit umbra. 
Nullc jam levibus se miscent frondibus aurae, 
Et nulla in fluvio ramoi-um ludit ima'go. 

Hei milii ! bis senos dum luctu torqueor annos, 
His cogor silvis suetoque carrere recessu, 
Cum sero rediens, stratasque in gramine cernens, 
Insedi arboribus, sub quels errare solebam. 

Ah ubi nunc merulae cantus 1 Felicior illutn 
Silva tegit, durae nondum permissa bipenni ; 
Scilicet exustos coUes camposque patentes 
Odit, et indignans et non rediturus abivit. 

Sed qui succisas doleo succidar et ipse, 
Et prius huic parilis quam creverit altera silva 
Flebor, et, exquiis parvis donatus, habebo 
Defixum lapidum tumulique cubantis acervum. 

Tam subito periisse videns tam digna manere, 
Agnosco humanas sortes et tristia fata — 
Sit licit ipse brevis, volucrique simillimus umbrae. 
Est homini brevior citiusque obitura voluptas. 



VOTUM. 

O MATUTiNi rores auraeque salubres, 

O nemora, et laetae rivis feUcibus herbae, 

Graminei coUes, et amoenae in yallibus umbrae ! 

Fata modo de^erint quas olim in rure paterno 

DeUcias, procuijpte, formidine novi. 

Q,uam vellem ignotus, quod mens mea semper 

avebat, 
Ante larem proprium placidam expectare senec- 

tam, 
Tum demum, exactis non infeliciter annis, 
Sortiri taciturn lapidem, aut sub cespite condi ! 



TRANSLATION. op 

PRIOR'S CHLOE AND EUPHELIA. 

Mercator, vigiles oculos ut fallere possit, 
Nomine sub ficto trans mare mittit opes; 



■ Mr. Cowper afterwards altered thia last stanza in the fol- 
lowing manner : 

The change both my heart and my fancy employs, 
I reflect on the frailty of man and his joys; 
Short-lived as we are, yet our pleasures we see, 
Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we. 



Len6 sonat liquidumque meis Euphelia chordis, 
Sed solam exoptant te, mea vota, Chloe. 

Ad speculum ornahat nitidos Euphelia crines, 
Cum dixit mea lux, Heus, cane, sume lyram, 

Namque lyrctm juxta positam cum carmine vidit, 
Suave quidem carmen dulcisonamque lyram. 

Fila lyrae vocemque paro suspiria surgunt, 
Et miscent numeris murmura moesta meis, 

Dumque tuae memora laudes, Euphelia formae, 
Tota anima interia pendet ab ore Chloes. 

Subrubet ilia pudore, et contrahit altera firontem, 
Me torquet mea mens conscia, psallo, tremo; 

Atque Cupidinea dixit Dea cineta corona, 
Heu! feillendi artem quam didicere parum. 



THE DIVERTING 

HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN. 

Showing how he went farther than he intended; and came 
safe home again. 

John Gjlpin was a citizen 

Of credit and renown, 
A train-band captain eke was he ■ 

Of famous London town 

John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear, 

Though wedded we have been 
These twdce ten tedious years, yet we 

No holiday have seen. 

To-morrow is our wedding day, 

And we will then repair 
Unto the Bell at Edmonton 

All in a chaise and pair. 

My sister, and my sister's child, 

Myself, and children three. 
Will fill the chaise; so you must ride 

On horseback after we. 

He soon replied, I do admire 

Of womankind but one, 
And you are she, my dearest dear, 

Therefore it shall be done. 

I am a Unen-draper bold, ■ 

As all the world doth know. 
And my good friend the calender 

Will lend his horse to go. 

duoth Mrs. Gilpin, That's well said ; 

And for that wine is dear. 
We will be furnished wdth our own. 

Which is both bright and clear. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



127 



John Gilpin kissed his loving wife; 

O'erjoyed was he to find, 
That, though on pleasure she was bent, 

She had a frugal mind. 

The morning came, the chaise was brought. 

But yet was not allowed 
To drive up to- the door, lest all 

Should say that she was praud. 

So three doors off the chaise was stayed, 

Where they did all get in ; 
Six precious souls, and all agog 

To dash through thick and thin. 

Smack went the wliip, round went the wheels, 

Were ever folks so glad, 
The stones did rattle underneath. 

As if Cheapside were mad. 

John Gilpin at his horse's side 

Seized fast the flowing mane, 
And up he got in haste to ride, 

But soon came down again: 

For saddle-tree scarce reached had he, 

His journey to begin. 
When, turning round his head, he saw 

Three customers come in. 

So down he cam6 ; for loss of time, 

Although it grieved him sore ; 
Yet loss of pence, full well he knew, 

Would trouble him much more. 

'Twas long before the customers 

Were suited to their mind. 
When Betty screaming came down stairs, 

" The wine is left behind!" 

Good lack!' quoth he — yet bring it me. 

My leathern belt likewise, 
In which I bear my trusty sword. 

When I do exercise. 

Now mistress Gilpin (careful soul !) 

Had two stone bottles found, 
To hold the liquor that she loved. 

And keep it safe and sound. 

Each bottle had a curling ear. 
Through which the belt he drew. 

And hung a bottle on each side, 
To make his balance true. 

Then over all, that he might be 

Equipped from top to toe, 
His long red cloak, well brushed and neat 

He manfully did throw. _ 

Now see him mounted once again 
Upon his nimble steed, 



Full slowly pacing o'er the stones. 
With caution and good heed. 

But finding soon a smoother road 

Beneath his well-shod feet. 
The snorting beast began to trot, 

Which galled him in his seat. 

So, fair and softly, John he cried, ' « 

But John he cried in vain; 
That trot became a gallop soon, 

In spite of curb or rein. 

So stooping down, as needs he must. 

Who can not sit upright, 
He grasped the mane with both his hands, 

And eke with all his might. 

His horse, who never in that sort 

Had handled been before. 
What thing upon his back had got. 

Did wonder mor.e and more. 

Away went Gilpin, neck or nought, 

Away went hat and wig; • 
He little dreamt, when he sat out. 

Of running such a rig. . . 

The vnnd did blow, the cloak did fly, 

Like streamers long and gay. 
Tin loop and button failing both, 

At last it flew away. 

Then might all people well discern 

The bottles he had slung; 
A bottle swinging at each side. 

As hath been said or sung. 

The dogs did bark, the children screamed, 

Up flew .the windows all; 
And every soul cried out. Well done ! 

As loud as he could bawl. 

Away went Gilpin — who but he'? 

His fame soon spread around. 
He carries weight ! he rides a race ! 

'Tis for a thousand pound! 

And still, as fast as he drew near, 

'Twas wonderfiil to view. 
How in a trice the turnpike men 

Their gates wide open threw. 

And now, as he went bowing down 

His reeking head full low, 
The bottles twain behind his back 

Where shattered at a blow. 

Down ran the wine into the road, 

Most piteous to be seen. 
Which made his horse's flanks to smoke 

As they had basted been. 



128 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



But still he seemed to carry weight, 

With leathern girdle braced ; 
For all niight see the bottles' necks 

Still dangling at his waist. 

Thus all through merry Islington 

These gambols he did play, 
Until he came into the Wash . 

Of Edmonton so gay; 

• 
And there he threw the wash about 

On both sides of the way, 

Just like unto a trundling mop, 

, Or a ^vild goose at play. 

At Edmonton his loving wife 

From the balcony spied 
Her tender husband, wondering much 

To see how he did ride. 

Stop, stop, John Gilpin ! — Here's the house — 

They all aloud did cry; 
The dinner waits and we are tired; 

Said Gilpin — So am I ! 

But yet his horse was not a whit 

Inchned to tarry there; 
For why^^his owner had a house 

Full ten miles off, at Ware. 

So like an arrow* swift he flew. 

Shot by an archer strong ; 
So did he fly — wMch brings me to 

The middle of my song. 

Away went Gilpin out of breath, 

And sore against his will. 
Till at his friend the calender's 

His horse at last stood still. 

The calender, amazed to see 

His neighbour in such trim, 
Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate, 

And thus accosted him: 

What news'? what news'? your tidings tell; 

Tell me you must and shall — 
Say why bareheaded you are come, 

Or why you come at all ■? 

Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit. 

And loved a timely joke; 
And thus unto the calender 

In merry guise he spoke: 

I came because your horse would come; 

And, if I well forebode, 
My hat and vs^g will -soon be hero, 

They are. upon the road. 

The calender right glad to find 

His friend irfmerry pin. 
Returned him not a single word. 

But to the house went in ; 



Whence straight he came with hat and wig ; 

A wig that flowed behind, 
A hat not much the worse for wear, 

Each comely in its kind. 

He held them up, and in his turn 

That showed his ready wit, 
My head is twice as big as ydurs, 

They therefore needs must fit. 

But let me scrape the dirt away, 

That hangs upon your face ; 
And stop and eat, for well you may 

Be in a hungry case. 

Said John, it is my wedding-day. 

And all the world would stare. 
If wife should dine at Edmonton, 

And I should dine at Ware. 

So turning to his horse he said, 

I am in haste to dine ; ■ 

'Twas for your pleasure you came here, 

You shall go back for mine. 

Ah luckless speech, and bootless boast ! 

For which he paid full dear ; 
For, while he spoke, a braying ass 

Did sing most loud and clear ; 

Whereat his horse did snort, as he ■ 

Had heard a lion roar. 
And galloped oflf with all his might, 
As he had done before. . ■ 

Away went Gilpin, and away 

Went Gilpin's hat and wig : 
He lost them sooner than at first. 

For why? — they were too big. 

Now mistress Gilpin, when she saw 

Her husband posting down 
Into the country far away, 

She pulled out half a crown ; 

And thus unto the youth she said, 

That drove them to the Bell, 
This shall be yours, when you' bring bax;k 

My husband safe and well. 

The youth did ride and soon did meet 

John coming back amain ; 
Whom in a trice he tried to stop. 
By catching at his rein ; 

But not performing what he .meant. 

And gladly would have done. 
The frighted steed he frighted more. 

And made him faster run. 

Away went Gilpin, and away 

.Wont postboy at his heels. 
The postboy's horse right glad to miss 

The lumbering of the wheels. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



129 



Six gentlemen upon the road, 

Thus seeing Gilpin fly, 
With postboy scampering in the rear, 

They raised the hue and cry, — 

Stop thief! stop thief! — a highwayman ! 

Not one of them was mute ; 
And all and each that passed that way 

Did join in the pursuit. 

And now the turnpike gates again 

Flew open in short space ; 
The toll-men thinking as before, 

That Gilpin rode a race. 

And so he did, and won it too, 

For he got first to town ; 
Nor stoppSd till where he had got up 

He did again get down. 

Now let us sing, long live the king, 

And Gilpin, long live he ; 
And, when he next doth ride abroad. 

May 1 be there to see! 



AN EPISTLE 



AFFLICTED PROTESTANT LADY IN FRANCE. 

Madani, 

A stranger's purpose in these lays 
Is to congratulate and not to praise. 
To give the creature the Creator's due 
Were sin in me, and an oflence to you. 
From man to man, or e'en to woman paid, 
Praise is the mediuin of a. knavish trade, ■. 
A coin by craft for folly's usei designed. 
Spurious, and only current with the blind. 
The path of sorrow and that path alone. 
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown ; 
No traveller ever reached that blest abode, 
Who found not thorns and briers in his road, 
The world may dance along the flowery plain, 
Cheered as they go by many a Sprightly straui. 
Where Nature has her mossy velvet spread, 
With unshod feet they yet securely tread. 
Admonished, scorn the caution and the friend. 
Bent all on pleasure, heedless of its end. 
But he, who knew what human hearts wo\ild prove. 
How slow to learn the dictates of liis love, 
That, hard by nature and of stubborn will, 
A life of ease would make them harder still. 
In pity to the souls his grace designed 
To rescue from the ruins of mankind, . 
Called for a cloud to darken all their years, 
And said, " Go, spend them in the vale of tears," 
O balmy gales of soul-reviving air ! 
O salutarv streams that mvu'mur there ! 



Those flowing from the fount of grace above. 
Those breathed from hps of everlasting love. 
The flinty soil indeed their foot annoys ; 
Chill blasts of trouble iijp their springing joys ; 
An envious world will interpose its frown. 
To mar delights superior to its own ; 
And many a pang, experienced still within. 
Reminds them of their hated inmate,. Sin: 
But ills of every shape and every name, 
Transformed to blessings, miss their cruel aim ; 
And e\'cry moment's" cahn that soothes the breast, 
Is gi\en in earnest of eternal rest. 

Ah, be not sad, althougli thy lot be cast 
Far from the flock, and in a boundless waste ! 
No shepherd's tents within thy view appear. 
But the chief Shepherd even there is near ; 
Thy tender sorrows and thy plaintive strain 
Flow in a foreign land, but not in vain ; 
Thy tears all issue from a source divine. 
And every drop bespeaks a Saviour thine — 
So once in Gideon's fleece the dews were found, 
And drought on all the drooping herbs around. 



TO THE 

REV. W. CAWTHORNE UNWIN. 

Unwin, I should but ill repay 

The kindness of a friend. 
Whose worth deserves as warm a lay, 

As ever friendsliip penned, 
Thy name omitted in a page, 
That would reclaim a vicious age. 

A union formed,' as mine with thee, 

Not rasMy, nor in sport. 
May be as fervent in degree, 

And faithful in its sort. 
And may as rich in comfort prove 
As that of true firaternal love, 

The bud inserted in the rind, 

The bud of peach or. rose, 
Adorns, though diiTering in its kind, 

The stock whereon it grows. 
With flower as sweet, or fruit as fair 
As if produced by nature there. 

Not rich, I render what I may, 

I seize thy name in haste. 
And place it in this first essay, 

Lest this should prove the last. 
'Tis where it should be — in a plan, 
That holds m view the good of man. 

The poet's lyre, to fix his fame. 

Should be the poet's heart ; 
Affection Ughts a brighter flame 

Than ever blazed by art. 
No muses on these lines attend, 
I sink the poet in the friend. 



130 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



TO THE REVEREND MR. NEWTON. 

An Invitation into the Country. 

The swallows in their torpid state 

Compose their useless wing, 
And bees in hives as idly wait 
The call of early Spring. 

The keenest frost that binds the stream, 

The wildest mndthat blows, 
Are neither felt nor feared by them. 

Secure of their repose. 

But man, all feeling and awake, • 

The gloomy scene surveys ; 
With present illg his heart must ache. 

And pant for brighter days. 

Old Winter, halting o'er the mead, 

Bids me and Mary mourn : 
But lovely Spring peeps o'er his head. 

And whispers your return. 

Then April, with her sister May, 
Shall chase him from the bowers. 

And weave fresh garlands every day. 
To crown the smiUng hours: 

And if a tear, that speaks regret 

Of happier times, appear, 
A glimpse of joy, that we have met. 

Shall shine and dry the tear. 



CATHARINA. 

TO MISS STAPLETON, (nOW MRS. COtjRTNAV.') 

She came — she is gone — ^we have met — 

And meet perhaps never again ; 
The sun of that moment is set. 

And seems to have risen in vain. 
Catharina has fled like a dream — 

(So vanishes pleasure, alas !) 
But has left a regret and esteem. 

That will not so suddenly pass. 

The last evening ramble we made, 

Catharina, Maria, and I, 
Our progress was often delayed 

By the nightingale warbling nigh. 
We paused under many a tree. 

And much she was charmed with a tone 
Less sweet to Maria and me, 

Who so lately had witnessed her own. 

My numbers that day she had sung. 
And gave them a grace so divine, 

As only her musical tongue 

Could infuse into numbers of mine. 



The longer I heard, I esteemed 
The work of my fancy the more, 

And e'en to myself never seemed 
So tuneful a poet before. 

Though the pleasures of London exceed 

In number the days of the year, 
Catharina, did nothing impede, 

Would feel herself happier Here ; 
For the close- woven arches of limes 

On the banks of our river, I know, 
Are sweeter to her many times 

Than aught that the city can show. 

So it is, when the mind is endued 

With a well-judging taste from above ; 
Then, whether embellished or rude>, 

'Tis nature alone that we love. 
The achievements of art may amuse, . 

May even our wonder excite. 
But groves, hills, and valleys, diffuse 

A lasting, a sacred delight. 

Since then in the rural recess 

Catharina alone can rejoice, 
May it still be her lot to possess 

The scene of her sensible choice ! 
To inhabit a mansion remote 

From the clatter of street-pacing steeds. 
And by Philomel's annual note 

To measure the life that she leads. 

With her book, and her voice, and her lyre, 

To wing all her moments at home; 
And with scenes that new rapture inspire, 

As oft as it suits her to roam; 
She will have just the Ufe she prefers. 

With little to hope or to fear, 
And ours would be pleasant as hers. 

Might we view her enjoying it here. 



THE MORALIZER CORRECTED. 



A HERMIT, (or if 'chance you hold 

That title now too trite and old) 

A man, once young, who lived retired, 

As hermit could hav.e well desired,. 

tlis hours of study closed at last. 

And finished his concise repast, 

Stoppled his cruise, replaced his book 

Within its customary nook, • 

And, staff in hand, set forth to share 

The sober cordial of sweet air. 

Like Isaac, with a mind applied 

To serious thought at evening tide. 

Autumnal rains had made it chill. 

And from the trees, that fringed his hilJ, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



131 



Shades slanting at the close of day 
Chilled more his else delightful way. 
Distant a little mile he sjDied ■ 
A western bank's still sunny side, 
And right toward the favoured place 
Proceeding with his nimblest pace, 
In hope to bask a little yet, 
Just reached it when the sun was set. 

Your hermit, young and jovial sirs! 
Learns something from whate'er occurs — 
And hence, he said, my mind computes 
The real worth of man's pursuits. 
His object chosen, wealth or fame, ■ 
Or other sublunary game. 
Imagination to his view 
Presents it decked with every hue 
That can seduce him not to spare 
His powers of best exertion there, 
But youth, health, vigour to expend . 
On so desirable an end. 
Ere long approach life's evening shades, 
The glow that fancy gave it fades; 
And, earned, too late, it wants the grace 
That first engaged him in the chase. 

True, answered an angelic guide. 
Attendant at the senior's side — 
But whether all the tiiiie it cost. 
To urge the fruitless chase be lost, 
JNIust be decided by the worth 
Of that, which CcJled his ardour forth. 
Trifles pursued, whate'er th' event. 
Must cause him shame or discontent; 
A vicious object still is worse. 
Successful there he wins a curse ; 
But, he, who e'en in life's last stage 
Endeavours laudable engage. 
Is paid at least in peace of mind. 
And sense of having well designed ; 
And if, ere he attain his end, 
His sun precipitate descend, 
A brighter prize than that he meant 
Shall recompense his mere, intent. 
No virtuous wish can. bear a date 
Either too early or too late. 



THE FAITHFUL BIRD. 

The greenhouse is my summer seat ; 
My shrubs displaced from that retreat 

Enjoj^ed the open air ;■ 
Two goldfinches, whose sprightly song 
Had been their mutual solace long, 

Lived happy prisoners there. 

They sang, as blithe as finches sing, 
That flutter loose on golden wiiig, 
And frolic where they list ; 



Strangers to Hberty, 'tis true, 
But that delight they never knew, 
And therefore never missed. 

But nature works in every breast, 
With force not easily suppressed; 

And Dick felt some desires. 
That after many an elTort vain. 
Instructed him at length to gain 

A pass between liis wires. 

The open vdndows seemed t' invite 
The freeman to a farewell flight ; 

But Tom was still confined ; 
And Dick, although his way was clear, 
Was much too generous and sincere, 

Te leave his friend behind. 

So settUngon his cage, by play. 

And chirp, and kiss, he seemed to say, 

You must not live alone — 
Nor would he quit that chosen stand 
Till I, with slow and cautious hand. 

Returned him to his own. 

O ye, who never taste the joys 
Of Friendship, satisfied with noise, 

Fandango, ball, and rout ! 
Blush, when I tell you how a bird, 
A prison with a friend preferred 

To hberty. without. 



THE NEEDLESS ALARM. 



There is a field through which I often pass, 
Thick overspread with moss and silky grass, 
Adjoining close to Kilwick's echoing wood, 
Where oft the bitch-fox hides her hapless brood, 
Reserved to solace many a neighbouring squire, 
That he may follow them through brake and brier, 
Contusion hazarding of neck or spine. 
Which rural gentlemen call sport divine. 
A narrow brook, by rushy banks concealed, 
Runs in a bottom, and divides the field ; 
Oaks intersperse it, that had once ahead, 
But now wear crests of oven- wood instead ; 
And where the land slopes to its watery bourn. 
Wide yawns a gulf beside a ragged thorn ;• 
Bricks Une the sides, but shivered long ago 
And horrid brambles intertwine below ; 
A hollow scooped, I judge, in ancient time. 
For baking earth, or burning rock to lime. 

Not yet the havsrthorn bore her berries red. 
With which the fieldfare, wintry guest, is fed ; 
Nor autumn yet had brushed from every spray 
With her chill hand, the mellow leaves away; 
But corn was housed, and beans were in the stack, 
Now therefore issued forth the spotted pack. 



132 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



With tails liigh mounted, ears hung low, and 

throats. 
With a whole gamut filled of heavenly notes. 
For which, alas ! my destiny severe. 
Though cars she gave me two, gave me no ear. 

The sun, accomplishing liis early march. 
His lamp now planted on Heaven's topmast arch. 
When, exercise and air my only aim. 
And heedless whither, to that field I came, 
Ere yet with ruthless joy the happy hound 
Told hill and dale that Reynard's track was found. 
Or with the high-raised horn's melodious clang 
All Killwick* and all Dinglederry* rang. 

Sheep grazed the field: some with soft bosom 
pressed 
The herb as soft, while nibbling strayed the rest ; 
Nor noise was heard but of the hasty brook, 
Strugtfhng, detained in many a petty nook. 
All seemed so peaceful, that, from them conveyed, 
To me their peace liy kind contagion spread. 
But when the huntsman with distended cheek, 
'Gan make his instrument of music speak. 
And from within the wood that crash was heard, 
Though not a hound from whom it burst appeared, 
The sheep recumbent, and the sheep that grazed ; 
All huddling into phalanx, stood and gazed,- 
Admiring, terrified, the novel strain. 
Then coursed the field around, and coursed it 

round again ; 
But, recollecting, with a sudden thought. 
That flight in circles urged advanced them nought, 
They gathered close round the old pit's brink, 
And thought again — but knew not what to think. 

The man to solitude accustomed long, 
Perceives in every thing that lives a tongue ; 
Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees 
Have speech for him, and understood vrith ease ; 
After long drought, when rains abundant fall, 
He hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all ; 
Knows what the freshness of their hue implies. 
How glad they catch the largess of the skies ; 
But, with precision nicer still, the mind 
He scans of every locomotive kind ; 
Birds of all feather, beasts of every name, 
That serve mankind, or shun them, wild or tame ; 
The looks and gestures of their griefs and fears 
Have all articulation in his ears ; 
He spells them true by intuition's light. 
And needs no glossary to set him right. 

This truth premised was needful as a text. 
To win due credence to what follows next. 

Awhile they mused ; surveying every face, 
Thou hadst supposed them of superior race ; 
Their periwigs of wool, and fears combined, 
Stamped on each countenance such marks of mind. 



' Two woods belonging to John Tlirockmorton, feq. 



That sage they seemed, as lawyers o'er a doubt, 
Which, puzzling long, at last they puzzle out ; 
Or academic tutors, teaching youths. 
Sure ne'er to want them, mathematic truths; 
When thus a mutton, statelier than the rest, 
A ram, the ewes and wethers sad addi-essed — 

Friends ! we have lived too long. I never heard 
Sounds such as these, so worthy to be feared. 
Could I beheve, that winds for ages pent 
In earth's dark womb have found at last a vent. 
And from their prison-house below arise. 
With all these hideous bowlings to the skies, 
I could be much composed, nor should appear, 
For such a cause, to feel the shghtest fear. 
Yourselves have seen , what time the thunders rolled, 
All night, me resting quiet in the fold. 
Or heard we that tremendous bray alone, 
I could expound the melancholy tone ; 
Should deem it by our old companion made, 
The ass ; for he, we know, has lately strayed, 
And being lost, perhaps, and wandering wide 
Might be supposed to clamour for- a guide.. 
But ah ! those dreaded yells what soul can hear 
That owns a carcase; and not quake for fear 1 
Demons produce them doubtless ; brazen-clawed 
And fangcd with brass the demons are abroad ; 
I hold it therefore wisest and most fit, 
That, life to save, we leap into .the pit. 

Him answered then his loving mate and true 
But more discreet than he, a Cambrian ewe . ' 

How ! leap into the pit our life to save 1 
To save our life leap all into the grave 1 
For can we find it less ? Contemplate first 
The depth, how awful ! falling there, we burst ; 
Or should the brambles, interposed, our fall 
In part abate, that happiness were small ; 
For mth a r'ace like theirs no chance I see 
Of peace or ease to creatures clad as we. 
Mean-time, noise kills not. Be it Dapple's bray. 
Or be it not, or be it whose it may, 
And rush those other sounds, that seem by tongues 
Of demons uttered, from whatever lungs, 
Sounds are but sounds ; and, till the cause appear, 
We have at least commodious standing here. 
Come fiend, come fury, giant, monster, blast 
From earth or hell, we can but plunge at last. 

While thus she spake, I fainter heard the peals, 
For Reynard, close attended at his heels 
By panting dog, tired man, and spattered horse, 
Through mere good fortune took adifferent course. 
The flock grew calm again ; and I, the road 
Following, that led me to my own abode. 
Much wondered that the silly sheep had found 
Such cause of terror in an empty sound. 
So sweet to huntsman, gentleraan, and hound. 



Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day. 
Live till to-morrow, will have passed away. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



133 



BOADICEA. 



When the British warrior queen, 
Bleeding from the Roman rods, 

Sought, with an indignant mien, 
Counsel of her country's gods ; 

Sage beneath the spreading oak 

Sat the Druid, hoary cliief ; 
Every burning word he spoke 
. Full of rage, and full of grief. . 

Princess ! if our aged eyes 

Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, 
'Tis because resentment ties 

All the terrors of our tongues. 

Rome shall perish — write that word 
In the blood that she has spilt ; 

Perish, hopeless and abhorred. 
Deep in ruin as in guilt. 

Rome, for empire far renowned, 
Tramples on a thousand states, 

Soon her pride shall kiss tlie ground — 
Hark ! the Gaul is at her gates ! 

Other Romans shall arise. 
Heedless of a soldier's name ; 

Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, 
Harmony the path to fame. 

■ Then the progeny that springs 
From the forests of our land. 

Armed with thunder, clad with wings, 
Shall a wider world command. 

Regions Cassar never knew 

Thy posterity shall sway ; 
Where liis eagles never flew, 

None invincible as they. 

Such the bard's prophetic words, 
Pregnant with celestial fire, 

Bending as he swept the chords 
Of his sweet but awfiil lyre. 

She with all a monarch's pride, 
Felt them in her bosom glow : ■ 

Rushed to battle, fought and died ; 
Dying hurled them at the foe. 

Ruffians, pitiless as proud. 

Heaven awards the vengeance due ; 
Empire is on us bestowed. 

Shame and ruin wait for you. 



HEROISM. 

■ There was a time when Etna's silent fire 
Slept unperceived, the mountain yet entire ; 



When, conscious of no danger from below, 
She towered a cloud-capt pyramid of snow. 
No thunders shook with deep intestine sound 
The blooming groves, that girdled her around. 
Her unctuous olives, and her purple vines 
(Unfclt the fury of those bursting mines) 
The peasant's hopes, and not in vain, assured, 
In peace upoii her sloping sides matured. 
When on a day, like that of tlie last doom, 
A conflagration labouring in her womb. 
She teemed and heaved with an ini'crnal birth. 
That shook the circling sea's and solid earth. 
Dark and voluminous tiie vapours rise. 
And hang their horrors in the neighbouring skies, 
While through tlie Stygian veil, that blots the day, 
In dazzling streaks the vivid lightnings play. 
But oh ! what muse, and in what powers of song. 
Can trace the ton'ent as it burns along ; 
Havoc and devastation in the van. 
It marches o'er the prostrate works of mati ; 
Vines, olives, herbage, forests disappear. 
And all the charms of a Sicilian ye^r. 

Revolving seasons, fruitless as they pass, 
See it. an uninfonned and idle mass ; 
Without a soil t' invite the tiller's care, 
Or blade, that might redeem it from despair. 
Yet time at length (what- will not time achieve "?) 
Clothes it with earth, and bids the produce live. 
Once more the spiry myrtle crowns the glade, 
And ruminating flocks enjoj^ the shade. 
O bliss precarious, and unsafe retreats, 
O charming Paradise of short-lived sweets ! 
The selfsame gale, that wafts the fragrance round, 
Brings to the distant ear a sullen sound : 
Again the mountain feels th' imprisoned foe, 
Again pours ruin on tlie vale below. 
Ten thousaiad swains tlie wasted scene deplore, 
That only future ages can restore. 

Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honour draws, 
Who write in blood the merits of your cause. 
Who strike the blow, then plead your own defence, 
Glory your aim, but justice your pretence ; 
Behold in Etna's emblematic fires. 
The mischiefs your ambitious pride inspires ! 
Fast by the stream, that bounds your just domain. 
And tells you where you have a right to reign, 
A nation dwells, not envious of your throne. 
Studious of peace, their neighbours', and their own. 
Ill-fated race ! how deeply must they rue 
Their only crime, vicmity to you ! 
The trumpet sounds, your legions swarm abroad. 
Through the ripe harvest lies their destined road; 
At every step beneath their feet they tread 
The life of multitudes, a nation's bread ! 
Earth seems a garden in its loveliest dress 
Before them, and behind a wilderness. 
Famine, and Pestilence, her first-born son, 
Attend to finish what the sword begun ; . 



134 



COWPER'S WORKS 



And echoing praises, such as fiends might earn, 
And Folly pays, resounds at your return. 
A calm succeeds— but Plenty, with her train 
Of heart-felt joys, succeeds not soon again, 
And years of pining indigence must show 
What scourges are the gods that rule below. 

Yet man, laborious man, by slow degrees, 
(Such is his thirst of opulence and ease) 
Plies all the sinews of industrious toil. 
Gleans up the refuse of the general spoil. 
Rebuilds the towers, that smoked upon the plain, 
And the sun giids the shining spires again. 

Increasing commerce and reviving art 
Renew the quarrel on the conqueror's part ; 
And the sad lesson must be learned once niore. 
That wealth within is ruin at the door. 
What are ye, monarchs, laureled heroes, say. 
But jEtnas of the suffering world ye sway '? 
Sweet Nature, stripped of her embroidered robe, 
Deplores the wasted regions of her globe ; 
And stands a witness at Truth's awful bar. 
To prove you there destroyers as ye are. 

O place me in some Heaven-protected isle, 
Where Peace, and Equity, and Freedom smile ; 
Where no volcano pours his fiery flood. 
No crested warrior dips his plume in blood ; 
Where Power secures what. industry has won; 
Where to succeed is not to be undone ; 
A land, that distant tyrants hate in vain,' 
In Britain's isle, beneath a George's reign ! 



ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S PICTURE 

OUT OF NORFOLK. 

The Gift of my Cousin Anne Bodham. 

O THAT those lips had language ! Life has passed 
With me but roughly since I heard thee last. 
Those lips are thine — thy own sweet smile I see, 
The same, that oft in childhood solaced me ; 
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, 
"Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!" 
The meek intelUgence of those dear eyes 
(Blest be the art that can immortalize. 
The art that baffles Tune's tyrannic claim 
To quench it) here shine on me still the same. 
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, 

welcome guest, though unexpected here ! 
Who bidd'st me honour with an artless song. 
Affectionate, a mother lost so long. 

1 will obey, not willingly alone, 

But gladly, as the precept were her own; 
And, while that face renews my filial grief, 
Fancy shall weave a charhi for my relief, 
ShaU steep me in Elysian reverie, 
A momentary dream, that thou art she. 

My Mother ! when I learned that thou wast dead, 
Sav, wast thou conscious of the tearR 1 shed? 



Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son. 

Wretched e'en then, life's journey just begun 1 

Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss ; 

Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss — 

All, that maternal smile! it answers — Y^s. 

I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day, 

I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away. 

And, turning from my nursery window, drew 

A long, long sigh, and wept, a last adieu ! 

But was it suchl — It was. — Where thou art gone, 

Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. 

May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore. 

The parting word shall pass my lips no more ! 

Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern, 

Ofl gave me promise of thy quick return. 

What ardently I wished, I long believed, 

And- disappointed still, was still deceived. 

By expectation every day beguiled, 

Dupe of to-morrow even from a child. 

Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went, 

Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent, 

I learned at last submission to my lot. 

But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot. 

Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, 
Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; 
And where the gardener Robin, day by day. 
Drew me to school along the public way, 
Delighted wtth my bauble coach, and wrapped 
In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet cap, 
'Tis now become a hLstory little known. 
That once we called the pastoral house our own. 
Short-lived possession! but the record fair 
That memory keeps of all thy kindness there. 
Still outlives many a storm, that has. effaced 
A thousand other themes, less deeply traced. 
Thy nightly visits to my chamber made. 
That thou might'st know me safe and warmly 

laid ; 
Thy morning bounties ere I left' my home,- 
The biscuit, or confectionary plum ; 
The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed 
By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed : 
All this, and more endearing stiU than all. 
Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall. 
Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and breaks 
That humour interposed too often makes ; 
All this still legible iji memory's page, 
And still to be so to my latest age, 
Adds joy to duty, makes me glad today 
Such honours to thee as my numbers may; 
Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, . 
Not scorned in Heaven though Uttle noticed here. 

Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours, 
When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers, 
The violet, the pink, and jessamine, 
I pricked them into paper with a pin, 
(And thou wast happier than myself the while, 
Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head and 
pmile'l 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



135 



Could those few pleasant days again appear, 
Might one wish bring them, would I wish them 

here "? 
I would not trust my heart — the dear delight 
Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might — 
But no — what here we call our life is such, 
So little to be loved, and thou so much, 
That I should ill requite thee to constrain 
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again. 

Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast 
(The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed) 
Shoots into port at some well-havened isle, 
Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile, 
There sits quiescent on the floods, that show 
Her beauteous form reflected clear below, 
While airs impregnated with incense play 
Around her, farming light her streamers gay; 
So thou, with sails how swifl;! hast reached the 

shore, 
"Where tempests never beat nor billows roar,"* 
And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide 
Of life long since has anchored by thy side. 
But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest, 
Always from port withheld, always distressed — 
Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest tossed. 
Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass 

lost. 
And day by day some current's thwarting force 
Sets me more distant from a prosperous course. 
Yet the thought, that thou art safe, and he 
That thought is joy, arrive what may to me. 
My boast is not, that I deduce my birth 
From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth; 
But higher far my proud pretensions rise— 
The son of parents past into the skies. 
And now, fareweU — Time unrevoked has run 
His wonted course, yet what I wished is done. 
By Contemplation's help, not sought in vain, 
I seem t' have Hved my cliildhood o'er again; 
To have renewed the joys that once were mine, 
Without the sin of violating tMne ; 
And, while the wings of fancy still are free, 
And Lean view this mimic show of thee, 
Time has but half succeeded in his theft — 
Thyself removed, thy power to sooth me left. 



FRIENDSHIP. 

What virtue, or what mental grace. 
But men unqualified and base 

Will boast it their possession 1 
Profusion apes their noble part 
Of hberality of heart. 

And dullness of discretion, 

If every polished gem we find, 
Illuminating heart or mind: 
Prpvoke to imitation: 



10 



No wonder friendship does the same, 
That jewel of the pm'cst flame, 
Or rather constellation. 

No knave but boldly will pretend, 
The requisites that form a friend, 

A real and a sound one; 
Nor any fool, he would deceive 
But prove as ready to believe. 

And dream that he had found one. 

Candid, and generous, and just. 
Boys care but little whom they trust. 

An error soon corrected — 
For who but learns in riper years. 
That man, when smoothest he appears. 

Is most to be suspected 1 

But here again, a danger Ues, 
Lest, having misappUed our eyes. 

And taken trash for treasure. 
We should unwarily conclude 
Friendship a false ideal good, 

A mere Utopian pleasure. 

An acquisition rather rare 
Is yet no subject of despair ; 

Nor is it wise complaining, 
If either on forbidden ground, 
Or where it was not to be found; 

We sought without attaining. 

No friendship will abide the test, 
That stands on sordid interest. 

Or mean self-love erected; 
Nor such as may awhile subsist, 
Between the sot and sensualist. 

For vicious ends connected. 

Who seeks a friend should come disposed 
T' exhibit in fuU bloonl disclosed 

The graces and the beauties 
That from the character he seeks; 
For 'tis a union, that bespeaks 

Reciprocated duties. 

Mutual attention is implied, 
And equal truth on either side, 

And constantly supported; 
'Tis senseless arrogance t' accuse 
Another of sinister views, 

OvLT own as much distorted. 

But will sincerity suffice 1 
It is indeed above all price. 

And must be made the basis; 
But every virtue of the soul 
Must constitute the charming whole, 

AH shining in their places. 



\ 



136 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



A fretful temper will divide 

The closest knot that may be tied, 

By ceaseless sharp corrosion; 
A temper passionate and fierce 
May suddenly your joys disperse 

At one immense explosion. 

In vain the talkative unite 

In hopes of permanent delight — 

The secret just committed, 
Forgetting its important weight, 
They drop through mere desire to prate. 

And by themselves outwdtted. 

How bright soe'er the prospect seems, 
All thoughts of friendship are but dreams, 

If envy chance to creep in; 
An envious man, if you succeed, 
May prove a dangerous foe indeed, 

But not a friend worth keeping. 

As envy pines at good possessed, 
So jealousy looks forth distressed 

On good that seems approaching; 
And, if success his steps attend, 
Discerns a rival in a friend. 

And hates him for encroaching. 

Hence authors of illustrious name, 
Unless belied by common fame, 

Are sadly prone to quarrel, 
To deem the wdt a friend displays 
A tax upon their own just praise, 

And pluck each other's laurel, 

A man renowned for repartee 
Will seldom scruple to make free 

With friendship's finest feeUng, 
Will thrust a dagger at your breast, 
And say he wounded you in jest, 

By way of balm for healing. 

Whoever keeps an open ear 
For tattlers, will be sure to hear 

The trumpet of contention ; 
Aspersion is the babbler's trade, 
To hsten is to lend him aid. 

And rush into dissension. 

A friendship, that in frequent fits 
Of controversial rage emits 

The sparks of disputation. 
Like hand in hand insvurance plates, 
Most unavoidably creates 

The thought of conflagration. 

Some fickle creatures boast a soul 
True as a needle to the pole. 

Their himiour yet so various — 
They manifest their whole life through 
1 he needle's deviations too, 

Their love is so precarious. 



The great and small but rarely meet 
On terms of amit)^ complete ; 

Plebeians must surrender 
And yield so much to noble folic. 
It is combining fire with smoke, 

Obscurity with splendour. 

Some are so placid and serene 
(As Irish bogs are always green) 

They sleep secure from waking. 
And are indeed a bog, that bears 
Your unparticipated cares 

Unmoved and without quaking. 

Courtier and patriot can not mix 
Their heterogeneous politics 

Without an effervescence. 
Like that of salts with lemon juice. 
Which does not yet hke that produce 

A friendly coalescence. 

ReUgion should extinguish strife, 
And make a calm of human life ; 

But friends that chance to differ 
On points, which God has left at large. 
How freely will they meet and charge ! 

No combatants are stiflfer. 

To prove at last my main intent 
Needs no expense of argument, 

No cutting and contriving — 
Seeking a real friend we seem 
T' adopt the chemist's golden dream. 

With still less hope of thriving. 

Sometimes the fault is all our own. 
Some blemish in due time made known 

By trespass or omission ; 
Sometimes occasion brings to light 
Our friend's defect long hid from sight, 

And even from suspicion. 

Then judge yourself and prove your man 
As circumspectly as you can, 

And, having made election. 
Beware no negUgence of yours, 
Such as a friend but ill endures. 

Enfeeble his aflfection. 

That secrets are a sacred trast. 

That friends shoidd be sincere and just, 

That constancy befits them. 
Are observations on the case. 
That savour much of common-place. 

And all the world admits them. 

But 'tis not timber, lead, and stone, 
An architect requires alone. 

To finish a fine building — 
The palace were but half complete. 
If he could possibly forget 

The carving and the gilding. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



137 



The man that hails you Tom or Jack, 
And proves by thumps upon yom- back 

How he esteems your merit, 
Is such a friend, that one had need 
Be very much his friend indeed, 

To pardon or to bear it, 

A similarity of mind. 

Or sometliing not to be defined. 

First fixes our attention ; 
So manners decent and poHte, 
The same we practised at first sight, 

Must save it from declension. 

Some act upon this prudent plan, 
" Say little and hear all you can :" 

Safe policy, but hateful — 
So barren sands imbibe the shower, 
But render neither fi'uit nor flower, 

Unpleasant and ungrateful. 

The man I trust, if shy to me, 
Shall find me as reserved as he ; 

No subterfuge or pleading. 
Shall wm my confidence agam ; 
I will by no means entertain 

A spy on my proceeding. 

These samples — for alas ! at last 
These are but samples, and a taste 

Of evils yet unmentioned — 
May prove the task a task mdeed, 
In which 'tis much if he succeed 

However well-intentioned. 

Pursue the search, and you wtII find 
Good sense and knowledge of mankind 

To be at least expedient. 
And, after summing all the rest. 
Religion ruling in the breast 

A principal ingredient. 

The noblest friendship ever shown 
The Saviour's history makes known, 

Though some have turned and turned it ; 
And whether being crazed or blind, 
Or seeking with a biassed mind, 

Have not, it seems, discerned it. 

O Friendship, if my soul forego 
Thy dear deUghts while here below ; 

To mortify and grieve me. 
May I myself at last appear 
Unworthy, base, and insincere. 

Or may my friend deceive me ! 



ON A MISCHIEVOUS BULL, 

which the owner op him sold at the au- 
thor's instance. 

Go — Thou art all unfit to share 
The pleasures of this place 



With'such as its old tenants are. 
Creatures of gentler race. 

The squirrel here his hoard provides, 

Aware of wintry storms. 
And woodpeckers explore the sides 

Of rugged oaks for worms. 

The sheep here smoothes the knotted tliorn 

With frictions of her fleece ; 
And here I wander eve and morn. 

Like her, a friend to peace. 

Ah! — I could pity the exiled 

From this secure retreat — 
I would not lose it to be styled 

The happiest of the great. 

But thou canst taste no calm delight; 

Thy pleasm'e is to show • ' 
Thy magnanimity in fight. 

Thy prowess — therefore go — 

I care not whether east or north. 

So I no more may find thee; 
The angry muse thus sings thee forth, 

And claps the gate behind thee. 



ANNUS MEMORABILIS, 1789. 

Written in Commemoration of his Majesty's Jiappy Recovery. 

I RANSACKED, for a theme of song, 

Much ancient chronicle and long; 

I read of bright embattled fields. 

Of trophied helmets, spears, and shields. 

Of chiefs whose single arm could boast 

Prowess to dissipate a host; 

Through tomes of fable and of dream 

I sought an eligible theme, 

But none I found, or found them shared 

Already by some happier bard. 

To modern times, with Truth to guide 
My busy search, I next applied; 
Here cities won and fleets dispersed, 
Urged loud a claim to be rehearsed. 
Deeds of unperishing renown. 
Our fathers' triumphs and our own. 

Thus, as the bee, from banJc to bower, 
Assiduous sips at every flower, 
But rests on none, tUl that be found. 
Where most nectareous sweets abound. 
So I from theme to theme displayed 
In many a page historic strayed, 
Siege after siege, fight afl;er fight, 
Contemplating with small dglight. 
(For feats of sanguinary hue 
Not always glitter in my view;) 
Till settling on the current year, 
•I found the far-sought treasure near: 



138 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



A theme for poetry divine, 
A theme t' ennoble even mine, 
In memorable eighty-nine. 

The spring of eighty-nine shall be 
An era cherished long by me, 
Wliich joyful I will oft record. 
And thankful at my frugal board; 
For then the clouds of eighty-eight, 
That threatened England's trembUng state 
With loss of what she least could spare. 
Her sovereign's tutelary care. 
One breath of Heaven, that cried — Restore! 
Chased, never to assemble more: 
And for the richest crown on earth, 
If valued by its wearer's worth. 
The symbol of a righteous reign 
Sat fast on George's brows again. 

Then peace and joy again possessed 
Our Glueefi's long-agitated breast; 
Such joy and peace as can be known 
By sufferers Uke herself alone. 
Who losing, or supposing lost, 
The good on earth they valued most. 
For that dear sorrow's sake forego 
All hope of happiness below. 
Then suddenly regain the prize, 
And flash thanksgivings to the skies! 

O Clueen of Albion, queen of isles ! 
Since all thy tears were changed to smiles, 
The eyes, that never saw thee, shine 
With joy not unallied to thine. 
Transports not chargeable with art 
Illume the land's remotest part. 
And strangers to the air of courts. 
Both in their toils and at their sports, 
The happiness of answered prayers, 
That gilds thy features, show in theirs. 

If they who on thy state attend, 
Awe-struck before thy presence bend, 
'Tis but the natural effect 
Of grandeur that ensures respect; 
But she is something more than Clueen, 
Who is beloved where never seen. 



HYMN, 

FOR THE USE OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL AT OLNEY. 

Hear, Lord, the song of praise and prayer. 

In Heaven thy dwelling place, 
From infants made the public care, 

And taught to seek thy face. 

Thanks for thy word, and for thy day, 

And grant us, we implore. 
Never to waste in sinful play 

Thy holy sabbaths more. 



Thanks that we hear, — but O impart 

To each desires sincere. 
That we may listen with our heart, 

And learn as well as hear. 

For if vain thoughts the minds engage 

Of older far than we, 
What hope, that, at our heedless age, 

Our minds should e'er be free 1 

Much hope, if thou our spirits take 

Under thy gracious sway. 
Who canst the wisest wiser make. 

And babes as wise as they. 

Wisdom and bliss thy word bestows, 

A sun that ne'er declines. 
And be thy mercies showered on those 

Who placed us where it shines. 



STANZAS 

Subjoined to the Yearly Bill of Mortality of the Parish of All- 
Saints, Northampton,' Anno Domini, 1787. 

Pallida Mors mguo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas, 
Jtegumque turres. Hor. 

Pale Death with equal foot strikes wide the door 
Of royal halls, and hovels of the poor. 

While thirteen moons saw smoothly run 

The Nen's barge-laden wave. 
All these, life's rambling journey done, 

Have found their home, the grave. 

Was man (frail always) made more frail 

Than in foregoing years % 
Did famine or did plague prevail, 

That so much death appears 7 

No ; these were vigorous as their sires, 

Nor plague nor famine came; 
This annual tribute Death requires, 

And never waives his claim. 

Like crowded forest-trees we stand. 

And some are marked to fall; 
The axe will smite at God's command, 

And soon shall smite us all. 

Green as the bay-tree, ever green, 

With its new foliage on. 
The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen, 

I passed — and they were gone. 

Read, ye that run, the awful truth, 

With which I charge my page ; 
A worm is in the bud of youth, 

And at the root of age. 



* Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



139 



No present health can health ensure 

For yet an hour to come; 
No medicine, though it oft can cure, 

Can always balk the tomb. 

And O ! that humble as my lot, 

And scorned as in my strain, 
These truths, though known, too much forgot, 

I may not teach in vain. 

So prays your clerk with all his heait, 

And ere he quits the pen, 
Begs you for once to take his part. 

And answer all — Amen! 



ON A SIMILAR OCCASION. 

FOR THE YEAR 178S. 

Quod adest, memento 
Componcre mquus. CcBiera Jluminis 
Ritu feruntur. Hor. 

Improve the present hour, for all beside 
Is a mere feather on a ton'ent's tide. 

Could I, from ' eaven inspired, as sure presage 
To whom the rising year shall prove his last, 
As I can number in my punctual page, 
And item down the victims of the past; 

How each would trembhng wait the mournful 

sheet. 
On which the press might stamp him next to die; 
And, reading here his sentence, how replete 
With, anxious meaning, heavenward turn his 

eye! 

Time then would seem more precious than the 

joys 
In which he sports away the treasure now; 
And prayer more seasonable than the noise 
Of drunkards, or the music-drawing bow. 

Then doubtless many a trifier on the brink 
Of this world's hazardous and headlong shore. 
Forced to a pause, would feel it good to think. 
Told that his setting sun must rise no more. 

Ah self-deceived! Could I prophetic say 
Who next is fated, and who next to fall, 
The rest might then seem privileged to play; 
But, naming none, the Voice now speaks to all. 

Observe the dappled foresters, how light 
They bound and airy o'er the sunny glade — 
One falls — the rest, wide-scattered with affright. 
Vanish at once into the darkest shade. 

Had we their wisdom, should we, often warned, 
StUl need repeated warnings, and at last, 
A thousand awful admonitions scorned, 
Die self-accused of life run all to waste 1 



Sad waste! for which no after-thrift atones, 
The grave admits no cure for guilt or sin ; 
Dew-drops may deck the turf, that hides the bones, 
But tears of godly grief, ne'er flow within. 

Learn then, ye living! by the mouths be taught 
Of all these. sepulchres, instructers true. 
That, soon or late, death also is your lot. 
And the next opening grave may yawn for you. 



ON A SIMILAR OCCASION, 

FOR THE YEAR 1789. 

—Placidaque ibi demiim morte quievit. — Virg. 
There calm at length he breathed his soul away. 

" O MOST delightful hour by man 

Experienced here below. 
The hour that terminates liis span, 

His folly, and his wo! 

" Worlds should not bribe me back to tread 

Again life's dreary waste. 
To see again my days o'erspread 

With all the gloomy past. 

" My home henceforth is in the skies, 

Earth, seas, and sun adieu! 
All heaven unfolded to mine eyes, 

I have no sight for you." 

So spake Aspasio, firm possessed 

Of faith's supporting rod, 
Then breathed his soul into its rest. 

The bosoni of his God. 

He was a man ambng the few 

Sincere on virtue's side; 
And all his strength from Scripture drew 

To hourly use applied. 

That rule he prized, by that he feared^ 
He hated, hoped, and loved; " 

Nor ever frovpned, or sad appeared. 
Bur when his heart had roved. 

For he was frail as thou or I, 

And evil felf within: 
But, when he felt it, heaved a sigh. 

And loathed the thought of sin. 

Such Uved Aspasio; and at last 
Called up from earth to heaven, 

The gulf of death triumphant passed. 
By gales of blessmg driven. 

His joys be mine, each reader cries, 

When my last hour arrives: 
They shall be yours, my verse replies, 

Such only be your lives. 



140 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



ON A SIMILAR OCCASION. 

FOR THE TEAR 1790. 

Ne commonentem recta sperne. — Buchanan. 
Despise not my good couaseL 

He who sits fi-om day to day, 
Where the prisoned lark is hungj 

Heedless of his loudest lay, 
Hardly knows that he ha,s sung. 

Where the watchman in his round 
Nightly Ufts his voice on high, 

None, accustomed to the soimd, 
Wtikes the sooner for his cry. 

So your verse-man I, and clerk, 

Yearly in my song proclaim 
Death at hand — yourselves his mark — 

And the foe's unerring aim. 

Duly at my time I come, 

Publishing to all aloud — 
Soon the grave must be your home, 

And your only suit, a shroud. 

But the monitory strain. 

Oft repeated in your ears, 
Seems to sound too much in vain. 

Wins no notice, wakes no fears. 

Can a truth, by all confessed 
Of such magnitude and weight 

Grow, by being oft impressed, 
Trivial as a parrot's prate"? 

Pleasure's call attention wins. 

Hear it often as we may; 
New as ever seem our sins, 

Though committed every day. 

Death and Judgment, Heaven and Hell — 

These alone, so often heard. 
No more move us than the bell, 

WTieh sOTne stranger is interred. 

O then, ere the turf or tomb 

Cover us from every eye. 
Spirit of instruction come, 

Make us learn, that we must die. 



ON A SIMILAR OCCASION. 

FOR THE YEAR 1792. 

Felix, qui potuit rertim cognoscere causas, 
Atque 7>ietus omnes et inexorabile faium 
Subjecit pedibus, slrepiluinque Acherontis avari ! 

Virg. 
Happy the mortal, who ha.s traced effects 
To their firet cause, cast fear beneath his feel, 
And Death aind roaring Hell's voracious fires ! 

Thankle.ss for favours from on high, 
Man thinks he fades too soon ; 



Though 'tis his privilege to die. 
Would he improve the boon. 

But he, not wise enough to scan 

His blest concerns aright, 
Would gladly stretch hfe's little span 

To ages, if he might. 

To ages in a world of pain, 

To ages, where he goes 
Galled by affliction's heavy chain. 

And hopeless of repose. 

Strange fondness of the human heart, 

Enamoured of its harm ! 
Strange world, that costs it so much smart, 

And still has power to charm. 

Whence has the world her magic power 1 

Why deem we death a foe "? 
Recoil from weary life's best hour. 

And covet longer wo 1 

The cause is Conscience — Conscience oft 

Her tale of guilt renews : 
Her voice is terrible though soft, 

And dread of death ensues. 

Then anxious to be longer spared, 
Man mourns his fleeting breath : 

All evils then seem light, compared 
With the approach of Death. 

'Tis judgment shakes him ; there's the fear, 
That prompts the wish to stay ; 

He has incurred a long arrear. 
And must despair to pay. 

Pay! — follow Christ, and all is paid : 

His death your peace ensures ; 
Think on the grave where he was laid. 

And calm descend to yours. 



ON A SIMILAR OCCASION. 

FOE THE YEAR 1793. 

De sacris auiem fuze sit zma sententia, ut conserventur. 

Cic. de Leg. 
But let us all concur in this one sentiment, that things sa. 
cred be inviolate. 

He lives, who hves to God alone. 

And all are dead beside ; 
For other source than God is none 

Whence life can be supplied. 

To live to God is to requite 

His love as best we may ; 
To make his precepts our delight. 

His promises our stay. 

But life, within a narrow ring 
Of giddy joys comprised. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Ul 



Is falsely named, and no such thing, 
But rather death disguised. 

Can hfe in them deserve the name, 

Who only live to prove 
For what poor toys they can disclaim 

An endless life above 1 

Who, much diseased, yet nothing feel, 
Much menaced, nothing dread ; 

Have wounds, which only God can heal, 
Yet never ask his aid ? 

Who deem his house a useless place, 
Faith, want of common sense ; 

And ardour in the Christian race, 
A hypocrite's pretence 7 

Who trample order ; and the day. 
Which God asserts his own, 

Dishonour with unhallowed play. 
And worship chance alone 1 

If scorn of God's commands, impressed 

On word and deed, imply 
The better part of man unblessed 

With Ufe that can not die : 

Such want it, and that want, uncured 

Till man resigns his breath, 
Speaks him a criminal, assured 

Of everlasting death. 

Sad period to a pleasant course ! 

Yet so will God repay 
Sabbaths profaned without remorse. 

And mercy cast away. 



INSCRIPTION 

FOR THE TOMB OF MR. HAMILTON. 

Pause here, and think ; a monitory rhyme 
Demands one moment of thy fleeting time. 

Consult life's silent clock, thy bounding vein; 
Seems it to say — " Health here has long toreignT' 
Hast thou the vigoiu of thy youth'? an eye 
That beams delighf? a heart untaught to sighl 
Yet fear. Youth ofttimes healthful and at ease, 
. Anticipates a day it never sees ; 
And many a tomb, like Hamilton's, aloud 
Exclaims, "Prepare thee for an early shroud." 



EPITAPH ON A HARE. 

Here lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue. 
Nor svsdfter greyhound follow, 

Whose feet ne'er tainted morning dew, 
Nor ear heard huntsman's hallo'. 



Old Tiney, surUest of his kind, 
Wlio nursed vnth tender care, 

And to domestic bounds confined. 
Was still a wild Jack-hare. 

Though duly from my hand he took 

His pittance every night, 
He did it with a jealous look. 

And, when he could, would bite. 

His diet was of wheaten bread. 
And milk and oats, and straw; 

Thistles, or lettuces instead. 
With sand to scorn: his maw. 

On twigs of hawthorn he regaled, 

Or pippin's russet peel. 
And, when his juicy salads failed, 

Sliced carrot pleased 1dm well. 

A Turkey carpet was his lawn, 
Whereon he loved to bound. 

To sldp and gambol like a fawn. 
And svrnig his rump around. 

His frisking was at evening hours. 

For then he lost his fear. 
But most before approaching showers. 

Or when a storm drew near. 

Eight years and five round rollmg moons 

He thus saw steal away, 
Dozing out all his idle noons. 

And every night at play. 

I kept him for his humour's sake, 

For he would oft beguile 
My heart of thoughts that made it ache, 

And force me to a smile. 

But now beneath his walnut shade 
He finds his long last home, . 

And waits, in snug concealment laid. 
Till gentler Puss shall come. 

He, still more aged, feels the shocks, 
From which no care can save. 

And, partner once of Tiney's box, 
Must soon partake his grave. 



EPITAPHIUM ALTERUM. 

Hie etiam jacet, 

Q,ui totum novennium vixit. 

Puss. 

Siste paulisper, 

dui proeteriturus es, 

Et tecum sic reputa — 

Hunc neque canis venaticus, 

Nee plumbimi missile, 

Nee laqueus, 



142 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Nee imbres nimii, 

Confeccrc: 

Tamen mortuus est — 

Et moriar ego. 



STANZAS 

ON THE FIRST PUBLICATION OP SIR CHARLES 
GRANDISON, IN 1753. 

To rescue from the tyrant's sword 

Th' oppressed; — unseen and unimplored, 

To cheer the face of wo ; 
From lawless insult to defend 
An orphan's right — a fallen friend, 

And a forgiven foe ; 

These, these distingtdsli from the crowd. 
And these alone, the great and good, 

The guardians of mankind ; 
Whose bosoms with these virtues heave 
O, with what matchless speed, they leave 

The multitude behind ! 

Then ask ye, from what cause on earth 
Virtues like these derive their birth. 

Derived from heaven alone, 
Full on that favoured breast they shine, 
Where faith and resignation join 

To call the blessing down. 

Such is that heart : — but while the Muse 
Thy theme, O Richardson, pursues, 

Her feeble spirits faint : 
She can not reach, and would not wrong, 
That subject for an angel's song, 

The hero, and the saint ! 



ADDRESS TO MISS 



ON READING THE PRAYER FOR INDIFFERENCE. 

And dwells there in a female heart. 

By bounteous heaven designed 
The choicest raptures to impart. 

To feel the most refined — 

Dwells there a wish in such a breast 

Its nature to forego. 
To smother in ignoble rest 

At once both bUss and wo 1 

Far be the thought, and far the strain, 

Which breathes the low desire. 
How sweet soe'er the verse complain. 

Though Phoebus stiing the lyre. 

Come then, fair maid, (in nature wise) 
Who, knowing them, can tell 



From generous sympathy what joys 
The glowing bosom swell. 

In justice to the various powers 

Of pleasing, which you share. 
Join me, amid your silent hours. 

_To form the better prayer. 

With lenient balm, may OVron hence 

To fairy-land be driven ; 
With every herb that blunts the sense 

Mankind received from heaven. 

" Oh ! if my Sovereign Author please, 

Far be it from my fate. 
To Uve, unblest in torpid ease 

And slumber on in state. 

" Each tender tie of life defied 
Whence social pleasures spring, 

Unmoved with all the world beside, 
A sohtary tMng — " 

Some alpine mountain, wrapt in snow, 
Thus braves the whhiing blast, 

Eternal winter doomed to know. 
No genial spring to taste. 

In vain warm suns their influence shed 

The zephyrs sport in vain. 
He rears, unchanged, his barren head, 

Whilst beauty decks the plain. . 

What though in scaly armour drest, 

Indifference may repel 
The shafts of wo — in such a breast 

No joy can ever dwell. 

'Tis woven in the world's great plan, 

And fixed by heaven's decree, 
That all the true delights of man 

Should spring from Sympathy. 

'Tis nature bids, and whilst the laws 

Of nature we retain. 
Our self-approving bosom draws 

A pleasure from its pain. 

Thus grief itself has comforts dear. 

The sordid never know ; 
And ccstacy attends the tear, 

Wlien virtue bids it flow. 

For, when it streams from that pure source, 

No bribes the heart can win, 
To check, or alter from its course 

The luxury within. 

Peace to the phlegm of sullen elves, 

Who, if from labour eased, 
Extend no care beyond themselves, 

Unpleasing and unpleased. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



143 



Let no low thought suggest the prayer, 
Oh ! grant, kind heaven, to me, 

Long as I draw ethereal air. 
Sweet Sensibihty. 

Where'er the heavenly nymph is seen. 

With lustre-beaming eye, 
A train, attendant on their queenj 

(Her rosy chorus) fly. 

The jocund Loves in Hymen's band, 

With torches ever bright, 
And generous Friendship hand in hand, 

With Pity's watery sight. 

The gentler virtues too are joined. 

In youth immortal warm, 
The soft relations, which, combined, 

Give life her every charm. 

The arts come smiling in the close. 

And lend celestial fire. 
The marble breathes, the canvass glows, 

The muses sweep the lyre. 

" Still may my melting bosom cleave 

To sufferings not my own. 
And still the sigh responsive heave. 

Where'er is heard a groan. 

" So Pity shall take Virtue's part, 

Her natural ally, 
And fashioning my softened heart, 

Prepare it for the sky." 

This artless vow may heaven receive. 
And you, fond maid, approve; 

So may your guiding angel give 
Whate'er you wish or love: 

So may the rosy fingered hours 

Lead on the various year, 
And every joy, wliich now is yours. 

Extend a larger sphere; 

And suns to come, as round they wheel, 

Your golden moments bless, 
With all a tender heart can feel. 

Or lively fancy guess. 



A TALE, 



rOONDED ON A FACT WHICH HAPPENED IN JANUARY, 
1779. 

Where Humber pours his rich commercial stream. 
There dwelt a wretch, who breathed but to blas- 
pheme. 
In subterraneous caves his life he led. 
Black as the mine in which he wrought for bread. 
When on a day, emerging from the deep, 
A sabbath-day, (such sabbaths thousands keep!) 
The wages of his weekly toil he bore 
To buy a cock — whose blood might win him more; 



As if the noblest of the feathered kind 
Were but for battle and for death designed ; 
As if the consecrated hours were meant 
For sport, to minds on cruelty intent; 
It chanced (such chances Providence obey) 
He met a fellow-labourer on the way. 
Whose heart the same desires had onpe inflamed; 
But now the savage temper was reclaimed. 
Persuasion on his lips had taken place; 
For all plead well who plead the cause of grace: 
His iron-heart with Scripture he assailed, 
Wooed him to hear a sermon, and prevailed. 
His faithful bow the mighty preacher drew. 
Swift, as the hghtning-glance, the arrow flew. 
He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around, 
To find a worse than he ; but none he found. 
He felt his sins, and wondered he sheuld feel. 
Grace made the wound, arid grace alone could heal. 
Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and hes ! 
He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize. 
That holy day which washed with many a tear. 
Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear. 
The next, his swarthy brethren of the mine 
Learned, by his altered speech — the change divine 
Laughed when they should have wept, and swore 

the day ^ 

Was nigh, when he would swear as fast as they. 
"No, (said the penitent,) such words shall share 
This breath no more ; devoted now to prayer. 
O ! if thou see'st (thine eye the future sees) 
That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these; 
Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel. 
Ere yet this heart relapses into steel ; 
Now take me to that Heaven I once defied, 
Thy presence, thy embrace !" — He spoke and died. 



TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON, 

ON HIS RET0RN FROM RAMSGATE. 

That ocean you have late surveyed, 

Those rocks I too have -seen. 
But I, afflicted and dismayed. 

You tranquil and serene. 

You from the flood-controlling steep 
Saw stretched before your view. 

With conscious joy, the threatening deep. 
No longer such to you. 

To me, the waves that ceaseless broke 

Upon the dangerous coast, 
Hoarsely and ominously spoke 

Of all my treasure lost. 

Your sea of troubles you have past. 
And found the peaceful shore; 

I, tempest-tossed, and wrecked at last, 
Come home to port no more. 



144 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LADY 
AUSTEN. 

Dear Anna — between friend and friend, 
Prose answers every common end ; 
Serves, in a plain and homely way. 
T' express th' occurrence of the day; 
Our health, the weather, and the news; 
What walks we take, what books we choose; 
And all the floating thoughts we find 
Upon the surface of the mind. 

But when a poet takes the pen, 
Far more ahve than other men, 
He feels a gentle tingling come 
Down to his finger and his thumb, 
Derived from nature's noblest part, 
The centre of a glowing heart: 
And this is what the world, who knows 
No flights above the pitch of prose, 
His more sublime vagaries shghting. 
Denominates an itch for writing. 
No wonder I, who scribble rhyme 
To catch the trrflers of the time, 
And tell them truths divine and clear, 
Which, couched in prose, they will not hear; 
Who labour hard t' allmre fflad draw 
The loiterers I never saw. 
Should feel that itching, and that tingling, 
With all my purpose interminghng. 
To your intrinsic merit true, 
When called t' address myself to you. 

Mysterious are his ways, whose power 
Brings forth that unexpected hour. 
When minds, that never met before. 
Shall meet, unite, and part no more: 
It is th' allotment of the skies, 
The hand of the Supremely Wise, 
That guides and governs our affections. 
And plans and orders our connexions: 
Directs us in our distant road. 
And marks the bounds of our abode. 
Thus we were settled when you found us, 
Peasants and children all around us, 
Not dreaming of so dear a friend. 
Deep in the abyss of Silver-End.* 
Thus Martha, e'en against her will. 
Perched on the top of yonder hill ; 
And you, though you must needs prefer 
The fairer scenes of sweet Sancerre,t 
Are come from distant Loire, to choose 
A cottage on the banks of Ouse. 
This page of Providence quite new, 
And now just opening to our view. 



• An obscure part of Olney, adjoining to the residence of 
Cowper, which faced tlie market-place, 
t Lady Austen's residence in France, 



Employs our present thoughts and pains 
To guess, and spell, what it contains; 
But day by day, and year by year, 
Will make the dark enigma clear; 
And furnish us, perhaps, at last. 
Like other scenes already past. 
With proof, that we, and our affairs. 
Are part of a Jehovah's cares : 
For God unfolds, by slow degrees, 
The purport of his deep decrees; 
Sheds every hour a clearer light 
In aid of our defective sight ; 
And spreads, at length, before the soul, 
A beautiful and perfect whole. 
Which busy man's inventive bram 
Toils to anticipate in vain. 

Say, Anna, had you never known 
The beauties of a rose full blown. 
Could you, though luminous your eye, 
By looking on the bud, descry. 
Or guess, wdth a prophetic power, 
The future splendour of the flower 1 
Just so, th' Omnipotent, who turns 
The system of a world's concerns, 
From mere minutiae can educe 
Events of most important use ; 
And bid a dawning sky display 
The blaze of a meridian day. 
The works of man tend, one and all. 
As needs they must, from great so small ; 
And vanity absorbs at length 
The monuments of human strength. 
But who can tell how vast the plan 
Which this day's incident began "? 
Too small, perhaps, the slight occasion. 
For our dim-sighted observation ; 
It passed unnoticed, as the bird 
That cleaves the yielding air unheard, 
And yet may prove, when understood, 
A harbinger of endless good. 

Not that I deem, or mean to call 
Friendship a blessing cheap or small : 
But merely to remark, that ours, 
Like some of nature's sweetest flowers. 
Rose from a seed of tiny size. 
That seemed to promise no such prize; 
A transient visit intervening. 
And made almost without a meaning, 
(Hardly the effect of inchnation. 
Much less of pleasing expectation,) 
Produced a friendship, then begun. 
That has cemented us in one; 
And placed it in our power to prove. 
By long fidelity and love. 
That Solomon has wisely spoken, 
" A threefold cord is not soon broken." 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



145 



SONG* 
^ir— The Lass of Patie's Mill. 

When all within is peace, 

How Nature seems to smile! 
Delights that never cease, 

The live-long day beguile. 
From morn to dewy eve, 

With open hand she showers 
Fresh blessings to deceive, 

And sooth the silent hours. 

It is content of heart 

Gives nature power to please; 
The mind that feels no smart, 

Enlivens all it sees: 
Can make a wintry sky 

Seem bright as smiling May, 
And evening's closing eye 

As peep of early day. 

The vast majestic globe, 

So beauteously arrayed 
In Nature's various robe 

With wondrous skill displayed, 
Is to a mourner's heart 

A dreary wild at best ; 
It flutters to depart,' 

And longs to be at rest. 



VERSES 

SELECTED PROM AN OCCASIONAL POEM, ENTITLED 
VALEDICTION. 

Oh Friendship ! . Cordial of the human breast 
So little felt, so fervently professed ! 
Thy blossoms deck our unsuspecting years ; 
The promise of delicious fruit appears : 
We hug the hopes of constancy and truth, 
Such is the folly of our dreaming youth ; 
But soon, alas ! detect the rash mistake 
That sanguine inexperience loves to make ; 
And view with tears th' expected harvest lost. 
Decayed by time, or withered by a frost, 
Whoever vuidertakes a friend's great part 
Should be renewed in nature, pure in heart. 
Prepared for martyrdom, and strong to prove 
A thousand ways the force of genuine love. 
He may be called to give up health and gain, 
T' exchange content for trouble, ease for pain, 
To echo sigh for sigh, and groan for groan. 
And wet his cheeks with sorrows not his own. 
The heart of man, for such a task too frail, 
When most reUed on, is most sure to fail ; 



' Written at the request of Lady Austen. 



And, summoned to partake its fellow's wo. 
Starts from its office, like a broken bow. 

Votaries of business, and of pleasmre prove 
Faithless alike in friendship and in love. 
Retired from all the circles of the gay. 
And all the crowds, that bustle life away. 
To scenes, where competition, envy, strife, 
Beget no thunder-clouds to trouble life, 
Let me, the charge of some good angel, find 
One, who has known, and has escaped mankind; 
Polite, yet virtuous, who has brought away 
The manners, not the morals, of the day : 
With him, perhaps with her, (for men have known 
No firmer friendships than the fair have shown,) 
Let me enjoy, in some unthought-of spot. 
All former friends forgiven, and forgot, 
Down to the close of life's fast fading scene, 
Union of hearts, without a flaw between. 
'Tis grace, 'tis bounty, and it calls for praise. 
If God give health, that sunshine of our days ! 
And if he add, a blessing shared by few, 
Content of heart, more praises still are due— 
But if he grant a friend, that boon possessed, 
Indeed is treasure, and crowns all the rest ; 
And giving one, whose heart is in the skies. 
Born from above, and made divinely wise. 
He gives, what bankrupt nature never can, 
Whose noblest coin is light and brittle man, 
Gold, purer far than Ophir ever knew, 
A soul, an image of himself, and therefore true. 



EPITAPH ON JOHNSON. 

Here Johnson lies^a sage by all allowed, 
Whom to have bred, may well make England proud ; 
Whose prose was eloquence, by wisdom taught. 
The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought ; 
Whose verse may claim — grave, mascuhne, and 

strong, 
Superior praise to the mere poet's song ; 
Who many a noble gift from Heaven possessed. 
And faith at last, alone worth all the rest. 
O man, immortal by a double prize. 
By fame on earth — by glory in the skies ! 



TO MISS C- 



ON HER BIRTH-DAY. 



How many between east and west. 
Disgrace their parent earth. 

Whose deeds constrain us to detest 
The day that gave them birth ! 

Not so when Stella's natal morn 
Revolving months restore. 

We can rejoice that she was born. 
And wish her born once more. 



146 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



GRATITUDE. 

ADDRESSED TO LADY HESKETH. 

This cap, that so stately appears, 

With ribbon-bound tassel on high. 
Which seems by the crest that it rears 

Ambitious of brushuig the sky : 
This cap to my cousin I owe. 

She gave it, and gave me beside, 
Wreathed into an elegant bow, 

The ribbon with which it is tied. 

This wheel-footed studying chair, 

Contrived both for toil and repose, 
Wide elbowed and wadded with hair. 

In which I both scribble and dose, 
Bright studded to dazzle the eyes. 

And rival in lustre of that 
In which, or astronomy lies. 

Fair Cassiopeia sat : 

These carpets, so soft to the foot, 

Caledonia's traffic and pride, 
O spare them ye knights of the boot. 

Escaped from a cross-country ride. 
This table and mirror within, 

Secure from collision and dust. 
At which I oft shave cheek and chin. 

And periwig nicely adjust : 

This moveable structure of shelves, 

For its beauty admired and its use. 
And charged with octavos and twelves, 

The gayest I had to produce ; 
Where, flaming in scarlet and gold. 

My poems enchanted I view. 
And hope, in due time, to behold 

My Iliad and Odyssey too; 

This china, that decks the alcoye, 

Which here people call a buffet, 
But what the gods call it above. 

Has ne'er been revealed to us yet ; 
These curtains, that keep the room warm 

Or cool, as the season demands, 
These stoves that for pattern and form. 

Seem the labour of Mulciber's hands : 

All these are not half that I owe 

To one from her earliest youth 
To me ever ready to show 

Benignity, friendship, and truth : 
For time the destroyer declared 

And foe of our perisliing kind, , 
If even her face he has spared, 

Much less could he alter her mind. 

Thus compassed about with the goods 
And chattels of leisure and ease, 

1 indulge my poetical moods 
In many such fancies as these ; 



And fancies I fear they will seem — 
Poet's goods are not often so fine ; 

The poets will swear that I dream, 
When I sing of the splendour of mine. 



THE FLATTING-MILL. 

AN ILLUSTRATION. 

When a bar of pure silver, or iri^ot of gold, 
Is sent to be flatted or wrought into length. 

It is passed between cyhnders often and rolled 
In an engine of utmost mechanical strength. 

Thus tortured and squeezed, at last it appears 
Like a loose heap of ribbon, a ghttering show, 
Like music it tinldes and rings in your ears, 
And, warmed by the pressure, is all in a glow. 

This process achieved, it is doomed to sustain | 

The thvunp-after-thump of a goldbeater's mallet. 

And at last is of service in sickness or pain 
To cover a pill for a delicate palate. 

Alas for the poet ! who dares undertake 

To urge reformation of national ill — 
His head and his heart are both likely to ache 

With the double employment of mallet and mill. 

If he wdsh to instruct, he must learn to delight. 
Smooth, ductile, and even, his fancy must flow. 

Must tinkle and ghtter Uke gold to the sight. 
And catch in its progress a sensible glow. 

After all, he must beat it as thm and as fine 
As the leaf that unfolds what an invalid swal- 
lows. 

For truth is unwelcome, however divine. 
And unless you adorn it a nausea follows. 



TO MRS. THROCKMORTON, 

ON HER BEAUTIFUL TRANSCRIPT OP HORACE's ODE, 

AD LIBRUM SUUM. 

Maria, could Horace have guessed 

What honour awaited his ode, 
To his own little volume addressed. 

The honour which you have bestowed. 
Who have traced it in characters here 

So elegant, even and neat. 
He had laughed at the critical sneer. 

Which he seems to have trembled to meet, 

And sneer if you please he had said, 

A nymph shall hereafter arise. 
Who shall give me, when you are all dead, 

The glory your malice denies. 
Shall dignity give to my lay. 

Although but a mere bagatelle ; 
And even a poet shall say. 

Nothing ever was written so well. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



147 



STANZAS 

On the late indecent liberties taken with the remains of the 
great Milton— Anno 1790. 

"Me too, perchance, in future days, 
The sculptured stone shall show, 

With Papliian myrtle or with bays 
Parnassian on my brow. 

" But I, or ere that season come, 

Escaped from every care, 
Shall reach my refuge in the tomb, 

And sleep securely there."* 

So sang, in Roman tone and style, 

The youthful bard, ere long 
Ordained to grace his native isle 

With her sublimest song. 

Who then but must conceive disdain. 

Hearing the deed unblest 
Of wretches who have dared profane 
- His dread sepulchral rest"? 

Ill fare the hands that heaved the stones 

Where Milton's ashes lay. 
That trembled not to grasp Hs bones 

Aad steal his dust away ! 

O ill-requited bard! neglect 

Thy Uving worth repaid, 
And blind idolatrous respect 

As much affronts thee dead. 



TO MRS. KING. 

On her kind Present to the Author, a Patch-work Counter- 
pane of her own making. ■ 

The Bard, if e'er he feel at all, 
Must sure be quickened by a call 

Both on his heart and head, 
To pay with tuneful thanks the care 
And kindness of a lady fair 

Who deigns to. deck his bed. 

A bed like this, in ancient time, 
• On Ida's barren top subhme, 
(As Homer's Epic shows) 
Composed of sweetest vernal flowers, 
Without the aid of sun and showers, 
For Jove and Juno rose. 

Less beautiful, however gay. 
Is that which in the scorching day 
Receives the weary swaia 



* Forsitan et nostros ducat de marmore vultua 
Necteua aut Paphia myrti am Pamasside lauri 
Fronde comas— At ego secura pace quiesquam. 

Milton in Mansa. 



Who, laying his long scythe aside. 
Sleeps on some bank with daisies pied, 
Till roused to toil again. 

What labours of the loom I see ! 
Looms numberless have groaned for me ! 

Should every maiden come 
To scramble for the patch that bears 
The impress of the robe she wears. 

The bell would toll for some. 

And oh, what havoc would ensue ! 
This bright display of every hue 

All in a moment fled! 
As if a storm should strip the bowers 
Of all their tendrils, leaves, and flowers — 

Each pocketing a shred. 

Thanks, then, to every gentle fair 
Who will not come to peck me bare. 

As bird of borrowed feather. 
And thanks, to One, above them all. 
The gentle Fair of Pertenhall, 

Who put the whole together. 



THE JUDGMENT OF THE POETS; 

Two nymphs, both nearly of an age, 

Of numerous charms possessed, 
A warm dispute once chanced to wage, 

Whose temper was the best. 

The worth of each had been complete. 

Had both alike been mild: 
But one, although her smile was sweet, 

Frowned oftener than she smiled. 
And in her humour, when she ftowned, 

Would raise her voice and roar. 
And shake with fury to the ground 

The garland that she wore. 

The other was of gentler cast, 

From all such frenzy clear, 
Her frowns were seldom known to last. 

And never proved severe. 

To poets of renovTn in song 
The nymphs referred the cause, 

Who, strange to tell, all judged it v?rong, 
And gave misplaced applause. 

They gentle called, and kind and soft. 

The flippant and the scold. 
And though she changed her mood so ofl. 

That failing left untold. 

No judges, sure, were e'er so mad, 

Or so resolved to err — 
In short, the charms her sister had 

They lavished all on her. 



148 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Then thus the god whom fondly they 

Their great inspirer call, 
Was heard, one genial summer's day, 

To reprimand them all : 

Since thus ye have combined," he said, 
" My favourite nymph to slight, 
Adorning May, that peevish maid, 
With June's undoubted right, 

" The minx shall, for your folly's sake. 

Still prove herself a shrew. 
Shall make your scribbUng fingers ache. 

And pinch your noses blue." 



EPITAPH 

ON MRS. M. HIGGINS, OF WESTON. 

Laurels may flourish round the conqueror's tomb. 
But happiest they, who vnii the world to come : 
Believers have a sUent field to fight, 
And their exploits are veiled from human sight. 
They in some nook, where little known they 

dwell. 
Kneel, pray in faith, and rout the hosts of hell; 
Eternal trimnphs crovm their toils divine, 
And all those triumphs, Mary, now are thine. 



THE RETIRED CAT. 

A Poet's Cat, sedate and grave 
As poet well could wish to have, 
Was much addicted to inquire 
For nooks to which she might retire. 
And where, secure as mouse in chink. 
She might repose, or sit and thirdi. 
I know not where she caught the trick 
Nature perhaps herself had cast her 
In such a mould PHiLOsopHiauE, 
Or else she learned it of her master. 
Sometimes ascending, debonair, 
An apple-tree, or lofty pear. 
Lodged with convenience in the fork. 
She watched the gardener at his work; 
Sometimes her ease and solace sought 
In an old empty watering-pot. 
There wanting nothing, save a fan. 
To seem some nymph in her sedan. 
Appareled in exactest sort. 
And ready to be borne to court. 

But love of change it seems has place 
Not only in our wiser race ; 
Cats also feel, as well as we, 
That passion's force, and so did she. 
Her climbing, she began to find, 
Exposed her too much to the wind. 



^ And the old utensil of tin 
Was cold and comfortless within : 
She therefore wished, instead of those, 
Some place of more serene repose, 
Where neither cold might come, nor air 
Too rudely wanton with her hair. 
And sought it in the Kkeliest mode 
Within her master's snug abode. 

A drawer it chanced, at bottom lined 
With linen of the softest kind. 
With such as merchants introduce 
From India, for the ladies' nse ; 
A drawer impending o'er the rest, 
Half open in the topmost chest, 
Of depth enough, and none to spare, 
Invited her to slumber there ; 
Puss with delight, beyond expression. 
Surveyed the scene and took possession. 
Recumbent at her ease, ere long, 
And lulled by her own humdrum song, 
She left the cares of life behind, 
And slept as she would sleep her last. 
When in came, housewifely inclined, 
The chambermaid, and shut it fast, 
By no mahgnity impelled, 
But all unconscious whom it held. 

Awakened by the shock, (cried puss) 
" Was ever cat attended thus ! 
The open drawer was left, I see, 
Merely to prove a nest for me, 
For soon as I was well composed, 
Then came the maid, and it was closed. 
How smooth these 'kerchiefs, and how sweet ! 
Oh what a delicate retreat ! 
I will resign myself to rest 
Till Sol declining in the west, 
Shall call to supper, when, no doubt, 
Susan vrill come, and let me out." 

The evening came, the sun descended, 
And puss remained still unattended. 
The night rolled tardUy away, 
(With her indeed 'twas never day) 
The sprightly morn her course renewed, 
The evening gray again ensued. 
And puss came into mind no more, 
Than if entombed the day before ; 
With hunger pinched, and pinched for room. 
She now presaged approaching doom. 
Nor slept a single wink, nor purred, 
Conscious of jeopardy incurred. 

That night, by chance, the poet, watching, 
Heard an inexplicable scratching ; 
His noble heart went pit-a-pat, 
And to himself he said—" what's that 1" 
He drew the curtain at his side. 
And forth he peeped, but nothing spied. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



149 



Yet, by his ear directed, guessed 

Something imprisoned in the chest 

And, doubtful what, with prudent care 

Resolved it should continue there. 

At length a voice wliich well he knew, 

A long and melancholy mew, 

Saluting his poetic ears, 

Consoled him and dispelled his fears ; 

He left his bed, he trod the floor, 

He 'gan in haste the drawers explore, 

The lowest first, and without stop 

The rest in order to the top. 

For 'tis a truth well known to most, 

That whatsoever tiling is lost. 

We seek it, ere it come to light. 

In every cranny but the right. 

Forth skipped the cat, not now replete 

As erst with airy self-conceit. 

Nor in her own fond comprehension, 

A theme for all the world's attention, 

But modest, sober, cured of all 

Her notions hyperbolical, 

And wishing for a place of rest, 

Any thing rather than a chest. 

Then stepped the poet into bed 

With this reflection in his head. 

MORAL. 

Beware of too sublime a sense 
Of your own worth and consequence. 
The man who dreams himself so great, 
And liis importance of such weight, 
That all around in all that's done 
Must move and act for him alone. 
Will learn in school of tribulation 
The folly of his expectation. 



TO THE NIGHTINGALE, 

WHICH THE AUTHOR HEARD SING ON NEW-YEAR'k 
DAY. 

Whence is it, that amazed I hear 

From yonder withered spray. 
This foremost morn of all the year, 

The melody of May r 

And why, since thousands would be proud 

Of such a favour shown, 
Am I selected from the crowd 

To witness it alone'? 

Sing'st thou, sweet Philomel, to me, 

For that I also long 
, Have practised in the groves like thee, 
Though not like thee in songl 

Or sing'st thou rather under force 

Of some divine command, 
'Commissioned to presage a course 

Of happier days at hand! 



Thrice welcome then ! for many a long 

And joyless year have I, 
As thou to-day, put forth my song 

Beneath a wintry sky. 

But thee no wintry skies can harm. 

Who only need'st to sing. 
To make e'en January charm, 

And every season Spring. 



SONNET. 



TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, ESft. 

Thy country, Wilberforce, with just disdain, 
Hears thee by cruel men and impious called 
Frantic, for thy zeal to loose the enthralled 

From exile, public sale, and slavery's chain. 
Friend of the poor, the wronged, the fetter- 
galled. 

Fear not lest labour such as thine be vain. 

Thou hast achieved a part; hast gained the ear 

Of Britain's senate to thy glorious cause; 

Hope smiles, joy springs, and though cold caution 
pause 
And weave delay, the better hour is near 
That shall remunerate thy toils severe 

By peace for Afiric, fenced vrith British laws. 

Enjoy what thou hast won, esteem and love 
From all the just on earth, and all the blest above. 



EPIGRAM. 

PRINTED IN THE NORTHAMPTON MERCURY. 

To purify their wine some people bleed 
I A lamb into the barrel, and succeed; 
No nostrum, planters say, is half so good 
To make fine sugar, as a negro's blood. 
Now lambs and negroes both are harmless things 
! And thence perhaps the wondrous virtue springs. 
'Tis in the blood of innocence alone — 
Good cause why planters never try their own. 



TO DR. AUSTIN, 

or CECIL-STREET, LONDON. 

Austin! accept a grateful verse from me, 
The poet's treasure, no inglorious fee. 
Loved by the Muses, thy ingenuous mind 
Pleasing requital in my verse may find; 
Verse ofl; has dashed the scythe of Tune aside; 
Immortalizing names which else had died. 
And O ! could I command the gUttering wealth 
With which sick kings are glad to purchase 
health; 



150 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Yet, if extensive fame and sure to live, 
Were in the power of verse like mine to give, 
I would not recompense his art with less, 
Who, giving Mary health, heals my distress. 

Friend of my friend !* I love thee, tho' unknown. 
And boldly call thee, being his, my own. 



SONNET. 



ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM HAYLET, ESa. 

Hayley — thy tenderness fraternal shown, 

In our first interview, delightful guest ! 

To Mary and me for her dear sake distressed. 
Such as it is has made my heart thy own. 
Though heedless now of new engagements grown; 

For threescore winters make a wintry breast, 

And i had purposed ne'er to go in quest 
Of Friendship more, except with God alone ; 

But thou hast won me: nor is God my foe. 
Who, ere this last afflictive scene began. 

Sent thee to mitigate the dreadful blow. 

My brother, by whose sympathy I know 
Thy true deserts infalhbly to scan, 
Not more t' admire the bard than love the man. 



CATHARINA. 

On her Marriage to George Coui'tnay, Esq. 

Believe it or not as you choose. 

The doctrine is certainly true, 
That the future is known to the muse, 

And poets are oracles too. 
I did but express a desire 

To see Catharina at home, 
At the side of my friesd George's fire. 

And lo — she is actually come. 

Such prophecy some may despise, 

But the wish of a poet and friend 
Perhaps is approved in the skies. 

And therefore attains to its end. 
'Twas a wish that flew ardently forth 

From a bosom eflectually warmed 
With the talents, the graces, and worth 

Of the person for whom it was formed. 

Mariat would leave us, I knew. 

To the grief and regret of us all, 
But less to our grief, could we view 

Catharina the queen of the hall. 
And therefore I wished as I did. 

And therefore this union of hands 
Not a whisper was heard to forbid. 

But all cry — amen — to the bans. 



' Hayley. 



1 Lady Throckmorton. 



Since therefore I seem to incur 
No danger of wisliing in vain, 

When making good wishes for her. 
I will e'en to my wishes again — 

With one I have made her a wife, 
And now I will try vdth another, 

Which I can not suppress for my life- 
How soon I can make her a mother. 



SONNET. 



TO GEORGE ROMNEY, ESa. 

On his picture of me in crayons, drawn at Eartham in the 
6ist year of my age, and in the montiis of August and Sep* 
tember, 1792. 

RoMNEY expert, infallibly to trace 
On chart or canvass, not the form alone 
And semblance, but, however faintly shown, 

The mind's impression too on every face — 

With strokes that time ought never to erase, 
Thou hast so penciled mine, that though I own 
The subject worthless, I have never known 

The artist shining wdth superior grace. 

But this I mark — that symptoms none of wo 
In thy incomparable work appear. 

Well — I am satisfied it should be so. 

Since, on maturer thought, the cause is clear; 

For in my looks what sorrow co\ildst thou see 

When I was Hayley 's guest, and sat to theel 



ON RECEIVING HAYLEY'S PICTURE. 

In language warm as could be breathed or penned, 
Thy picture speaks th' original, my friend, 
Not by those looks that indicate thy mind — 
They only speak thee friend of aU mankind; 
Expression here more soothing still I see, 
That friend of all a partial friend to me. 



ON A PLANT OF VIRGIN'S BOWER. 

DESIGNED TO COVER A GARDEN-SEAT. 

Thrive, gentle plant! and weave a bower 

For Mary and for me. 
And deck with many a splendid flower 

Thy foliage large and free. 

Thou cam'st from Eartham, and wilt shade 

(If truly I divine) 
Some future day th' illustrious head 

Of Him who made thee mine. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



151 



Should Daphne show a jealous ftown, 

And envy seize the bay, 
Affinning none so fit to crown 

Such honoured brows as they. 

Thy cause with zeal we shall defend, 
And with convincing power; 

For why should not the virgin's friend 
Be crowned with virgin's bower 1 



TO MY COUSIN, ANNE BODHAM, 

ON RECEIVING FROM HER A NET-WORK PURSE, 
MADE BY HERSELF. 

My gentle Anne, whom heretofore, 
When I was young, and thou no more 

Than plaything for a nurse, 
I danced and fondled on my knee, 
A kitten both in size and glee, 

I thank thee for my purse. 

Gold pays the worth of all things here; 
But not of love; — that gem's too dear 

For richest rogues to win it; 
I, therefore, as a proof of love, 
Esteem thy present far above 

The best things kept within it. 



TO MRS. UNWIN. 

Mary! I want a lyre vrith other strings. 

Such aid from heaven as some have feigned they 

drew. 
An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new 

And undebased by praise of meaner things, 

That ere through age or wo I shed my wings, 
I may record thy worth with honour due, 
In verse as musical as thou art true, 

And that immortalizes whom it sings. 

But thou hast little need. There is a book 
By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, 

On which the eyes of God not rarely look, 
A chronicle of actions just and bright; 

There all thy deeds, my faithfid Mary, shine, 
And, since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee 
mine. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Dear architect of fine chateaux in air. 
Worthier to stand for ever, if they could. 
Than any built of stone, or yet of wood. 

For back of royal elephant to bear ! 

O for permission from the skies to share. 
Much to my own, though httle to thy good. 
With thee (not subject to the jealous mood!) 

A partnership of literary ware ! 
11 



But I am bankrupt now; and doomed henceforth 
To drudge, in descant dry, on others' lays; 

Bards, I acknowledge, of unequalled worth! 
But what is commentator's happiest praise I 

That he has furnished hghts for other eyes. 
Which they, who need them, use, and then despise. • 



ON A SPANIEL, CALLED BEAU, 

KILLING A YOUNG BIRD. 

A SPANIEL, Beau, that fares like you, 

Well-fed, and at his ease. 
Should wiser be than to pxursue 

Each trifle that he sees. 

But you have killed a tiny bird. 

Which flew not till to-day, 
Against my orders, whom you heard 

Forbidding you the prey. 

Nor did you kill that you might eat. 

And ease a doggish pain, 
For him, though chased with ftirious heat, 

You lefl; where he was slain. 

Nor was he of the thievish sort, 

Or one whom blood allures. 
But innocent was all his sport 

Whom you have torn for yours. 

My dog ! what remedy remains, 

Since, teach you all I can, 
I see you, after all my pains, 

So much resemble man'? 



BEAU'S REPLY. 

Sir, when I flew to seize the bird 

In spite of your command, 
A louder voice than yours I heard, 

And harder to withstand. 

You cried — forbear — but in my breast 
A mightier cried — proceed — 

'Twas Nature, sir, whose strong behest 
Impelled me to the deed. 

Yet much as nature I respect, 

I ventured once to break, 
(As you perhaps may recollect) 

Her precept for your sake ; 

And when yovir linnet on a day, 

Passing his prison door. 
Had fluttered all his strength away, 

And panting pressed the floor, 



152 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Well knowing him a sacred thing, 
Not destined to my tooth, 

I only kissed his ruffled wing. 
And licked the feathers smooth. 

Let my obedience then excuse 

My disobedience now, 
Nor some reproof yourselves refiise 

From your aggrieved bow-wow; 

If killing brids be such, a crime, 
(Wliich I can hardly see,) 

What think you, sir, of kUling Time 
With verse addressed to me 1 



TO MARY. 



The twentieth year is well nigh past, 
Since our first sky was overcast. 
Ah would that this might be the last ! 

My Mary! 

Thy spirits have a fainter flow, 

I see them daily weaker grow 

'Twas my distress that brought thee low 
My Mary! 

Thy needles, once a shining store. 
For my sake restless heretofore, 
Now rust disused, and shine no more. 

My Mary! 

For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil 
The same kind office for me still, 
Thy sight now seconds not thy will. 

My Mary! 

> But well thou playd'st the housewife's part, 
And all thy threads with magic art. 
Have wound themselves about this heart. 
My Mary ! 

Thy indistinct expressions seem 
Like language uttered in a dream ; 
Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme. 
My Mary! 

Thy silver locks once auburn bright. 
Are still more lovely in my sight 
Than golden beams of orient light, 

My Mary! 

For could I view nor them nor thee, 
What sight worth seeing could I see *? 
The sun would rise in vain for me, 

My Mary! 

Partakers of thy sad decline. 
Thy hands their little force resign ; 
Yet gently prcst, press gently mine. 

My Mary! 



Such feebleness of limbs thou prov'st, 
That now at every step thou mov'st. 
Upheld by two, yet still thou lov'st. 

My Mary! 

And still to love, though prest with ill, 
In wintry age to feel no chill, 
With me is to be lovely stUl, 

My Mary! 

But ah ! by constant heed I know. 
How oft the sadness that I show. 
Transforms thy smiles to looks of wo, 

My Mary! 

And should my fiiture lot be cast 
With much resemblance of the past. 
Thy worn-out heart will break at last. 

My Mary! 



ON THE ICE ISLANDS, 

SEEN FLOATING IN THE GERMAN OCEAN. 

What portents, from that distant region, ride, 
Unseen till now in ours, the astonished tide 1 
In ages past, old Proteus, with his droves 
Of seacalves, sought the mountains and the groves. 
But now, descending whence of late they stood. 
Themselves the mountains seem to rove the flood. 
Dire times were they, full-charged with human 

woes; 
And these, scarce less calamitous than those. 
What view we now 1 More wondrous still "? Be- 
hold ! 
Like burnished brass they shine, or beaten gold ; 
And all around the pearl's pure splendour show, 
And all around the ruby's fiery glow. 
Come they from India, where the burning earth, 
All bounteous, gives her richest treasures birth ; 
And where the costly gems, that beam around 
The brows of mightiest potentates, are found '? 
No. Never such a countless dazzUng store 
Had left, unseen, the Ganges' peopled shore. 
Rapacious hands, and ever-watchful eyes. 
Should sooner far have marked and seized the 

prize. 
Whence sprang they thenl Ejected have they come 
From Ves'vius', or from ./Etna's burning womb 1 
Thus shine they self-illumed, or but display 
The borrowed splendours of a cloudless day ? 
With borrowed beams they shine. The gales, 

that breathe 
Now landward, and the current's force beneath. 
Have borne them nearer : and the nearer sight. 
Advantaged more, contemplates them aright. 
Their lofty summits crested liigh, they show. 
With mingled sleet, and long-incumbent snow. 
The rest is ice. Far hence, where most, severe, 
Bleak winter well-nigh saddens all the year. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



153 



Their infant growth began. He bade arise 
Their uncouth forms, portentous in our eyes. 
Oft as dissolved by transient suns, the snow- 
Left the tall cliff, to join the flood below ; 
He caught, and curdled with a freezing blast 
The cun-ent, ere it reached the boundless waste. 
By slow degrees uprose the wondrous pile, 
And long successive ages rolled the while ; 
Till, ceaseless in its growth, it claimed to stand, 
TaU as its rival mountains on the land. 
Thus stood, and unremoveable by sldll. 
Or force of man, had stood the structure still ; 
But that, though firmly fixed, supplanted yet 
By pressure of its own enormous weight. 
It left the shehing beach — and, with a sound 
That shook the bellowing waves and rocks around 
Self-launched, and swiftly, to the briny wave. 
As if instinct wdth strong desire to lave, 
Down went the ponderous mass. So bards of old, 
How Dclos swam th' jEgean deep, have told. 
But not of ice was Delos. Delos bore 
Herb, fruit, and flower. She, crowned with laurel, 

wore. 
Even under wintry skies, a summer smile ; 
And Delos was Apollo's favourite isle. 
But, horrid wanderers of the deep, to you, 
He deems Cimmerian darkness only due. 
Your hated birth he deigned not to survey. 
But, scornful, turned his glorious eyes away. 
Hence ! seek your home, nor longer rashly dare 
The darts of Phoebus, and a softer air ; 
Lest ye regret, too late, your native coast, 
In no congenial gulf for ever lost ! 

THE CASTAWAY. 

Obscurest night involved the sky ; 

Th' Atlantic billows roared, 
When such a destined wretch as I, 

Washed headlong from on board. 
Of friends, of hopes, of all bereft, 
His floating home for ever left. 

No braver chief could Albion boast, 

Than he, with whom we went, 
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast, 

With warmer wishes sent. 
He loved them both, but both in vain, 
Nor him beheld, nor her again. 

Not long beneath the whelming brine, 

Expert to swim he lay ; 
Nor soon he felt his strength decline, 

Or courage die away ; 
But waged with death a lasting strife, 
Supported by despair of life. 

He shouted ; nor his friends had failed 

To check the vessel's course. 
But so the furious blast prevailed, 

That, pitiless, perforce, 



They left their outcast mate behind, 
And scudded still before the wind. 

Some succour yet they could afl!brd ; 

And, such as storms allow. 
The cask, the coop, the floated cord, 

Delayed not to bestow ; 
But he (they knew) nor ship nor shore, 
Whate'er they gave, should visit more. 

Nor, cruel as it seemed, could he. 
Their haste himself condemn. 

Aware that flight, in such a sea. 
Alone could rescue them ; 

Yet bitter felt it still to die 

Deserted, and his friends so nigh. 

He long survives, who lives an hour 

In ocean self-upheld : 
And so long he, with unspent power 

His destiny repelled : 
And ever as the minutes flew. 
Entreated help, or cried — "Adieu!" 

At length, his transient respite past. 

His comrades, who before 
Plad heard his voice in every blast. 

Could catch the sound no more. 
For then, by toil subdued, he drank 
The stifling wave, and then he sank. 

No poet wept him : but the page 

Of narrative sincere, 
That tells his name, his worth, his age, 

Is wet with Anson's tear. 
And tears by bards or heroes shed 
Alike immortahze the dead. 

I therefore purpose not, or dream. 

Descanting on his fate. 
To give the melancholy theme 

A more enduring date. 
But misery still delights to trace 
Its 'semblance in another's case. 

No voice divine the storm allayed 

No light propitious shone ; 
When, snatched from all effectual aid. 

We perished each alone : 
But I beneath a rougher sea. 
And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he. 



STvanslatfons front Ufncent 3Soutme 



I. THE GLOW-WORM. 

Beneath the hedge, or near the stream, 

A worm is known to stray ; 
That shows by night a lucid beam. 

Which disappears by day. 



154 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Disputes have been, and still prevail, 
From whence his rays proceed ; 

Some give that honour to his tail, 
And others to his head. 

But this is sure — the hand of night, 
That kindles up the skies, 
> Gives him a modicum of light 
Proportioned to his size. 

Perhaps indulgent Nature meant. 

By such a lamp bestowed. 
To bid the traveller, as he went, 

Be careful where he trod : 

Nor crush a worm, whose usefiil light 
Might serve, however small. 

To show a stumbling-stone by night, 
And save him from a fall. 

Whate'er she meant, this truth divine 

Is legible and plain, 
'Tis power almighty bids him shine, 

Nor bids him shine in vain. 

Ye proud and wealthy, let this theme 
Teach humbler thoughts to you. 

Since "such a reptile has its gem. 
And boasts its splendour too. 



II. THE JACKDAW. 

There is a bird, who by his coat. 
And by the hoarseness of his note. 

Might be supposed a crow; 
A great frequenter of the church. 
Where bishop-like he finds a perch, 

And dormitory too. 

Above the steeple shines a plate. 
That turns and turns, to indicate 

From what point blows the weather. 
Look up — your brains begin to swim, 
'Tis in the clouds — that pleases him, 

He chooses it the rather. 

Fond of the speculative height, 
Thither he wings his airy flight. 

And thence securely sees 
The bustle and the rareeshow 
That occupy mankind below 

Secure and at his ease. 

You think, no doubt, he sits and muses 
On future broken bones and bruises. 

If he shovJd chance to fall. 
No; not a single thought like that 
Employs his philosophic pate, 

Or troubles it at all. 



He sees that this great roundabout. 
The world, with all its motley rout, 

Church, army, physic, law. 
Its customs, and its business^ 
Is no concern at all of his, 

And says — what says hel — Caw. 

Thricehappy bird! I too have seen 
Much of the vanities men ; 

And, sick of having seen 'em. 
Would cheerfully these limbs resign 
For such a pair of wings as thine, 

And such a head between 'em. 



III. THE CRICKET. 

Little inmate, full of mirth, 
Chirping on my kitchen hearth, 
Wheresoe'er be thine abode, 
Always harbinger of good, 
Pay me for thy warm retreat 
With a song more soft and sweet; 
In return thou shalt receive 
Such a strain as I can give. 

Thus thy praise shall be expressed, 
Inoffensive, welcome guest! 
While the rat is on the scout, 
And the mouse with ciuious snout, 
With what vermin else infest 
Every dish, and spoil the best ; 
Frisking thus before the fire, 
Thou hast all thine heart's desire. 

Though in voice and shape they be 
Formed as if akin to thee. 
Thou surpassest, happier far, 
Happiest grasshoppers that are; 
Theirs is but a summer's song. 
Thine endures the winter long. 
Unimpaired, and shrill, and clear, 
Melody throughout the year. 

Neither night, nor dawn of day, 
Puts a period to thy play: 
Sing then — and extend thy span 
Far beyond the date of man. 
Wretched man whose years are spent 
In repining discontent. 
Lives not, aged though he be. 
Half a span, compared with thee. 



IV. THE PARROT. 
In painted pliunes superbly dressed, 
A native of the gorgeous east. 

By many a billow tossed, 
Poll gains at length the British shore. 
Part of the captain's precious store, 

A present to his toast. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



155 



Belinda's maids are soon preferred, 
To teach him now and then a word, 

As Poll can master it; 
But 'tis her own important charge, 
To qualify him more at large, 

And make him quite a wit. 

Sweet Poll ! his doating mistress cries, 
Sweet Poll! the mimic bird replies; 

And calls aloud for sack. 
She next instructs him in the kiss; 
'Tis now a little one, like Miss, 

And now a hearty smack. 

At first he aims at what he hears ; 
And listening close with both his ears, 

Just catches at the sound; 
But soon articvdates aloud, 
Much to th' amusement of the crowd, 

And stuns the neighbours round. 

A querulous old woman's voice 
His humorous talent next employs; 

He scolds, and gives the lie. 
And now he sings, and now is sick. 
Here, Sally, Susan, come, come quick, 

Poor Poll is Uke to die ! 

Belinda and her bird ! 'tis rare 

To meet with such a well-matched pair. 

The language and the tone, 
Each character in every part 
Sustained with so much grace and art, 

And both in unison. 

When children first begin to spell, 
And stammer out a syllable, 

We think them tedious creatures; 
But difficulties soon abate. 
When birds are to be taught to prate, 

And women are the teachers. 



V. THE THRACIAN. 

Thracian parents, at his birth, 
Mourn their babe with many a tear, 

But with undissembled mirth 
Place him breathless on his bier. 

Greece and Rome, with equal scorn, 

' O the savages !' exclaim, 
' Whether they rejoice or mourn, 

Well entitled to the name!' 

But the cause of this concern, 

And this pleasure would they trace, 

Even they might somewhat learn 
From the savages of Thrace. 



VI. RECIPROCAL KINDNESS. 

THE PRIMARY LAW OP NATURE. 

Androcles from his injured lord, in dread 

Of instant death, to Libya's desert fled. 

Tired with his toilsome flight, and parched with 

heat. 
He spied, at length, a cavern's cool retreat ; 
But scarce had given to rest his weary frame 
When hugest of his kind, a lion came : 
He roared approaching : but the savage din 
To plaintive murmurs changed, arrived within, 
And with expressive looks his lifted paw 
Presenting, aid implored from whom he saw. 
The fligitive, through terror at a stand. 
Dared not awhUe afford his trembling hand. 
But bolder grown, at length inherent found 
A pointed thorn, and drew it from the wound. 
The cure was wrought; he wiped the sanious 

blood. 
And firm and free from pain the lion stood, 
Again he seeks the wilds, and day by day, 
Regales his inmate with the parted prey. 
Nor he disdains the dole, though unprepared, 
Spread on the ground, and with a lion shared. 
But thus to hve — still lost — sequestered still — 
Scarce seemed his lord's revenge a heavier ill. 
Home ! native home ! O might he but repair ! 
He must — he will, though death attends him 

there. 
He goes, and doomed to perish, on the sands 
Of the full theatre unpitied stands : 
When lo ! the self-same Uon from his cage 
Plies to devour him, famished in'to rage. 
He flies, but viewing in his purposed prey 
The man, his healer, pauses on his way, 
And softened by remembrance into sweet 
And kind composure, crouches at his feet. 

Mute with astonishment th' assembly gaze : 
But why, ye Romans 1 Whence your mute amaze"? 
All this is natural : nature bade him rend 
An enemy ; she bids him spare a friend. 



VII. A MANUAL. 

More ancient than the Art of Printing, and not to be found In 

any Catalogue. 

There is a book, which we may call 

(Its excellence is such) 
Alone a library, though small ; 

The ladies thumb it much. 

Words none, things numerous it contains : 
And, things with words compared. 

Who needs be told, that has his brains, 
Which merits most regard"? 



156 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Ofttimes its leaves of scarlet hue 

A golden edging boast ; 
And opened, it displays to view 

Twelve pages at the most. 

Nor name, nor title, stamped behind, 

Adorns his outer part ; 
But all within 'tis richly lined, 

A magazine of art. 

The whitest hands that secret hoard 

Oft visit : and the fair 
Preserve it in their bosoms stored, 

As with a miser's care. 

Thence implements of every size, 

And formed for various use, 
(They need but to consult their eyes) 

They readily produce. 

The largest and the longest kind 

Possess the foremost page, 
A sort most needed by the blind, 

Or nearly such from age. 

The full-charged leaf, which next ensues, 

Presents, in bright array. 
The smaller sort, which matrons use. 

Not quite so blind as they. 

The third, the fourth, the fifth supply 

What their occasions ask. 
Who with a more discerning eye 

Perform a nicer task. 

But still with regular decrease 

From size to size they fall, 
In every leaf grow less and less ; 

The last are least of all. 

O ! what a fiind of genius, pent 

In narrow space, is here ! 
This volume's method and intent 

How luminous and clear ! 

It leaves no reader at a loss 

Or posed, whoever reads : 
No commentator's tedious gloss, 

Nor even index needs. 

Search Bodley's many thousands o'er, 

Nor book is treasured there. 
Nor yet in Granta's numerous store. 

That may with this compare. 

No ! Rival none in either host 

Of this was ever seen. 
Or, that contents could justly boast, 

So brilliant and so keen. 



VIII. AN ENIGMA. 

A Needle small as small can be, 
In bulk and use surpasses me, 

Nor is my purchase dear ; 
For little, and almost for naught. 
As many of my kind are bought 

As days are in the year. 

Yet though but little use we boast. 
And are procured at little cost, 

The labour is not light, 
Nor few artificers it asks, 
All skilful in their several tasks. 

To fashion us aright. 

One fuses metal o'er the fire, 
A second draws it into wire, 

The shears another plies. 
Who cUps in lengths the brazen thread. 
For him, who, chafing every thread, 

Gives all an equal size. 

A fifth prepares, exact and round. 

The knob with which it must be crowned ; 

His follower makes it fast : 
And with his mallet and Ms file 
To shape the point employs awhile 

The seventh and the last. 

Now, therefore, CEdipus! declare 
What creature, wonderful and rare, 

A process that obtains 
Its purpose with so much ado, 
At last produces ! — tell me true. 

And take me for your pains ! 



IX. SPARROWS SELF-DOMESTI- 
CATED. 

IN TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 

None ever shared the social feast. 
Or as an imnate or a guest. 
Beneath the celebrated dome, 
Where once Sir Isaac had his home, 
Who saw not (and with some delight 
Perhaps he viewed the novel sight) 
How numerous, at the tables there. 
The sparrows beg their daily fare. 
For there, in every nook and cell. 
Where such a family may dwell, 
Sure as the vernal season comes 
Their nests they weave in hope of crumbs, 
Which kindly given, may serve, with food 
Convenient, their unfeathered brood ; 
And oft as with its summons clear, 
The warning bell salutes the car, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



157 



Sagacious listeners to the sound, 
They flock from all the fields around, 
To reach the hospitable hall, 
None more attentive to the call, 
Arrived, the pensionary band, 
Hopping and chirping, close at hand, 
Solicit what they soon receive, 
The sprinkled, plenteous donative. 
Thus is a multitude, though large, 
Supported at a trivial charge; 
A single doit would overpay 
Th' expenditure of every day, 
And who can grudge so small a grace 
To suppliants, natives of the place. 



X. FAMILIARITY DANGEROUS. 

As in her ancient mistress' lap 

The youthful tabby lay. 
They gave each other many a tap, 

Alike disposed to play. 

But strife ensues. Puss waxes warm. 

And vrith protruded claws 
Ploughs all the lengtlj of Lydia's arm, 

Mere wantormess the cause. 

At once, resentful of the deed, 
She shakes her to the ground. 

With many a threat that she shall bleed 
"With still a deeper wound. 

But, Lydia, bid thy fury rest ; 

It was a venial stroke ; 
For she that will with kittens jest. 

Should bear a kitten's joke. 



XI. INVITATION TO THE RED- 
BREAST. 

Sweet bird, whom the winter constrains — 

And seldom another it can — 
To seek a retreat, while he reigns, 

In the well sheltered dwellings of man. 
Who never can seem to intrude, 

Tho' in all places equally free. 
Come, oft as the season is rude. 

Thou art sure to be welcome to me. 

At sight of the first feeble ray, 

That pierces the clouds of the east, 
To inveigle thee every day 

My windows shall show thee a feast. 
For, taught by experience, I know 

Thee mindful of benefit long ; 
And that, thankful for all 1 bestow. 

Thou wilt pay me with many a song. 



Then, soon as the swell of the buds 

Bespeaks the renewal of spring, 
Fly hence, if thou wilt, to the woods, 

Or where it shall please thee to sing : 
And shouldst thou, compelled by a frost, 

Come again to ray window or door, 
Doubt not an aflJectionate host. 

Only pay as thou pay'dst me before. 

Thus music must needs be confest. 

To flow from a fountain above ; 
Else how should it work in the breast 

Unchangeable friendship and love ! 
And who on the globe can be found. 

Save your generation and ours, 
That can be delighted by sound. 

Or boasts any musical powers 1 



XII. STRADA'S NIGHTINGALE. 

The Shepherd touched his reed; sweet Philomel 
Essayed, and oft; assayed to catch the strain. 

And treasuring, as on her ear they fell. 
The numbers, echoed note for note agaia 

The peevish youth, who ne'er had found before 
A rival of his skill, indignant heard, 

And soon, (for various was his tunefiil store) 
In loftier tones defied the simple bird. 

She dared the task, and rising, as he rose. 
With all the force, that passion gives, inspired, 

Returned the sounds awhile, but in the close, 
Exhausted fell, and at his feet expired. 

Thus strength, not skill, prevailed. O fatal strife, 
By thee, poor songstress, playftdly begun; 

And, O sad victory, which cost thy life. 
And he may wish that he had never won! 



XIII. ODE 



ON THE DEATH OF A LADY, 

Who lived one hundred years, and died on her birthday, 1728. 

Ancient dame how wide and vast, 

To a race like ours appears. 
Rounded to an orb at last. 

All thy multitude of years ! 

We, the herd of human kind. 

Frailer and of feebler powers; 
We, to narrow bounds confined. 

Soon exhaust the sum of ours. 

Death's delicious banquet — we 

Perish even from the womb. 
Swifter than a shadow flee, 

Nourished but to feed the tomb. 



158 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Seeds of merciless disease 

Lurk in all that we enjoy ; 
Some, that waste us by degrees, 

Some, that suddenly destroy. 

And if life o'erleap the bourn 
Common to the sons of men; 

What remains, but that we mourn, 
Dream, and doat, and drivel theni 

Fast as moons can wax and wane, 
Sorrow comes ; and while we groan. 

Pant with anguish and complain, 
Half our years are fled and gone. 

If a few, (to few 'tis given) 
Lingering on this earthly stage. 

Creep, and halt with steps uneven. 
To the period of an age. 

Wherefore live they but to see 
Cunning, arrogance, and force, 

Sights lamented much by thee, 
Holding their accustomed course ! 

Oft was seen, in ages past, 
All that we with wonder view; 

Often shall be to the last ; 
Earth produces nothing new. 

Thee we gratulate; content, 
Should propitious Heaven design 

Life for us, has calmly spent, 
Though but half the length of thine. 



XIV. THE CAUSE WON. 

Two neighbours furiously dispute: 
A field — the subject of the suit. 
Trivial the spot, yet such the rage 
With which the combatants engage, 
'Twere hard to tell, who covets most 
The prize — at whatsoever cost. 
The pleadings swell. Words still suffice; 
No single word but has its price: 
No term but yields some fair pretence 
For novel and increased expense. 

Defendant thus becomes a name, 
Which he that bore it, may disclaim; 
Since both, in one description blended, 
Are plaintiffs — when the suit is ended. 



XV. THE SILKWORM. 

The beams of April, ere it goes, 
A worm scarce visible, disclose ; 
All winter long content to dwell 
The tenant of his native shell. 



The same prolific season gives 

The sustenance by which he lives. 

The mulberry leaf, a simple store. 

That serves him — till he needs no more; 

For, his dimensions once complete, 

Thenceforth none ever sees him eat ; 

Though, tUl his growing time be past. 

Scarce ever is he seen to fast. 

That hour arrived, Ms work begins, 

He spins and weaves, and weaves and spins , 

Till circle upon circle wound 

Careless around him and around. 

Conceals him with a veil, thoxigh slight, 

Impervious to the keenest sight. 

Thus self-enclosed, as in a cask. 

At length he finishes his task : 

And, though a worm, when he was lost. 

Or caterpillar at the most. 

When next we see him wings he wears. 

And in papilio-pomp appears ; 

Becomes oviparous, supplies 

With future worms and fiiture flies 

The next ensuing year ; and dies 1 

Well were it for the world, if all. 

Who creep about tliis earthly ball. 

Though shorter-lived than most he be, 

Were useful in their kind as he. 



XVI. THE INNOCENT THIEF. 

Not a flower can be found in the fields. 
Or the spot that we till for our pleasure, 

From the largest to least, but it yields 
To the bee, never-wearied, a treasure. 

Scarce any she quits unexplored, 
Wfth a diligence truly exact ; 

Yet, steal what she may for her hoard, 
Leaves evidence none of the fact. 

Her lucrative task she pursues, 
And pilfers with so much address. 

That none of their odour they lose. 
Nor charm by their beauty the less. 

Not thus inoffensively preys 

The canker-worm, indwelling foe ! 

His voracity not thus allays 

The sparrow, the finch, or the crow. 

The worm, more expensively fed, 
The pride of the garden devours ; 

And birds pick the seed from the bed, 
Still less to be spared than the flowers. 

But she with such delicate skill 
Her pillage so fits for her use. 

That the chymist in vain with his still 
Would labour the like to produce. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



159 



Then grudge not her temperate meals, 
Nor a benefit blame as a theft ; 

Since, stole she not all that she steals, 
Neither honey nor wax would be left. 



XVII. DENNER'S OLD WOMAN. 

In this mimic form of a matron in years, 
How plainly the pencil of Deimer appears ! 
The matron herself, in whose old age we see 
Not a trace of declme, what a wonder is she ! 
No dimness of eye, and no cheek hanging low, 
No wrinkle, or deep-furrowed frown on the brow ! 
Her forehead indeed is here circled around 
With locks like the ribbon, with which they are 

bound ; 
While glossy and smooth, and as soft as the skin 
Of a delicate peach, is the down of her chin ; 
But nothing unpleasant, or sad, or severe. 
Or that mdicates life in its winter — is here. 
Yet all is expressed, with fideUty due. 
Nor a pimple, or freckle, concealed from the view. 

Many fond of new sights, or who cherish a taste 
For the labours of art, to the spectacle haste : 
The youths all agi-ee, that could old age inspire 
The passion of love, hers would kindle the fire, 
And the matrons, with pleasure, confess that they 

see 
Ridiculous nothing or hideous in thee. 
The nymphs for themselves scarcely hope a decline, 
O wonderful woman ! as placid as thine. 

Strange magic of art ! which the youth can engage 
To peruse, half-enamoured, the features of age ; 
And force firom the virgin a sigh of despair. 
That she when as old, shall be equally fair ! 
How great is the glory, that Denner has gained. 
Since Apelles not more for his Venus obtained ! 



XVIII. THE TEARS OP A PAINTER. 

Apelles, hearing that his boy 
Had just expired — his only joy ! 
Although the sight with anguish tore him, 
Bade place his dear remains before him. 
He seized his brush, his colours spread ; 
And— "Oh! my child, accept,"— he said, 
"('Tis all that I can now bestow,) 
This tribute of a father's wo !" 
Then, faithful to the twofold part. 
Both of his feelings and his art. 
He closed his eyes, with tender care, 
And formed at once a fellow pair. 
His brow, with amber locks beset. 
And lips he drew, not Uvid yet ; 
And shaded all, that he had done. 
To a just image of his son. 



Thus far is well. But view again, 
The cause of thy paternal pain ! 
Thy melancholy task fulfil ! 
It needs the last, last touches still. 
Again his pencil's power he tries, 
For on his lips a smile he spies : 
And still Ids cheek, unfaded, shows 
The deepest damask of the rose. 
Then, heedless to the finished whole, 
With fondest eagerness he stole, 
Till scarce himself distinctly knew 
The cherub copied from the true. 

Now, painter, cease I thy task is done, 
Long hves this image of thy son ; 
Nor short-lived shall the glory prove. 
Or of thy labour, or thy love. 



XIX. THE MAZE. 

From right to left, and to and fro 
Caught in a labyrinth, you go. 
And turn, and turn, and turn again, 
To solve the mystery, but in vain ; 
Stand still and breathe, and take from me 
A clew that soon shall set you free ! 
Not Ariadne, if you meet her, 
Herself could serve you with a better. 
You enter'd easily — find where — 
And make, vrith ease, your exit there ! 



XX. NO SORROW PECULIAR TO THE 
SUFFERER. 

The lover, in melodious verses 
His singular distress rehearses. 
Still closing vfith a rueful cry, 
" Was ever such a wretch as I !" 
Yes ! thousands have endured before 
All thy distress ; some, haply, more. 
Unnumbered Corydons complain. 
And Strephons, of the like disdain ; 
And if thy Chloe be of steel. 
Too deaf to hear, too hard to feel ; 
Not her alone that censure fits, 
Nor thou alone hast lost thy wits. 



XXI. THE SNAIL. 

To grass, or leaf, or fruit, or wall, 
The snail sticks close, nor fears to fall. 
As if he grew there, house and all 

Together. 

Within that house secure he hides. 
When danger imminent betides 
Of storm, or other harm besides 

Of weather. 



160 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Give but his horns tho slightest touch, 
His self-collecting power is such, 
He shrinks into his house -with much 

Displeasure. 

Wherever he dwells, he dwells alone, 
Except himself has chattels none, 
Well satisfied to be his own 

Whole treasure. 

Thus, hermit-like, his life he leads, 
Nor partner of his banquet needs. 
And if he meets one, only feeds 

The faster. 

Who seeks him must be worse than blind, 
(He and his house are so combined) 
If, finding it, he fails to find 

Its master. 



THE CONTRITE HEART. 

The Lord will happiness divine 

On contrite hearts bestow ; 
Then tell me, gracious God, is mine 

A contrite heart or no ? 

I hear, but seem to hear in vain. 

Insensible as steel ; 
If aught is felt, 'tis only pain 

To find I can not feel. 

1 soipetimes think myself inclined 

To love thee, if I could ; 
But often feel another mind. 

Averse to all that's good. 

My best desires are faint and few, 
I fain would strive for more ; 

But when I cry, " My strength renew,'' 
Seem weaker than before. 

1 see thy saints with comfort filled, 
When in thy house of prayer ; 

But still in bondage I am held. 
And find no comfort there. 

Oh, make this heart rejoice or ache ; 

Decide this doubt for me ; 
And if it be not broken, break. 

And heal it if it be. 



THE SHINING LIGHT. 

My former hopes are dead ; 

My terror now begins ; 
I feel, alas ! that I am dead 

In trespasses and sins, 



Ah, whither shall I fly? 

I hear the thunder roar ; 
The law proclaims destruction nigh. 

And vengeance at the door. 

When I review my ways, 
I dread impending doom ; 

But sure a friendly whisper says, 
" Flee from the wrath to come." 

1 see, or think I see, 

A glimmering from afar; 

A beam of day that sliines for me, 
To save me from despair. 

Forerunner of the sun, 

It marks the pilgrim's way; 

I'll gaze upon it while I run. 
And watch the rising day. 



THIRSTING FOR GOD. 

I THIRST, but not as once I did. 
The vain delights of earth to share ; 

Thy words, Immanuel, all forbid 

That I should seek my pleasure there. 

It was the sight of thy dear cross 

First weaned my soul from earthly things, 

And taught me to esteem as dross 

The mirth of fools and pomp of kings. 

I want that grace that springs from thee, 
That quickens all things where it flows, 

And makes a wretched thorn like me, 
Bloom as the myrtle or the rose. 

Dear fountain of delight unlmown. 
No longer sink below the brim : 

But overflow and pour me down 
A living and hfe-giving stream. 

For sure, of all the plants that share 
The notice of thy Father's eye, 

None proves less grateful to his care. 
Or yields him meaner fruit than I. 



A TALE.* 



In Scotland's realm where trees are few. 

Nor even shrubs abound; 
But where, however bleak the view. 

Some better things are found. 



This tale is founded on an an article of intelligence which 
the author found in the Buckinghamshire Herald for Saturday, 
June 1, 1793, in the following words :— 

Glasgoxo, May 23. 
In a block, or puUcy, near the head of the mast of a gabert 
now lying at the Broomielaw, there is a chaffinch's nest and 
four eggs. The nest was built while the vessel lay at Greenock, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



161 



For husband there and wife may boast 

Their union undefiled, 
And false ones are as rare abnost 

As hedge-rows in the wild. 

In Scotland's realm, forlorn and bare, 
The history chanced of late — 

The history of a wedded pair, 
A chaffinch and his mate. 

The spring drew near, each felt a breast 

With genial instinct filled; 
They paired, and would have built a nest, 

But foiuid not where to build. 

The heath uncovered, and the moors. 

Except with snow and sleet, 
Sea-beaten rocks, and naked shores 

Could yield them no retreat 

Long time a breeding-place they sought. 
Till both grew vexed and tired ; 

At length a ship arriving, brought 
The good so long desired. 

A ship ! — could such a restless thing 

Afl!brd them place of rest *? 
Or was the merchant charged to bring 

The homeless birds a nest^ 

Hush — Silent hearers profit most — 

This racer of the sea 
Proved kinder to them than the coast 

It served them with a tree. 

But such a tree! 'twas shaven deal, 

The tree they call a mast, 
And had a hollow with a wheei 

Through which the tackle passed. 

Within that cavity aloft. 

Their roofless home they fixed. 
Formed with materials neat and soft, 
• Bents, wool, and feathers-mixt. 

Four ivory eggs soon pave its floor. 
With russet specks bedight — 

The vessel weighs, forsakes the shore, 
And lessens to the sight. 

The mother-bird is gone to sea. 
As she had changed her kind; 

But goes the male'? Far wiser, he 
Is doubtless left behind'? 



and was followed hither by both birds. Though the block is 
occasionally lowered for the inspection of the curious, the 
birds have not forsaken the nest. The cock, however, visits 
the nest but seldom, while the hen never leaves it but when 
she descends to the hull for food. 



No — soon as firom ashore he saw 
The winged mansion move. 

He flew to reach it, by a law 
Of never-failing love. 

Then perching at his consort's side. 

Was briskly borne along. 
The billows and the blast defied, 

And cheered her with a song: 

The seaman with sincere delight 
His feathered shipmates eyes, 

Scarce less exulting in the sight 
Then when he tows a prize. 

For seamen much believe in signs, 

And for a chance so* new. 
Each some approaching good divines, 

And may his hopes be true ! 

Hail, honoured land! a desert where 

Not even birds can hide, 
Yet parent of this loving pair 

Whom nothing could divide. 

And ye who, rather than resign 

Your matrimonial plan, 
Were not afraid to plough the brine 

In company with man. 

For whose lean country much disdain 

We English often show, 
Yet from a richer nothing gain 

But wantoimess and wo. 

Be it your fortune, year by year. 
The same resource to prove, 

And may ye, sometimes landing here. 
Instruct us how to love! 



SONG ON PEACE. 

Air—" My fond shepherds of late," &c. 

No longer I follow a sound ; 
No longer a dream I pursue ; 

Happiness ! not to be found. 
Unattainable treasure, adieu ! 

1 have sought thee in splendovur and dress, 

In the regions of pleasure and taste ; 

I have sought thee, and seem'd to possess. 

But have proved thee a vision at last. 

An humble ambition and hope 

The voice of true Wisdom inspires ; 

'Tis sufficient, if Peace be the scope 
And the summit of all our desires. 



162 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Peace may be the lot of the mind 

That seeks it in meekness and love ; 
But rapture and bliss are confined 
• To the glorified spirits above. 



SONNET TO JOHN JOHNSON, 

ON HIS PRESENTING ME VTITH iN ANTIQUE BUST 
OP HOMER, 1793. 

Kinsman beloved, and as a son, by me ! 

When I behold this fruit of thy regard, 

The sculptured form of my old favourite bard, 
I reverence feel for him, and love for thee. 
Joy too and grief Much joy that there should be 

Wise men and learn'd, who grudge not to re- 
w^ard 

With some applause my bold attempt and hard, 
Which others scorn : critics by courtesy. 
The grief is this, that sunk in Homer's mine, 

I lose my precious years now soon to fail, 
Handhng his gold, which howgoe'er it shine, 

Proves dross, when balanced in the Christian scale. 
Be wiser thou — like our forefather Donne, 
Seek heavenly wealth, and work for God alone. 



INSCRIPTION FOR A STONE 

ERECTED AT THE SOWING OF A GROVE OF OAKS AT 
CHILLINGTON, THE SEAT OF T. GIFFORD, ESQ. 

1790. 

Other stones the era tell. 
When some feeble mortal fell ; 
I stand here to date the birth 
Of these hardy sons of earth. 

Which shall longest brave the sky, 
Storm and frost — these oaks ot 11 
Pass an age or two away, 
I must moulder and decay ; 
But the years that crumble me 
Shall invigorate the tree, 
Spread its branch, dilate its size, 
Lift its summit to the skies. 

Cherish honour, virtue, truth, 
So shalt thou prolong thy youth. 
Wanting these, however fast 
Man be fix'd, and form'd to last, 
He is lifeless even now, 
Stone at heart, and can not grow. 



LOVE ABUSED. 

What is there in the vale of life 
Half so delightful as a wife. 
When friendship, love, and peace combine 
To stamp the marriage-bond divine f 



The stream of pure and genuine love 
Derives its current from above ; 
And earth a second Eden shows 
Where'er the healing water flows: 
But ah ! if from the dykes and drains 
Of sensual nature's feverish veins, 
Lust, like a lawless headstrong flood, 
Impregnated with ooze and mud, 
Descending fast on every side, 
Once mingles with the sacred tide. 
Farewell the soul-enlivening scene ! 
The banks that wore a smiling green, 
With rank defilement overspread, 
Bewail their flowery beauties dead. 
The stream polluted, dark, and dull, 
Diffused into a Stygian pool. 
Through life's last melancholy years 
Is fed with ever-flovsdng tears : 
Complaints supply the zephyr's part, 
And sighs that heave a breaking heart. 



LINES 

COMPOSED FOR A MEMORIAL OF ASHLEY COWPER, 
ESQ. IMMEDIATELY AFTER HIS DEATH, BY HIS 
NEPHEW WILLIAM, OF WESTON. JUNE, 1788. 

Farewell ! endued with all that could engage 
All hearts to love thee, both in youth and age ! 
In prime of life, for sprightliness enroU'd 
Among the gay, yet virtuous as the old ; 

In Ufe's last stage, (O blessings rarely found !) 
Pleasant as youth with all its blossoms crov\m'd ; 
Through every period of this changeful state 
Unchanged thyself — wise, good, affectionate ! 

Marble may flatter ; and lest this should seem 
O'ercharged with praises on so dear a theme, 
Although thy worth be more than half suppress'd, 
Love shall be satisfied, and veil the rest. 



TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE 
JOHN THORNTON, ESa. 1790. 

Poets attempt the noblest task they can, 
Praising the Author of all good in man ; 
And, next, commemorating worthies lost, 
The dead in whom that good abounded most. 

Thee, therefore, of commercial fame, but more 
Famed for thy probity from shore to shore. 
Thee, Thornton ! worthy in some page to shine, 
As honest and more eloquent than mine, 
I mourn ; or, since thrice happy thou must be, 
The world, no longer thy abode, not thee. 
Thee to deplore, were grief misspent indeed ; 
It were to weep that goodness has its meed. 
That there is bliss prepared in yonder sky, 
And glory for the virtuous when they die. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



163 



What pleasure can the miser's fondled hoard, 
Or spendthrift's prodigal excess afford, 
Sweet as the privilege of healing wo 
By virtue suffer'd combatting below 1 
That privilege was thine ; Heaven gave thee means 
To illiuninc with delight the saddest scenes, 
Till thy appearance chased the gloom, forlorn 
As midnight, and despairing of a morri. 
Thou hadst an industry in doing good, 
Restless as his who toils and sweats for food ; 
Avarice, in thee, was the desire of wealth 
By rust unperishable or by stealth ; 
And if the genuine worth of gold depend 
On application to its noblest end, 
Thine had a value in the scales of Heaven, 
Surpassing all that mine or mint had given. 
And, though God made thee of a nature prone 
To distribution boundless of thy own. 
And still by motives of religious force 
Impell'd thee more to that heroic course ; 
Yet was thy liberality discreet, 
Nice in its choice, and of a temper'd heat. 
And, though in act unwearied, secret still, 
As in some sohtude the summer rill 
Refreshes, where it winds, the faded green. 
And cheers the^ drooping flowers, unheard, unseen. 

Such was thy charity ; no sudden start, 
After long sleep, of passion in the heart. 
But steadfast principle, and, in its kind, 
Of close relation to th' Eternal mind, 
Traced easily to its true source above, 
To Him, whose works bespeak his nature, love. 

Thy bounties all were Christian, and I make 
This record of thee for the Gospel's sake ; 
That the incredulous themselves may see 
Its use and power exemplified in thee. 



TO A YOUNG FRIEND, 

ON HIS ARRIVING AT CAMBRIDGE WET, WHEN NO 
RAIN HAD FALLEN THERE, — 1793. 

If Gideon's fleece, which drench'd with dew he 

found. 
While moisture none refresh'd the herbs around. 
Might fitly represent the Church, endow'd 
With heavenly gifts, to Heathens not allow'd ; 
In pledge, perhaps, of favours fi-om on hicrh 
Thy locks were wet when others^^ocks were dry. 
Heaven grant us half the omen — may we see 
Not drought on others, but much dew on thee ! 



TO THE MEMORY OF DR. LLOYD. 

Our good old friend is gone, gone to his rest, 
Whose social converse was itself a feast. 
O ye of riper age, who recollect 
How once ye loved, and eyed him with respect, 
Both in the firmness of his better day. 
While yet he ruled you with a father's sway, 
And when impair'd by time and glad to rest, 
Yet still with looks, in mild complaisance drest, 
He took his annual seat, and mingled here 
His sprightly vein with yours — now drop a tear. 
In morals blameless as in manners meek. 
He knew no wish that he might blush to speak ; 
But, happy in whatever state below. 
And richer than the rich in being so, 
Obtain'd the hearts of all, and such a meed 
At length from One,* as made him rich indeed. 
Hence then, ye titles, hence, not wanted here, 
Go, garnish merit in a brighter sphere. 
The brows of those whose more exalted lot 
He could congratulate, but envied not. 

Light lie the turf, good Senior! on thy breast, 
And tranquil as thy mind was, be thy rest ! 
Though, living, thou hadst more desert than fame, 
And not a stone now chronicles thy name. 



ON FOP, 

A DOG BELONGING TO LADY THROCKMORTON. 
AUGUS3T, 1792. 

Though once a puppy, and though Fop by name, 
Here moulders One whose bones some honour' 

claim. 
No sycophant, although of spaniel race, 
And though no hound, a martyr to the chase — 
Ye squirrels, rabbits, leverets, rejoice. 
Your haunts no longer echo to his voice ; 
This record of his fate exulting view. 
He died worn out with vain pursuit of you. 

'Yes,' the indignant shade of Fop replies — 
'And worn with vain pursuit man also dies.' 



■* He was usher and under-master of Westminster near 
fifty years, and retired from liis occupation wiien he was near 
seventy, with a handsome pension from the king. 



THE 

liETTERS 

or 
TO HIS FRIENDS. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Temple, Aug. 9, 1763. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, 

Having promised to write to you, I make haste 
to be as good as my word. I have a pleasure in 
writing to you at any time, but especially at the 
present, when my days are spent in reading the 
Journals, and my nights in dreaming of them;* 
an employment not very agreeable to a head that 
has long been habituated to the luxury of choosing 
its subject, and has been as little employed upon 
business as if it had grown upon the shoulders of 
a much wealthier gentleman. But the numskull 
pays for it now, and will not presently forget the 
discipline it has undergone lately. If I succeed 
in this doubtful piece of promotion, I shall have at 
least this satisfaction to reflect upon, that the 
volumes I write will be treasured up with the ut- 
most care for ages, and will last as long as the 
English constitution: a duration which ought to 
satisfy the vanity of any author who has a spark 
of love for his country.' O ! my good cousin ! if I 
was to open my heart to you, I could show you 
strange sights ; nothing, I flatter myself, that would 
shock you, but a great deal that would make you 
wonder. I am of a very singular temper, and very 
unUke all the men that I have ever conversed with. 
Certainly I am not an absolute fool; but I have 
more weaknesses than the greatest of all the fools 
I can recollect at present. In short, if I was as 
fit for the next world as I am imfit for this, and 
God forbid I should speak it in vanity, I would 
not change conditions with any saint in Christen- 
dom. 

My destination is settled at last, and I have ob- 
tained a furlough. Margate is the word, and 



"The writer had been recently appointed Clerk of the Jour, 
nals in the House of Lords. 



what do you think will ensue, cousin'? I know 
what you expect, but ever since I was bom I have 
been good at disappointing the most natural ex- 
pectations. Many years ago, cousin, there was a 
possibility I might prove a very diflferent thing 
from what I am at present. My character is now 
fixed, and riveted fast upon me*; and, between 
friends, is not a very splendid one, or likely to be 
guilty of much fascination. 

Adieu, my dear cousin ! So much as I love you, 
I wonder how the deuce it has happened I was 
never in love with you. Thank heaven that I 
never was, for at this time I have had a pleasure 
in writing to you which in that case I should have 
forfeited. Let me hear from you, or I shall reap 
but half the reward that is due to my noble indif- 
ference. 

Yours ever, and evermore, W. C. 

TO JOSEPH HILL, Esq. 

DKAR JOE, Huntingdon, June 24, 1765. 

The only recompense I can make you for your 
kind attention to my afl!airs during my illness, is 
to tell you, that by the mercy of God I am restored 
to perfect health both of mind and body. This I 
believe will give you pleasure, and I would gladly 
do any thing from which you could receive it. 

I left St. A4iban's on the seventeenth, and ar- 
rived that day at Cambridge, spent some time there 
with my brother, and came hither on the twenty- 
second. I have a lodging that puts me continually 
in mind of our summer excursions; we have had 
many worse, and except the size of it (which how- 
ever is sufficient for a single man) but few better. 
I am not quite alone, having brought a servant 
with me from St. Alban's, who is the very mirror 
of fidelity and affection for his master. And 
whereas the Turkish Spy says, he kept no ser- 



Let. 3, 4. 



LETTERS. 



165 



vant, because he would not have an enemy in his 
house, I hired mine, because I would have a friend. 
Men do not usually bestow these encomiums on 
their lackeys, nor do they usually deserve them ; 
but I have had experience of mine, both in sick- 
ness andui health, and never saw his fellow. 

The river Ouse, I forget how they spell it, is 
the most agreeable circumstance in this part of the 
world; at this town it is I believe us vsdde as the 
Thames at Windsor; nor does the silver Thames 
better deserve that epithet, nor has it more flowers 
upon^its banks, these being attributes which in 
strict truth belong to neither. Fluelhn would say, 
they are as like as my fingers to my fingers, and 
there is sahnon in both. It is a noble stream to 
bathe in, and I shall make that use of it three 
times a week, having introduced myself to it for 
the first time this morning. 

I beg you will remember me to all my friends, 
which is a task will cost you no great pains to 
execute — particularly remember me to those of 
your own house, and believe me 

Your very affectionate, W. C 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Huntingdon, July 1, 1765. 

MY DEAR LADY HESKETH, 

Since the visit you were so kind as to pay me 
in the Temple (the only time I ever saw you with- 
out pleasure,) what have I not suffered! And 
since it has pleased God to restore me to the use 
of my reason, what have I not enjoyed! You 
know, by experience, how pleasant it is to feel the 
first approaches of health after a fever; but, Oh 
the fever of the brain! To feel the quenching of 
that fire is indeed a blessing which I think it im- 
possible to receive without the most consurmnate 
gratitude. Terrible as this chastisement is, I ac- 
knowledge in it the hand of an infinite justice ; 
nor is it at all more difficult for me to perceive in 
it the hand of an infinite mercy likewise: when 
I consider the effect it has had upon me, I am ex- 
ceedingly thankful for it, and, without hypocrisy, 
esteem it the greatest blessing, next to life itself, I 
ever received from the divine bounty. I pray God 
that I may ever retain this sense of it, and then I 
am sure I shall continue to be, as I am at present, 
really happy. 

I write thus to you that you may not think me 
a forlorn and wretched creature ; which you might 
be apt to do considering my very distant removal 
from every friend I have in the world — a circum- 
stance which, before this event befel me, would un- 
doubtedly have made me so ; but my affliction has 
taught me a road to happiness which without it I 
should never have found; and I know, and have 
experience of it every day, that the mercy of God, 
to him who believes himself the object of it, is 



more than sufficient to compensate for the loss of 
every otner blessing. 

You may now inform all those whom you think 
really interested in my welfare, that they have no 
need to be apprehensive on the score of my hap- 
piness at present. And you yourself will believe 
that my happiness is no dream, because I have 
told you the foundation on which it is built. What 
I have written would appear like enthusiasm to 
many, for we are apt to give that name to every 
warm affection of the mind in others which we 
have not experienced in ourselves; but to you, 
who have so much to be thankful for, and a tem- 
per inclined to gratitude, it will not appear so. 

I beg you will give my love to Sir Thomas, 
and believe that I am obliged to you both for in- 
quiring after me at St. Alban's. 

Yours ever, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Huntingdon, July 4, 1765. 

Being just emerged from the Ouse, I sit down 
to thank you, my dear cousin, for your friendly 
and comfortable letter. What could you think of 
my unaccountable behaviour to you in that visit I 
mentioned in my lastl I remember I neither spoke 
to you, nor looked at you. The solution of the 
mystery indeed followed soon after, but at the 
time it must have been inexplicable. The uproar 
within was even then begun, and my silence was 
only the sulkiness of a thimderstorm before it 
opens. I am glad, however, that the only instance 
in which I knew not how to value your company 
was, when I was not in my senses. It was the 
first of the kind, and I trust in God it will be the 
last. 

How naturally does affliction make us Chris- 
tians ! and how impossible is it when all human 
help is vain and the whole earth too poor and tri- 
fling to furnish us with one moment's peace, how 
impossible is it then to avoid looking at the gospel ! 
It gives me some concern, though at- the same tune it 
increases my gratitude, to reflect that a convert made 
in Bedlam is more likely to be a stumbling block 
to others, than to advance their faith. But if it 
has that effect upon any, it is owing to their rea- 
soning amiss, and drawing their conclusions from 
false premises. He who can ascribe an amend- 
ment of life and manners, and a reformation of the 
heart itself, to madness, is guilty of an absurdity 
that in any other case would fasten the imputation 
of madness upon himself; for by so doing he as- 
cribes a reasonable effect to an unreasonable cause, 
and a positive eflfect to a negative. But when 
Christianity only is to be sacrificed, he that stabs 
deepest is always the wisest man. You, my dear 
cousm, yourself will be apt to think I carry the 
matter too far, and that in the present warmth oi 



166 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 5. 



my heart I make too ample a concession in sa)n[ng 
that I am only now a convert. You think I al- 
ways believed, and I thought so too ; but you were 
deceived, and so was I. I called myself indeed a 
Christian, but He who knows my heart knows 
that I never did a right thing, nor abstained from 
a wrong one, because I was so. But if I did ei- 
ther, it was under the influence of some other mo- 
tive. And it is such seeming Christians, such 
pretending believers, that do most mischief to the 
cause, and furnish the strongest arguments to sup- 
port the infidelity of their enemies : unless profes- 
sion and conduct go together, the man's life is a 
lie, and the vahdity of what he professes itself is 
called in question. The difference between a 
Christian and an UnbeUever would be so striking, 
if the treacherous alUes of the church would go 
over at once to the other side, that I am satisfied 
religion would be no loser by the bargain. 

I reckon it one instance of the providence that 
has attended me throughout this whole event, that 
instead of being delivered into the hands of one of 
the London physicians, who were so much nearer 
that I wonder I was not, I was carried to Doctor 
Cotton. I was not only treated by him with the 
greatest tenderness while I was ill, and attended 
with the utmost diligence, but when my reason 
was restored to me, and I had so much need of a 
religious fHend to converse with, to whom I could 
open my mind upon the subject without reserve, I 
could hardly have found a fitter person for the 
purpose. My eagerness and anxiety to settle my 
opinions upon that long neglected point made it 
necessary that, while my mind was yet weak, and 
my spirits uncertain, I should have some assist- 
ance. The doctor was as ready to administer 
reUef to me in this article likewise, and as well 
qualified to do it, as in that which was more imme- 
diately his province. How many physicians would 
have thought this an irregular appetite, and a 
symptom of remaining madness ! But if it were 
so, my friend was as mad as myself, and it is well 
for me that he was so. 

My dear cousin, you know not half the deUver- 
ances I have received ; my brother is the only one 
in the family who does. My recovery is indeed a 
signal one, but a greater if possible went before it. 
My future life must express my thankfulness, for 
by words I can not do it. 

I pray God to bless you and my friend sir Tho- 
mas. Yours ever, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Huntingdon, July 5, 1765. 

MY DEAR LADY HESKETH, 

My pen runs so fast you will begin to wish you 
had not put it in motion, but you must consider 



we have not met even by letter almost these two 
years, which will account in some measure for 
my pestering you in this manner ; besides, my last 
was no answer to yours, and therefore I consider 
myself as still in your debt. To say truth, I have 
this long time promised myself a correspondence 
with you as one of my principal pleasures. 

I should have written to you from St. Alban's 
long since, bat was willing to perform quarantine 
first, both for my own sake and because I thought 
my letters would be more satisfactory to you from 
any other quarter. You will perceive I allowed 
myself a very sufficient time for the purpose, for I 
date my recovery irom the twenty-fifth of last July, 
having been ill seven months, and well twelve 
months. It was on that day my brother came to 
see me. I was far from well when he came in ; 
yet though he only staid one day with me, his 
company served to put to flight a thousand dehri- 
ums and delusions which I sill laboured under, 
and the next morning I foimd myself a new crea- 
ture. But to the present purpose. 

As far as I am acquainted with this place, I Hke 
it extremely. Mr. Hodgson, the minister of the 
parish, made me a visit the day before yesterday. 
He is very sensible, a good preacher, and consci- 
entious in the discharge of his duty. He is very 
well known to Doctor Newton, Bishop of Bristol, 
the author of the treatise on the Prophecies, one 
of our best bishops, and who has written the 
most demonstrative proof of the truth of Chris- 
tianity, in my mind, that ever was published. 

There is a village called Hertford, about a mile 
and a half from hence. The church there is very 
prettily situated upon a rising ground, so close to 
the river that it washes the wall of the churchyard. 
I found an epitaph there, the other morning, the 
two first lines of which being better than any thing 
else I saw there I made shift to remember. It 
is by a widow on her husband. 

"Thou wast too good to live on earth with me, 
And I not good enough to die with thee." 

The distance of this place from Cambridge is 
the worst circumstance belonging to it. My bro- 
ther and I are fifteen miles asunder, which, con- 
sidering that I came hither for the sake of being 
near him, is rather too much. I wish that young 
man was better known in the family. He has as 
many good qualities as his nearest kindred could 
wish to find m him. 

As Mr. GLuin very roundly expressed himself 
upon some such occasion, ' here is very plentiM 
accommodation, and great happmess of provision.' 
So that if I starve, it must be through forgetfiil- 
ness, rather than scarcity. 

Fare thee well, my good and dear cousin. 

Ever yours, W. C. 



Let. 6, 7. 



LETTERS. 



167 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MT DEAR COUSIN, July 12, 1776. 

You are very good to me, and if you will only 
continue to write at such intervals as you find con- 
venient, I shall receive all that pleasure wliicli I 
proposed to myself from our correspondence. I 
desire no more than that you would never drop 
me for any great length of time together, for I shall 
then tliink you only write because something hap- 
pened to put you in mind of me, or for -some other 
reason equally mortifying. ■ I am not however so 
unreasonable as to expect you should perform this 
act of friendship so frequently as myself, for you 
live in a world swarming with engagements; and 
my hours aje almost all my own. You m.ust every 
day be employed in doing what is expected from 
you by a thousand others, and I have nothing to 
do but what is most agreeable to myself. 

Our mentioning Newton's treatise on the Pro- 
phecies brings to my mind an anecdote of Dr. 
Young, who, you know, died lately at Welwyn. 
Dr. Cotton, who was intimate with hin"!, paid him 
a visit about a fortnight before he was seized with 
liis last illness. The old man was then in perfect 
health ; the antiquity of Ids person, the gravity of 
utterance, and the earnestness with which he dis- 
coursed about rehgion, gave him, in the doctor's 
eye, the appearance of a prophet. ' They had been 
delivering their sentiments upon this book of New- 
ton, when Young closed the conference thus: — 
'My friend, there are two considerations upon 
which my faith in Christ is built upon a rock : the 
fall of man, the redemption of man, and the resur- 
rection of man, the three cardinal articles of our 
religion, are such as human ingenuity could never 
have invented, therefore they must be divine. — 
The other argtiment is this — If the Prophecies 
have been fulfilled (of which there is abundant 
demonstration) the scripture must be the word of 
God ; and if the scripture is the word of God, 
Christianity must be true,' 

This treatise on the prophecies serves a double 
purpose ; it not only proves the truth of religion, 
in a manner that never has been nor ever can be 
controverted, but it proves likewise, that the Ro- 
man catholic is the apostate and antichristian 
church, so frequently foretold both in the old and 
new testaments. Indeed, so fatally connected is 
the refutation of popery with the truth of Christi- 
anity, when the latter is evinced by the completion 
of the prophecies, that in proportion as light is 
throv^n upon the one, the deformities and errors 
of the other are more plainly exhibited. • But I 
' leave you to the book itself; there are parts of it 
which may possibly afford you less entertainment 
than the rest, because you have never been a 
school-boy; but in the main it is so interesting, 
12 



and you are so fond of that which is so, that I am 
sure you will like it. 

My dear cousin, how happy am I in having a 
friend to whom I can open my heart upon these 
subjects ! I have many intimates in the world, 
and iiave had many more than I shall have here- 
after, to whom a long letter on these most impor- 
tant articles would appear tiresome, at least, if not 
impertinent. . But I am not afraid of meeting with 
that reception from you, who have never yet made 
it your interest that there should be no truth in the 
word of God. May this everlasting truth be your 
comfort while you live, and attend 5'ou with peace 
and joy in your last moments ! I love you too 
well not to make this a part of my prayers, and 
when I remember my friends on these occasions, 
there is no likelihood that you can be forgotten. 
Yours ever, W. C. 

P. S. Cambiidge. — I add this postscript at my 
brother's rooms. He desires to be affectionately 
remembered to you, and if you are in town about 
a fortnight hence, when he proposes to be there ■ 
himself, will take a breakfast with you. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Huntingdon, August 1, 1765. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, 

If I was to measure your obligation to write by 
my own desire to hear from you, I should call you 
an idle correspondent if a post went by without 
bringing me a letter, but I am not so unreasona- 
ble ; on the contrary, I think myself very happy in 
hearing from you upon your own terms, as you find 
most convenient. Your short history of my family 
is a very acceptabje part of your letter ; if they 
really interest themselves in my welfare, it is a 
mark of their great charity for one who has been 
a disappointment and a vexation to them ever 
since he has been of consequence to be either. My 
fiiend, the major's behaviour to me, after all he 
suffered by my abandoning his interest and my 
own in so miserable a manner, is a noble instance 
of generosity, and true greatness of mind; and in- 
deed I know no man in whom those qualities are 
more conspicuous ; one need only furnish him with 
an opportunity to display them, and they are al- 
ways ready to show themselves in his words and 
actions, and even in his countenance at a moment's 
warning. I have great reason to be thankful — I 
have lost none of my acquaintance but those whom 
I determined not to keep, I am sorry this class is 
so numerous. What would I not give, that every 
friend I have in the world were not ahnost but 
altogether christians ! My dear cousin, I am half 
afraid to talk in this style, lest I should seem to 
indulge a censorious humour, instead of hoping, as 



168 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 8. 



I ought, the best for all men. But what can be 
said against ocular proof 1 and what is hope when 
it is buUt upon presumption 1 To use the most 
holy name in the universe for no purpose, or a bad 
one, contrary to his own express commandment: 
to pass the day, and the succeeding days, weeks, 
and months, and years, without one act of private 
devotion, one confession of our sins, ox one thanks- 
giving for the numberless blessings we enjoy; to 
hear the word of God in public with a distracted 
attention, or with none at all ; to absent ourselves 
voluntarily from the blessed communion, and to 
live in the total neglect of it, though our Saviour 
has charged it upon us with an express injunction, 
are the common and ordinary hberties which the 
generality of professors allow themselves : and 
what is this but to live without God in the world ! 
Many causes may be assigned for this antichris- 
tian spirit, so prevalent among Christians ; but one 
of the principal I take to be their utter forgetful- 
ness that they have the word of God in their pos- 
session. 

My friend sir WilUam Russell was distantly 
related to a very accomplished man, who, though 
he never believed the gospel, admired the scrip- 
tures as the sublimest compositions in the world, 
and read them often. I have been intimate myself 
with a man of fine taste, who has confessed to me 
that, though he could not subscribe to the truth 
of Christianity itself, yet he never could read St. 
Luke's account of our Saviour's appearance to the 
two disciples going to Emmaus, without being 
wonderfully affected by it ; and he thought that 
if the stamp of divinity was any where to be found 
in scripture, it was strongly marked and visibly 
impressed upon that passage. If these men, whose 
hearts were chilled with the darkness of infidelity, 
could find such charms in the mere style of the 
scripture, what must they find there, whose eye 
penetrates deeper than the letter, and who firmly 
believe themselves interested in all the mvaluable 
privileges of the gospel 1 ' He that belicveth on 
me is passed from death unto life,' though it be as 
plain a sentence as words can form, has more 
beauties in it for such a person than all the labours 
antiquity can boast of If my poor man of taste, 
whom I have just mentioned, had searched a Uttle 
fuzliier, he might have found other parts of the 
«acred liistory as strongly marked with the cha- 
racters of divinity as that he mentioned. The 
parable of the prodigal son, the most beautiful fic- 
tion that ever was invented ; our Saviour's speech 
• to his di.sci]}les, with which he closes his earthly 
ministration, full of the sublimest dignity and ten- 
dercst alfection, surpass every tiling ^lat I ever 
read, and, like the spirit by which they were dic- 
tated, fly directly to the heart. If the scripture 
did not disdain all aflfectation of ornament, one 
should call these, and euch as these, the ornamen- 



tal parts of it ; but the matter of it is that upon 
which it principally stakes its credit with us, and 
the style, however excellent and peculiar to itself, 
is only one of those many external evidences by 
which it recommends itself to our belief 

I shall be very much obliged to you for the book 
you mention ; you could not have sent me any 
thing that would have been more welcome, unless 
you had sent me your own meditations instead of 
them. 

Yours, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Huntingdon, August 17, 17G5. 

You told me, my dear cousin, that I need not 
fear writing too often, and you perceive I take you 
at your word. At present, however, I shall do 
little more than thank you for the Meditations, 
which I adinire exceedingly: the author of them 
manifestly loved the truth with an undissembled 
affection, had made a great progress in the know- 
ledge of it, and experienced all the ha,ppiness that 
naturally results from that noblest of attainments. 
There is one circumstance, which he. gives us fre- 
quent occasion to observe in him, which I believe 
will ever be found in the philosophy of every true 
Christian. I mean the eminent rank which he 
assigns to faith among the virtues, as the source 
and parent of them all. There is nothing moro 
infallibly true than this, and doubtless it is with a 
view to the purifying and sanctifying nature of- a 
true faith, that oUr Saviour says, ' He that be- 
licveth in me hath everlasting life,' with many 
other expressions to the- same purpose. Consi- 
dered in this light, no wonder it has the power of 
salvation ascribed to it ! Considered m any other, 
we must suppose it to operate like an oriental talis- 
man, if it obtains for us the least advantage, which 
is an affront to him who insists upon our having 
it, and will on no other terms admit us to his fa- 
vour. I mention this distinguishing- article in his 
Reflections the rather, because it serves for a solid . 
foundation to the distinction I made, in ray last, 
between the specious professor and the true be- 
liever, between him whose faith is his Sunday- 
suit and him who never pvits it off. at all — a dis- 
tinction I am a little fearful sometimes of making, 
because it is a heavy stroke upon the practice of 
more than half the Christians in the world. 

My dear cousin, I told you I read the book with 
great pleasure, which may be accounted for from 
its own merit, but perhaps it pleased me the more 
because you had travelled the same road before 
me. You know there is such a pleasure as this, 
which would want great explanation to some, folks, 
being perhaps a mystery to those whose hearts are 
a mere muscle, and serve only for the purposes of 
an even circulation. W. C. 



Let. 9, 



LETTERS. 



IGD 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Sept. 4, 1765. 
Though I have some very agreeable acquaintance 
at Huntingdon, my dear cousin, none of their 
visits are so agreeable as the arrival of your letters. 
I thank you for tliat which I have just received 
from Droxford ; and particularly for that part of it 
where you give me an unlimited liberty upon the 
subject I have alrcad}' so often written upon. 
Whatever interests us deeply as naturally flows 
into the pen as it does from the lips, when everj 
restraint is taken away, and we meet with a friend 
indulgent enough to attend to us. How many, in 
all that variety of characters with whom I am ac- 
quainted, could I lind after the strictest search, to 
whom I could write as I do to youl I hope the 
number will increase. I am sure it can not easily 

be diminished. Poor 1 I have heard the 

whole of his history, and can only lament what I 
anv sure I can make no apology for. Two of my 
friends have been cut ofl' during my illness, in the 
midst of such a Ufe as it is frightful to reflect upon ; 
and here am I, in better health and spirits than I 
can almost remember to have enjoyed before, after 
having spent months in the apprehension of instant 
death. How mysterious are the ways of Provi- 
dence! Why did I receive grace and mercy 1 Why 
was I preserved, afflicted for my good, received, as 
I trust, into favour, and blessed with the greatest 
happiness I can ever know or hope for in this life, 
while these were overtaken by the great arrest, 
unawakened, unrepenting, and every way unpre- 
pared for if? His infinite wisdom, to whose in- 
finite mercy I owe it all, can solve these questions, 
and none beside him. If a free-thinker, as m§,ny 
a man miscalls himself, could be brought to give a 
serious answer to them, he Would certainly say — 
' Without doubt, sir, you was in great danger, you 
had a narrow escape, a most fortunate one indeed.' 
How excessively foolish, as well as shocking ! As 
if life depended upon luck, and all that we are or 
can be, all that we have or hope for, could possibly 
be referred to accident. Yet to this' freedom of 
thought it is owing that he; who, as our ' Saviour 
tells usj is thoroughly apprized of the death of the 
meanest of his creatures, is supposed to leave those, 
whom he has made in Ms own image to the mercy 
of chance; and to this,' therefore, it is likewise ow- 
ing that the correction which our heavenly Father 
bestows upon us, that we may be fitted to receive 
his blessing, is so often disappointed of its benevo- 
lent intention, and that men despise the* chastening 
of the Ahnighty. Fevers and all diseases are ac- 
cidents ; and long life, recovery at least from sick- 
ness, is the gift of the physician. No man can be 
a greater friend to the use of means upon these 
occasions than myself, for it were presumption and 
enthusiasm to neglect them. God has endued 



them with salutary properties on purpose that we 
might avail ourselves of them, otherwise that [lart 
of his creation were in vain. But to impute our 
recovery to the medicine, and. to carry our views no 
further, is to rob God of his honour; and is saying 
in effect he has parted with the keys of life and 
death, and, by giving to a drug the power to heal 
us, has placed our lives out of his own reach. He 
that thinks thus may as well fall upon his knees 
at once, and return thanks to the medicine that 
cured him, for it was certainly more immediately 
instrumental in his recovery than either the apo- 
thecary or the doctor. My dear cousin, a firm per- 
suasion of the superintendence of Providence over 
all our concerns is absolutely necessary to our hap- 
piness. Without it we can not be said to believe 
in the scripture, or practise any thing like resigna- 
tion to his will. If I am convinced that no afflic- 
tion can befal me without the permission of God, 
I am convinced likewise that he sees and knows 
that I am afflicted; believing this, I must in the 
same degree believe that, if I pray to him for de- 
liverance, he hears me; I must needs know like- 
wise with equal assurance that, if he hears, he will 
also deliver rne, if that will upon the whole be most 
conducive to my happiness ; and if he does not de- 
liver me, I may be well assured that he has none 
but the most benevolent intention in declining it. 
He made us, not because we could add to his hap- 
piness, which was always perfect, but that we 
might be happy ourselves ; and will he not in all 
his dispensations towards us, even in the minutest, 
consult that end for which he made usl To sup- 
pose the contrary, is (which we are not always 
aware of) affronting every one of liis attributes; 
and at the same time the certain consequence of 
disbelieving his care for us is, that we renounce ut- 
terly our dependence upon him. In this view it 
will appear plainly that the line of duty is not 
stretched too tight, when we are told that we ought 
to accept every tiling at his hands as a blessing,, 
and to be thankful even while we smart under the 
rod of iron with which he sometimes rules us. 
Without this persuasion, every blessing, however 
we may think ourselves happy in it, loses its 
greatest recommendation, and every affliction is in- 
tolerable. Death itself must be welcome to him 
who has this faith, and he who has it not must aim 
at it, if he is not a madman. You can not think 
how glad I am to hear you are going to commence 
lady and mistress of Freemantle.* I know it well, 
and I could go from Southampton blindfold. You 
are kind to invite me to it, and I shall be so kind to 
myself as to accept the invitation, though I should 
not for a slight consideration be prevailed upon to 
quit my beloved retirement at Huntmgdon. 

Yours ever, W. C. 



• Freemantle, a village near Southampton. 



170 



CO WPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 10, 11,12/ 



TO LADY HESKETH: 

Huntingdon, Sept, M, 1765. • 

^fy DEAR COUSIN, 

The longer I live here, the better I like the 
place, and the people who belong to it. I am 
upon very good terms with no less than five fami- 
lies, besides two or three odd scrambling fellows 
like myself. The last acquaintance I made here 
is with the race of the XJnwins, consisting of father 
and mother, son and daughter, the most comforta- 
ble, social folks you ever knew. The son is about 
twenty-one years of age, one of the most unre- 
served and amiable young men I ever conversed 
with. He is not yet arrived at that tune of life, 
when suspicion recommends itself to us in the form 
of wisdom, and sets every thing but our own dear 
selves at an immeasurable distance from our es- 
teem and confidence. Consequently he is known 
almost as soon as seen, and having nothing in his 
heart that makes it necessary for him to keep it 
barred and bolted, opens it to the perusal even of a 
stranger. The father is a clergyman, and the son 
is designed for orders. The design, however, is 
quite his own, proceeding merely from his being 
and having always been sincere in his belief and 
love of the gospel. Another acquaintance I have 
lately made is with a Mr. Nicholson, a North- 
country divine, very poor, but very good, and very 
happy. He reads prayers here twice a day, all the 
year round ; and travels on foot to serve two 
churches every Sunday through the year, his jour- 
ney out and home again being sixteen miles. I 
supped with him last night. He gave me bread 
and cheese, and a black jug of ale of his own 
brewing, and doubtless brewed by his own hands. 

Another of my acquaintance is Mr. , a thin, 

tall, old man, and as good as he is thin. He 
drinks nothing but water, and eats no flesh ; partly 
(I believe) from a religious scruple (for he is very 
religious), and partly in the spirit of a valetu- 
dinarian. He is to be met with every mormng 
of his life, at about six o'clock, at a fountain of very 
fine water, about a mile from the town, which is 
reckoned extremely like the Bristol spring. Being 
both early risers, and the only early walkers in the 
place, we soon became acquainted. His great 
piety can be equalled by nothing but liis great 
regularity, for he is the most perfect time-piece in 
the world. I have received a visit likewise from 
Mr. . He is very' much a gentleman, well- 
read, and sensible. I am persuaded, in short, that 
if I had the choice of all England, where to fix my 
abode, I could not have chosen better for myself, 
and most likely I should not have chosen so well. 
You say, you hope it is not necessary for salva- 
tion, to undergo the same afflictions that I have 
undergone. No! my dear cousin. God deals with 
his children as a merciful father; he docs not, as 



he liimself tells us, afflict willingly the sons of men. 
Doubtless there are many, who, having been placed 
by his good providence out of the reach of any 
great evil and the influence of bad example, have 
firom their very infancy been partakers of the grace 
of his holy spirit, in such a manner as never to 
have allowed themselves in any grievous offence 
against liim. May you love him more and more 
day by day ; as every day, while you think upon 
him, you will find him more worthy of your love: 
and may you be finally accepted with him for his 
sake, whose intercession for all his faithful servants 
can not. but prevail ! Yours ever, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Huntingdon, Oct. 10, 1765. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, 

I SHOULD grumble at your long silence, if I did 
not know that one may love one's friends very well, 
though ofte is not always • in the humour to write 
to them. Besides, I have the satisfaction of being 
perfectly sure that you ha.ve at least twenty times . 
recollected the debt you owe me, and as often re- 
solved to pay it: and perhaps while you remain 
indebted, to nie, you think of me twice as often as 
you would do, if the account was clear. These 
arc the reflections with wJiich I comfort myself, 
under the affliction of not hearing from you ; my 
temper does not incline me to jealousy, and if it 
did, I should set all right by having recourse to what 
I have already received from you. 

I thank God for your friendship, and for every 
friend 1 have ; for all the pleasing circ\unstances 
of my situation here, for my health of body, and 
perfect serenity of mind. To recollect the past, 
and compare it with the present, is all I have need 
of to fill me with gratitude : and to be grateful is 
to be happy. Not that I think myself sufficiently 
thankful, or, that I shall ever be so in this life. 
The warmest heart perhaps only feels by fits, and 
is often as insensible as the coldest. This at least 
is frequently ihe case with mine, and oftener than 
it should be. But the mercy that can forgive ini- 
quity will never be severe to mark our frailties ; to 
that mercy, my dear cousin, I commend you, with 
earnest wishes for your welfare, and remain your 
ever affectionate W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Huntingdon,. Oct. 18,1165. 
I WISH you joy, my dear cousin, of being safely 
arrived in port from the storms of Southampton. 
For my own part, who am but as a Thames 
wherry, in a world full of tempest and commotion, 
I know so well the value of the creek I have put 
into, and the snugness it affords me, that I have 



Let. 13. 



LETTERS. 



171 



a sensible sympathy with you in the pleasure you 
find in being once more blown to Droxford. I 
know enough of Miss Morley to send her my 
compliments ; to \Nrhich, if I had never seen her, 
her affection for you would sufficiently entitle her. 
If I neglected to do it sooner, it is only because I 
am naturally apt to neglect what I ought to do ; 
and if I was as genteel as I am negligent, I should 
be the most delightful creature in the universe. 
I am glad you think so favourably of my Hun- 
tingdon acquaintance ; they are indeed a nice set 
of folks, and suit me exactly. I should have been 
more particular in my account of Miss Unwin, 
if I had had materials for a minute description. 
She is about eighteen years of age, rather hand- 
some and genteel. In her mother's company she 
says little ; not because her mother requires it of 
her, but because she seems glad of that excuse for 
not talking, beiiig somewhat _mclined to bashful- 
ness. There is the most remarkable cordiality 
between all the parts of the family ; and the mother 
and daughter seem to doat upon each other. The 
first time I went to the house I was introduced to 
the daughter alone ; and sat with her near half 
an hour, before her brother came in, who had ap- 
pointed me to call upon him. Talking is neces- 
sary in a tete-a-tete, to distinguish the persons of 
the drama from the chairs they sit on : accordingly 
she talked a great deal, and extremely well ; and, 
like the rest of the family, behaved with as much 
ease of address as if we had been old acquaintance. 
She resembles her mother in her great piety, who 
is one of the most remarkable instances of it I 
have ever seen. They are altogether the cheer- 
fullest and most engaging family-piece it is possi- 
ble to conceive. — Since I wrote the above, I met 
Mrs. Unwin in the street, and went home with 
her. She and I walked together near two hours 
in the garden, and had a conversation which did 
me more good than I should have received from 
an audience of the first prince in Europe. That 
woman is a blessing to me, and I never see her 
without being the better for her company! I am 
treated in the family as if I was a near relation, 
and have been repeatedly invited to call upon them 
at all times. You know what a shy fellow I am ; 
1 can not prevail with myself to make so much 
use of this privilege as I am sure they intend I 
should ; but perhaps this awkwardness will wear 
off hereafter. It was my earnest request before I 
left St. Alban's, that wherever it might please 
Providence to dispose of .me, 1 might meet wath 
such an acquaintance as I find in Mrs. Unwin. 
How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast assur- 
ance, that our petitions are heard even while we 
are making them — and how delightful to meet 
with a proof of it in the effectual and actual grant 
of them I Surely it is a gracious finishing given to 
those means, which the Almighty has been pleased 



to riiake use of for my conversion-. After having 
been deservedly rendered unfit for any society, to 
be again qualified for it, and admitted at once into 
the fellowship of those whom God regards as the 
excellent of the earth, and whom, in the cmphati- 
cal language of Scripture, he preserves as the 
apple of his eye, is a blessing which carries with 
it the stamp and visible superscription of divine 
bounty — a grace unlimited as undeserved; and, 
like its glorious Author, free in its course, and 
blessed in its operation ! 

My dear cousin! Health and happiness, and 
above all, the favour of our great and gracious 
Lord, attend you ! While we seek it in spirit and 
in truth, we are infinitely more secure of it than 
of the next breath we expect to draw. Heaven 
and earth have their destined periods ; ten thou- 
sand worlds will vanish at the consummation of all 
things ; but the word of God standeth fast ; and 
they who trust in him shall -never be confounded. 

My love to all who enquire after me. 

Yours afiectionately, W. C. 



TO MAJOR COWPER. 

. Huntingdon, Oct. 18, 1765. 

MY DEAR MAJOR, 

I have neither lost the use of my fingers nor my 
memofy, though my unaccountable silence might 
incline you to suspect that I had lost both. The 
history of those things which have, from time to 
time, prevented my scribbling, would not only be 
insipid but extremely voluminous ; for which rea- 
sons they will not make their appearance at pre- 
sent, nor probably at any time hereafter. If .my 
neglecting to write to you were a proof that I had 
never thought of you, and that had been really the 
case, five shillings apiece would have been much 
too httle to give for the sight of such a monster! 
but I am no such monster, I nor do I perceive in 
myself the least tendency to such a transformation. 
You may recollect that I had but very uncomfort- ■ 
able expectations of the accormnodation I should 
meet with at Huntingdon. How much better is 
it to take our lot, where it sliall please Providence 
to cast it, without anxiety ! Had I chosen for my- 
self, it is impossible I could have fixed upon a 
place so agreeable to me in all respects. I so 
much dreaded the thought of having a new ac- 
quaintance to make, wdth no other recommenda- 
tion than that of being a perfect stranger, that I 
heartily wished no creature here might take the 
least notice of me. Instead of which, in about 
two months after my arrival, I became known to 
all the visitable people here, and do verily think it 
the most agreeable neighbourhood I ever saw. 

Here are three families who have received me 
with the utmost civiUty; and two in particular 



172 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 14, 15, 



have treated me with as much cordiality, as if their 
pedigrees and mine had grown upon the same 
sheep-skin. Besides these, tliere are three or four 
single men who suit niy temper to a hair. The 
town is one of the neatest in England ; the coun- 
try is fine for several miles about it ; and the roads, 
which are all turnpike, and stiike cut four or five 
diflercnt ways, .are perfectly good all the year 
rouaid. I mention this latter circumstance chiefly 
because my distance from Cambridge has made a 
horseman of me at last, or at least is likely to do 
so. My brother and I meet every week, by an 
alternate reciprocation of intercourse, as Sam John- 
son would express it ; sometimes I get a lift in a 
neighbour's chaise, but generally ride. As to my 
own personal condition, I am much happier than 
the day is long, and sunshine and candlehght see 
me perfectly contented. I get books in abund- 
ance, as much company as I choose, a deal of com- 
fortable leisure, and c^ijoy better health, I think, 
than for many years past. What is there want- 
ing to make me happy 1 Nothing, if I can but 
be as thankfiil as I ought ; and I trust that He 
who has bestowed so many blessings Upon me, will 
give me gratitude to crown them all. I beg you 
will give my love to my dear cousin Maria, and to 
every body at the Park. If Mrs. Maitland is 
with you, as I suspect by a passage in Lady Hes- 
keth's letter to me, pray remember me to her very 
affectionately. And beUeve me, my dear friend, 
ever yours. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

DEAR JOE, October 25, 1765. 

I AM afraid the month of October has proved 
rather unfavourable to the belle assemblee at 
Southampton; high winds and continual rains 
being bitter enemies to that agreeable lounge, 
which you and I are equally fond of. I have very 
cordially betaken myself to my books, and my 
fireside; and seldom leave them unless for exer- 
cise. I have added another family to the number 
of tliose I was acquainted with when you were 
here. Their name is Unwin— the most agreeable 
people imaginable ; quite sociable, and as free from 
the ceremonious civility of country gentlefolks as 
any I ever met with. They treat me more like a 
near relation than a stranger, and their house is 
always open to me. The old gentleman carries 
me to .Cambridge in his chaise. He is a man of 
learning and good sense, arid as simple as parson 
Adams. His wife has a very uncommon under- 
standing, has read much to excellent purpose, and 
•is more polite than a duchess. The son who be- 
longs to Cambridge, is a most amiableyoung man, 
and the daughter quite of a piece with the rest of 
the family. They see but little company, which 



suits me exactly ; go when I will, I find a house 
fuU of peace and cordiaUty in all its parts, and I 
am sure io hear no scandal, but such discourse 
instead of it as we are all better for. You remem- 
ber Rousseau's description of an English morning; 
such are the mornings I spend with these good peo- 
ple ; and the evenings differ from them in nothing, 
except that they are still more snug and quieter. 
Now I know them, I wonder that I liked Hun- 
tingdon so well before I knew them, and am apt 
to think I should find every place disagreeable that 
had not an Unwm belonging to it. 

This incident convinces me of the truth of an 
observation I have often made, that when we cir- 
cumscribe our estimate of all that is clever within 
the limits of om: own acquaintance (which I at 
least have been always apt to do,) we are guilty 
of a very uncharitable censure upon the rest of the 
world, and of a narxowness of thinking disgrace-' 
ful to ourselves. Wapping and Redriff may con- 
tain some of the most amiable persons living, and 
such as one would go to Wapping and Redriff to 
make acquaintance with. You remember Mr. 
Gray's stanza — 

' Full many a gem of purest ray serene 

The deep unfathora'd caves of ocean bear; 

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen; 

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.' 
Yours, dear Joe, . W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 



Huntingdon, March 6, 1766. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, 

I HAVE for some time past imputed your silence 
to the cause which you yourself assign for it, viz. 
j to my change of situation : and was even saga- 
j cious enough to account for the frequency of your 
! letters to me, wliile I lived alone, from your atten- 
j tion to me in a state of such solitude as. seemed to 
make it an act of particular charity to write to 
I me. I bless God for it, I was happy even then ; 
sohtude has nothing gloomy in it if the soul points 
upwards. St. Paul tells his Plebrew converts, 
'ye are come (already come) to Mount Sion, to 
an innumerable company of angels, to the general 
assembly of the first-born, which are written in 
heaven, and to Jesus the mediator of the new co- 
venant.' When this is the case, as surely it was 
with them, or the Spirit of Truth had never spoken 
it, there is an 'end of the melancholy and dullness 
of a solitary life at once. You will not^ suspect 
me, my dear cousin, of a design to understand this 
passage literally. But this, however, it certainly 
means ; that a lively faith is able to anticipate in 
some measure the joys of that heavenly society, 
which the soul shall actually possess hereafter. 
Since I have changed my situation, I have found 



Let. 16, 17. 



LETTERS. 



173 



still greater cause of thanksgiving to the Father 
of all mercies. The family with whom I live are 
Christians; and it has pleasetl the Almighty to 
bring me to the knowledge of them, that I may 
want no means of improvement in that temper 
and conduct which he is pleased to require in all 
his servants. 

My dear cousin ! one half of the christian world 
would call this madness, fanaticism, and folly: but 
arc not all these thhigs warranted by the word of 
God, not only in the passages I have cited, but in 
many others 1 If we have no communion with 
God here, surely we can expect none hereafter 
A faith that does not place oiu' conversation in 
heaven ; that does not warm the heart, and purify 
it too; that does not, in short, govern our thought, 
word, and deed, is no faith, nor will it obtain for 
us any sjpiritual blessing here or hereafter. Let 
us see therefore, my dear cousin, that we do not de- 
ceive ourselves in a matter of such infinite moment. 
The world will be ever telUng us that we are good 
enough ; and the vcorld will \dlify us behind our 
backs. But it is not the world which tries the 
heart; that is the prerogative of God alone. My 
dear cousin! I have often pl'a;fed for you behind 
your back, and now I pray for you to your face. 
There are many who would not forgive me jj^is 
wrong; but I have known you so long, and so 
wcll,-that I am not afraid of telling you how sincere- 
ly I wish for your growth in every christian grace, 
in every thing that may promote and secure your 
everlasting welfare. 

I am obliged to Mrs. Cowper for the book, which 
you perceive arrived safe. I am willing to consi- 
der it as an intunation on her part that she would 
wish me to write to her, and shall do it accord- 
ingly. My circumstances are rather particular, 
such as call upon my friends, those I mean who 
are truly such, to take some little notice of nie ; 
and will naturally make those who are not such 
in sincerity rather shy of doing it. To this I im- 
pute the silence of many with regard to me, who, 
before the affliction thai oefel me, were ready 
enough to converse with me. 

Yours ever, W. C. 



to this place. The lady in whose house I live is 
so excellent a person, and regards me with a friend- 
ship so truly christian, that I could almost fancy 
my own mother restored to Ufe again, to compen- 
sate to me for all tho friends I have lost, and all 
my connexions broken. She has a son at Cam- 
bridge in all respects worthy of such a mother, 
the most amiable young man I ever knew. His 
natural and acquired endowments are very consi- 
derable ; and as to his ^'irtues, I need only say 
that he is a christian. It ought to be a matter of 
daily thanksgiving to me, that I am admitted into 
the society of such persons; and I pray God to 
make me and keep me worthy of them. 

Your brother iVIartin has been very land to me, 
having written to me twice in a style which, though 
it was once irksome to me, to say the least, I now 
know how to value. I pray God to forgive me the 
many light things I have both said and thought 
of him and his labours. Hereafter I shall consi- 
der him as a burning and a shining hght, and as 
one of those ' who, having turned many unto 
righteousness, shall shine hereafter as the stars 
for ever and ever.' 

So much for the state, of my heart; as to my 
spirits, I am cheerful and happy, and having peace 
with God have peace within myself For the con- 
tinuance of this blessing I trust to Hun who gives 
it : and they who trust iir Him shall never be con- 
founded. Yours affectionately, W. C. 

Huntingdon, at the Rev. Mr. Unwin's, 
March 12, 1785. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, 

I AM much obliged to you for Pearsall's Medi- 
. tations, especially as it furnishes me vyith an occa- 
sion of writing to you, which is all I have waited 
for. My friends must excuse me, if I write to none 
but those who lay it fairly in my way to do so. 
The inference I am apt to draw fiom their silence 
is, that they wish me to be silent too7 

I have great reason, my dear cousui, to be thank- 
ful to the gracious Providence that conducted me 



TO. MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, 

I AGREE with you that letters are not essential 
to friendship ; but they seem to be a natural fhiit 
of it, .when they are the only intercourse that can 
be had. And a- friendship producing no sensible 
effects is so like indifference, that the appearance 
may easily deceive even an acute discerner. I re- 
tract, lio.wever, all that I said in my last upon this 
subject, having reason to suspect that it proceeded 
from a principle which I would discourage in my- 
self upon all occasions, even a pride that felt itself 
hurt upon a mere suspicion of neglect. I have so 
much cause for humility, and so much need of it 
too, and every little sneaking resentment is such 
an enemy to it, that I hope I shall never give quar- 
ter to any thing that appears in the shape of sul- 
lenness, or self-consequence, hereafter. Alas ! if 
my best Friend, who laid down his life for me, were 
to' remember all the instances in which I have ne- 
glected hun, and to plead them against me in judg- 
ment, where should. I hide my guilty head in the 
day of recompense "? I will . pray, therefore, for 
blessings upon my friends, even though they cease 



174 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 18. 



to be *so ; and upon my enemies, though they con 
tinue such. The deceitfuhiess ■ of the natural 
heart is inconceivable. I know well that I passed 
iipon my friends for a person at least religiously 
incUned, if not actually religious; and what is 
more wonderful, I thought myself a Christian, 
tvhen I had no faith in Christ, when I saw no 
beauty in him that I should desire him ; in short, 
when I had neither faith nor love, nor any christ- 
ian grace whatever, but a thousand seeds of rebel- 
lion instead, evermore springing, up in emnity 
against hinii But blessed be God, even the God 
who is become my salvation, the hail of affliction, 
and rebuke for sin, has swept away the refuge of 
lies. It pleased the Almighty in great mercy to 
set all my misdeeds before me. At length, the 
storm being past, a quiet and peaceful serenity of 
soul succeeded, such as ever attends the gift of 
lively faith in the all-suflicient atonement, and the 
s weet sense- of mercy and pardon purchased by the 
blood of Christ. Thus did he break me, and bind 
me up; thus did he wound me, and his hands 
made me whole. My dear cousin, I make naapo- 
logy for entertaining you with the history of my 
conversion, because I know you to be a Christian 
in the sterling import of the appellation. This is 
however but a very summary account of the mat- 
ter, neither would a letter contain the astonishing 
particulars of it. If we ever meet again in this 
world, I -will relate them to you by word of mouth; 
if not, they will serve for the subject of a confer- 
ence in the next, where I doubt not I shall remem- 
ber and record them with a gratitude better suited 
to the subject. 

Yours, my dear cousin, affectionately, W. C. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

My dear cousin, April 17, 1766. 

As in matters unattainable by-reason, and un- 
revealed in the Scripture, it is impossible to argue 
at all ; so in matters concerning v^-hich reason can 
only give a probable guess, and the scripture has 
made no explicit discovery, it is, though not im- 
possible to argue at all, yet impossible to argue to 
any certain conclusion. This seems to me to be 
the very case with the point in question — reason is 
able to form many plausible conjectures concerning 
the possibility of our knowing each other in a fu- 
ture state ; and the scripture has, here and there, 
favoured us with an expression that looks at least 
like a slight intimation of it ; but because a con- 
jecture can never amount to a proof, and a slight 
intimation can not be construed into a positive as- 
sertion, therefore I think we can never come to 
any absolute conclusion upori the subject. We 
may indeed reason about the plausibility of our 
conjectures, and we may discuss, with great indus- 



try and shrewdness of argument, those passages 
in the scripture which seem to favour the opinion ; 
but still, no certain means having- been afforded 
us, no certain end can be attained ; and after all 
that can be said, it will still be doubtful whether 
we shall know each other or not. 

As to arguments founded upon human reason 
only, it would be easy to muster up a much great- 
er number on the affirmative side of the question, 
than it would be worth my while to write, or yours 
to read. Let us see, therefore, what the scripture 
says, or seems to say, towards the proof of it ; . and- 
of this kind of argmnent also I shall insert but a- 
few of those which seem to me to be the fairest 
and clearest for the purpose. For after all, a dis- 
putant on either side of tliis question is in danger 
of that censure of our blessed Lord's, ' Ye do err,- 
not knowing the scripture, nor the power of God.' 

As to parables, I know it has been said, in the 
dispute concerning the intermediate state, that they 
are not argumentative ; ■ but this having been con- 
troverted by very wise and good men, and the pa- 
rable of Dives and Lazarus having been used by 
sucli to prove an intermediate state, I see not why 
it may not be as fitirly used for the proof of any 
other matter which it seems fairly to imply. In 
thji parable we see that Dives is represented as 
knowing Lazarus,, and Abraham as knowing them 
both, and the discourse between them is entirely 
concerning their respective characters and circum- 
stances upon earth. Here, therefore, our Saviour 
seems to countenance the notion of a mutual 
knowledge and recollection ; and if a soul that has 
perished shall know the soul that is saved, surely 
the heirs of salvation shall know and recollect each 
other. 

In the first epistle to the Thessalonians, the se- 
cond chapter, and nineteenth verse, St. Paul says, 
'What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing 1 
Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus 
Christ at his coming 1 For ye are lur glory and 
our joy.' 

As to the hope wliich the apostle has formed 
concerning them, he himself refers the accomplish- 
ment of it to the coming of Christ, meaning that 
then he should receive the recompense of his la- 
bours in their'behalf ; his joy and glory he refers 
'likewise to the same period, both which would re- 
sult from the sight of such numbers redeemed by - 
the blessing of God upon his ministration, when 
he should present them before the great Judge, and 
say, in the words of a greater than himself, ' Lo ! . 
I, and the children whom thou hast given me.' 
This seems to imply that the apostle should know 
the converts, and the converts the apostle, at least 
at the day of judgment; and if then, why not 
afterwards'? 

Sec also the fourth chapter of that epistle, verses 
13, 1-1, 16, which I have not room to transcribe. 



LEf . 19. 



LETTERS. 



175 



Here the apostle comforts them under their afflic- 
tion for their deceased brethren, exhorting them 
' Not to sorrow as without hope ;' and what is the 
hope by which he teaches them to support their 
spirits 1 Even this, ' That them which sleep in 
Jesus shall God bring with him.' In other words, 
and by a fair paraphrase surely, telling them that 
they are only taken from, them for a season, and 
that they should receive them at their resurrection. 

If you can take off the force of these texts, my 
dear cousin, you will go a great way towards 
shaking my opinion ; if not, I think they must go 
a grea:t way towards shaking yours. 

The reason why I did not send you my opinion 
of Pearsall was, because I had not then read him ; 
I have read him since, and like him much, espe- 
cially the latter part of him; but you have whet- 
ted my curiosity to see the last letter by tearing it 
out : unless you can give me a good reason why I 
should not see it, I shall inquire for the book the 
first time I go to Cambridge. Perhaps I may be 
partial to Hervey for the sake of his other writings ; 
but I can not give Pearsall the preference to hhn, 
for 1 think hun one of tlie most scriptural writers 
in the world. Yours, W. C. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, April 18, 1766. 

Having gone as far as I thought needful to jus- 
tify the opinion of our meeting and knowing each 
other hereafter, I find, upon reflection, that I have 
done but half my business, and that one of the 
questions you proposed, remains entirely unconsi- 
dered, viz. ' Whether the things of our present 
state will not be of too low and mean a nature to 
engage our thoughts, or make a part of our com- 
munications in heaven.' 

The common a,nd ordinary occurrences of life, 
no doubt, and even the ties of kindred, and of all 
temporal interests, will be entirely discarded from 
amongst that happy society, and possibly even the 
remembrance of them done away. But it does 
not therefore follow that our spiritual concerns, 
even in tliis life, will be fol-gotten ; neither do I 
think that they can ever appear trifling to us in 
any the most distant period of eternity. God, as 
you say in reference to the scripture, will be all in 
all. But does not that expression mean, that being 
admitted to so near an approach to our heavenly 
Father and Redeemer, our whole nature, the soul 
and all its faculties, will be emploj'ed in praising 
and adoring him 1 Doubtless however this will 
be the case; and if so, will it not furnish out a 
glorious theme of thanksgiving, to recollect ' The 
rock whence we were hewn, and the hole of the 
pit whence we were digged"?' To recollect the 
time when our faith, which- under the tuition and 



nurture of the holy Spirit has produced such a 
plentiful harvest of umnortal bliss, was as a grain 
of mustard seed, small in itself, promising but little 
fruit, and producing less 1 To recollect the va- 
rious attempts that were made upon it, by the 
word, the flesh, and the devil, and its various tri- 
vmrphs over all, by the assistance of God, through 
our Lord Jesus Christ 1 At present, whatever 
our convictions may be. of the sinfulness and cor- 
ruption of our nature, we can make but a very 
imperfect estimate either of our weakness or our 
guilt. Then, no doubt, we shall understand the 
full value of the wonderful salvation wrought out 
for us : and it seems reasonable to suppose, that, 
in order to form a just idea of our redemption, we. 
shall be able to form a just one of the danger we 
have escaped ; when we know how weak and frail 
we were, surely we shall be more able to render 
due praise and honour to his strength who fought 
for us ; when we know completely the hatefulness 
of sin in the sight of God, and how deeply we 
were tainted by it, we shall know how to value the 
blood by which we were cleansed as we ought. 
The twenty-four elders, in the fifth of the Revela- 
tions, give glory to God for their redemption out 
of every kindred, arid tongue, and people, and 
nation. This surely implies a retrospect to their 
respective conditions upon earth, and that each 
remembered out of what particular kindred and 
nation he had been redeemed; and if so, then sure- 
ly the minutest circumstance of their redemption 
did not escape their memory. They who trimnph 
over the beast, in the fifteenth chapter, sing the 
song of Moses, the servant of God ; and what was 
that song 1 A sublime record of Israel's dehver- 
ance, and the destruction of her enemies in the 
Red Sea, typical no doubt of the song which the 
redeemed in Sion shall sing to celebrate their own 
salvation, and the defeat of their spiritual enemies. 
This, again, impUes a recollection of the dangers 
they had before encountered, and the supplies of 
strength and ardour they had in every emergency 
received from the great deliverer out of all. ' These 
quotations do not indeed prove that their warfare 
upon earth includes a part of their converse with 
each other; but they prove that it is a theme not 
unworthy to be heard even before the throne of 
God, and therefore it can not be unfit for ^recipro- 
cal communication. 

But you doubt whether there is any communi- 
cation between the blessed at all ; neither do I re- 
collect any scripture that proves it, or that bears 
any relation to the subject. But reason seems to 
require it so peremptorily, that a society without 
social intercourse seems to be a solecism, and a 
contradiction in terms; and the inhabitants of 
those regions are called, you know, an innumera- 
ble compamj, and an assembly, which seems to 
convey the idea of society as clearly as the word 



17G 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 20. 



itself. Human testimony weighs but little in mat- 
ters of this sort, but let it have all the weight it 
can : I know no greater names in divinity than 
Watts and Doddridge; they were, both of this 
opinion, and I- send you the words of the latter: — 

' Our covipanions in glory mayprobably assist 
us by their wise and good obscrs'ations, when we 
come to make the providence of God, here upon 
eartli, under the guidancp and direction of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, the subject of our viutxuil con- 
verse.^ 

Thus, my dear cousin, I have spread out my 
reasons before you for an opinion which, whether 
admitted or denied, affects not the state or interest 
of our soul. May our Creator, Redeemer, and 
Sanctifier, conduct us into his own Jerusalem ; 
where there shall be no night, neither any dark- 
ness at all; where we shall be free even from in- 
nocent error, and perfect in the light of the know- 
ledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ. ' 

Yours faithfully, W. C. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

Huntingdon, Sept. 3, 1766. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, 

It is reckoned, }'ou know, a great achievement 
to silence an opponent in disputation; and your 
silence was of so long a continuance, that I might 
well begin to please myself with the apprehension 
of having accomplished so arduous a matter. To 
be serious, however, I am not sorry that what I 
have said concerning our knowledge of each other 
in a future state has a little inclined you to the 
affirmative. For though the redeemed of the Lord 
shall be sure of being as happy in that state as in- 
finite power, employed by infinite goodness, can 
make them ; and therefore it may seem immaterial 
whether we shall or shall not, recollect each other 
hereafter, yet. our present happiness at least is a 
little interested in the question. A parent, a friend, 
a wife, must needs, I think, feel a little heartache 
at the thouglit of an eternal separation from the 
objects of her regard; and not to know them when 
she meets them in another life, or never to meet 
them at all, amounts, though not altogether, yet 
nearly to the same thing. Remember them I thiiik 
she needs must. To hear that they are happy, 
will indeed be no small addition to her own felicity; 
but to see them so will surely be a greater. Thus 
at least it appears to our present human apprehen- 
sion; consequently, therefore, to think that when 
we leave them, we lose them for ever, that we 
mu.st remain eternally ignorant whether they, that 
were flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, par- 
take with us of celestial glory, or are disinherited 
of their heavenly portion, must shed a dismal gloom 



over all our present connexions. For my own 
part, this hfe is such a momentary thing, and all 
its interests have so shrunk in my estimation, since 
by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ I became 
attentive to the things of another, that, like a 
worm in the bud of all my friendships and affec- 
tions, this very thought would eat out the heart 
of them all, had I a thousand-; and were their date 
to terminate with this life, I think I should have 
no inclination to cultivate and improve such a fu- 
gitive busmess. Yet friendship is necessary to 
our happiness here ; and built upon christian prin- 
ciples, upon which only it can stand, is a thing 
even of religious sanction — for what is tliat love 
which the Holy Spirit, speaking by St. John, so 
much inculcates, but friendship"? the only love 
which deserves the name; a love which can toil, 
and watch, and deny itself, and go to death for its 
brother. Worldly friendships are a poor weed 
compared with this : and even this union of spirit 
in the bond of peace would suffer, in my mind at 
least, could I think it were onlj^ coeval vwth our 
earthly mansions. It may possibly argue great 
weakness in me, in this instance, to stand so much 
in need of future hopes to support me in the dis- 
charge of present duty. But so it is — I am far, I 
know, very far from being perfect, in christian love, 
or any other divine attainment, and am therefore 
imwilling. to forego whatever may help me in my 
progress. 

You are so kind as to inquire after my health, 
for which reason I must tell you, what othervnse 
would not be worth mentionirig, that 1 have lately 
been just enough indisposed to convince me that 
not only hmnan life in general, but mine in parti- 
cular, hangs by a slender thread. I am stout 
enough in appearance, yet a little illness demohsh- 
es me. I have had a severe shake, and the build- 
ing is not so firm as it was. But I bless God for 
it with all my heart. If the inner man be but 
strengthened day by day, as, I hope, under the 
renewing influences of the Holy Ghost it will be, 
no matter how soon the outward is dissolved. He 
who iias in a manner raised me from the dead, in 
a literal sense, has given me the grace, I trust, to 
be ready at the shortest notice to surrender up to 
liim that life wliich I have twice received from him. 
Whether I live or die, I desire it may be to His 
glory, and it must be- to my happiness.— I thank 
God that I have those amongst my kindred to 
whom I can write without reserve my sentiments 
upon this subject, as I do to you. A letter upon 
any other subject is more insipid to me than ever 
my task was when a schoolboy ; and I say not this 
in vain glory, God forbid! but to show you what 
the Almighty, whose name I am unworthy to men- 
tion, has done for me, the cliief of sinners. Once 
he was a terror to me, and his service, Oh what a 



Let. 21, 22. 



LETTERS. 



177 



weariness it was ! Now I can say I love him, and 
his holy name, and I am never so happy as when I 
speak of his mercies to me. 

Yours, dear cousin, W. C. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, Huntingdon, Oct. 20, 1766. 

I AM very sorry for poor Charles's illness, and 
hope you will soon have cause to thank God 
foj his complete recovery. We have an epidemical 
fever in tliis country liliewise, which leaves behind 
it a continual sighing, almost to suflocation ; not 
that I have seen any instance of it, for, blessed be 
God ! our family have hitherto escaped it, but such 
was the account I heard of it this morning. 

I am obliged to you for the interest you take in 
my welfare, and for your inquiring so particularly 
after the manner in which my time passes here. As 
to amusements, I mean what the world calls such, 
we have none ; the place indeed swarms with tliem, 
and cards and dancing are the professed business 
of almost all the gentle inhabitants of Huntingdon. 
We refuse to take part in them, or to be accessaries 
to this way of murdering our time, and by so doing 
have acquired the name of Methodists. Having 
tolci you how we do not spend oiu' time, I will next 
say how we do. We breakfast commonly between 
eight and nine ; till eleven, we read either the 
Scripture, or the sermons of some faithful preach- 
er of those holy mysteries ; at eleven we attend Di- 
vine Service, wliich is performed here twice every 
day; and from twelve to three we separate and 
amuse ourselves as we please. During that inter- 
val I either read in my own apartment, or walk, or 
ride, or work in the garden. We seldom sit an 
hour after dinner, but if the weather permits ad- 
journ to the garden, where with Mrs. Unwin and 
her son I have generally the pleasure of religious 
conversation tUl tea-tune. If it rains, or is too 
windy for walking, we either converse within doors, 
or sing some hymns of Martin's collection, and by 
the help of Mrs. Un win's harpsichord make up a 
tolerable concert, in which our hearts, I hope, are 
the best and most musical performers. After tea 
we sally forth to walk in good earnest. Mrs. Un- 
win is a good walker, and we have generally tra- 
velled about four miles before we see home again. 
When the days are short, we make this excursion 
in the former part of the day, between church-time 
and dinner. At niglit we read and -converse, as 
before, till supper, and commonly finish the evening 
either with hymns or a sermon, and last of all the 
family are called to prayers. I need not tell you 
that such a life as this is consistent with the utmost 
cheerfulness; accordingly we are all happy, and 
dwell together in unity as brethren. Mrs. Un- 
wn has almost a maternal affection for me, and I 



have something very like a filial one for her, and 
her son and I are brothers. Blessed be the God 
of our salvation for. such companions, and for such 
a life ; above all, for a heart to like it. 

I have had many anxious thoughts about taking 
orders, and I believe every new convert is apt to 
think himself called upon for that purpose ; but it 
has pleased God, by means which there is no need 
to particularize, to give me full satisfaction as to 
the propriety of declining it; indeed they who 
have the least idea of what I have suffered from 
the dread of public exlribitions, will readily excuse 
my never attempting them hereafter. In the 
meantime, if it please the Almighty, I may be an 
instrument of turning many to the truth in a pri- 
vate way, and I hope that my endeavours in this 
waiy have not been entirely unsuccessful. Had I 
the zeal of Moses, I should want an Aaron to be 
my spokesman. 

Yours ever, my dear cousin, W. C. 



. . TO MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COUSIN,, March 11, 1767. 

To find those v, aom 1 love, clearly and strongly 
persuaded of evangelical truth, gives me a pleasure 
superior to any thing that this world can afford 
me. Judge then, whether your letter, in which 
the body and substance of a saving faith is so evi- 
dently set forth, could meet with a lukewarm re- 
ception at my hands, or be entertained with indif- 
ference 1 Would you know the true reason of my 
long silence 1 Conscious that my religious prin- 
ciples are generally excepted against, and that the 
conduct they produce, wherever they are heartily 
maintained, is still more the object of disapproba- 
tion than those principles themselves ; and rememT 
bering that I had made both the one and the other 
known to you, without having any clear assurance 
that our faith in Jesus was of the same stamp and 
character ; I could not help thinking it possible that 
you might disapprove both my sentiments and prac- 
tice ; that you might think the one unsupported by 
Scripture, and the other whimsical, and unneces- 
sarily strict and rigorous, and consequently would 
be rather pleased with the suspension of a corres- 
pondence, which a different way of thinking upon 
so momentous a subject as that we wrote upon, was 
likely to render tedious and irksome to you. 

I have told you the truth from my heart ; forgive 
me these injurious suspicions, and never imagine 
that I shall hear from you upon this delightful 
theme without a real joy, or without prayer to God 
to prosper you in the way of his truth, his sancti- 
fying and saving truth. The book yon mention 
lies now upon my table. Marshal is an old ac- 
quaintance of mine : I have both read him and 
heard him read with pleasure and edification. The 



178 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 23, 34. 



doctrines he maintains are, under the influence of 
the spirit of- Christ, the very life of my soul, and 
the soul of all my happiness : that Jesus is a •pre- 
sent Saviour from the guilt of sin by his most pre- 
cious blood, and from the power of it by his spirit ; 
that, corrupt and wretched in ourselves, iir him, 
and uxhim only, we are complete; that being 
united to Jesus by a lively faith, we have a sohd 
and eternal interest in his obedience and sufferings, 
to j ustify us before the face of our heavenly Father ; 
and that all this inestimable . treasure, the earnest 
of which is in grace, and its consummation in glo- 
ry, is given, freely given to us of God ; in short, 
that he hath opened the kingdom of Heaven fo all 
believers. These are the truths which, by the 
grace of God, shall ever be dearer to me than life 
itself; shalb ever be placed next my heart, as the 
throne whereon the Saviour himself shall sit, to 
sway all its motions, and reduce that world of ini-. 
quity and rebellion to a state of filial and affec- 
tionate obedience to the will of the most Holy. 

These, my dear cousin, are the truths, to which 
by nature we are enemies — they debase thg sinner, 
and exalt the Saviour, to a degree which the* pride 
of our hearts (till Almighty grace subdues them) is 
determined never to allow. May the Almighty 
reveal his Son in our hearts continually more and 
more, and teach us to increase in love towards him 
continually, for having given us the xmspeakable 
riches of Christ ! Yours faithfully, W. C. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, March 14, 1767. 

I JUST add a Une by way of Postscript to my 
last, to apprise you of the arrival of a very dear 
friend of mine at the Park on Friday next, the son 
of Mr. Unwin, whom I have desired to call on 
you, in his way from London to Huntingdon. If 
you knew hini as well as I do, you would love him 
as much. But I leave the young man to speak for 
himself, which he is very able to do. He is ready 
possessed of ah answer to every question you can 
possibly ask concerning me, dnd knows my whole 
story from first to last. I give you this previous 
notice, because I know you are not fond of strange 
faces, and because I thought it would in some de- 
gree save him the pain of announcing himself 

I am become a great florist, and shrub doctor. 
If the major can make nip a small packet of seeds 
that will make a figure in a gatden, where we 
have little else besides jessamine and honey-suckle ; 
such a packet I mean as may be put in one's fob, 
1 will promise to take great care of them, as I 
ought to value natives of the Park. They must 
not be such however as require great skill in the 
management,, for at present I have no skill to 
spare. 



I think Marshal one of the best writers, and the 
most spiritual expositor of Scripture, 1 ever read. 
I admire the strength of his argument, and the 
clearness of his reasonings, upon those parts of our 
most holy religion which are generally least under- 
stood, even by real christians, as masterpieces of 
the kind. His section upon the union of the soul 
with Christ is an instance of what I mean, in 
which he has spoken of a most mysterious truth 
with admirable perspicuity, and with great good 
sense, making it aU the while subservient to his 
main purport of proving holiness to be the fruit and 
effect of faith. 

I subjoin thus much upon that author, because, 
though you desired my opinion of him, I remember 
that in my last I rather lefl; you to find it out by 
inference, than expressed it as I ought to have 
done. I never met with a man who understood 
the plan of salvation better, or was more happy in 
explaining it. W. C. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

Huntingdon, April 3, 1767. 

MY DEAR COOSIN, 

You sent my friend tlnwin home to. us charmed 
with your kind reception of him, and with every 
thing he saw at the Park. Shall I once more give 
you a peep into my vile and deceitful heart 1 What 
motive do you think lay at the bottom of my con- 
duct when I desired him to call upon youl I did 
not suspect at first that pride and vain glory had 
any share iri it; but quickly after I had recom- 
mended the visit to him, 1 discovered in that fruit- 
ful soil the very root of the matter. You know I 
am a stranger here ; all such are suspected charac- 
ters, unless they bring their credentials with them. 
To this moment, I beheve, it is matter of specula- 
tion in the place, whence I came, and to whom I 
belong. 

Though my friend, you may suppose, before I 
was admitted an inmate here, was satisfied that I 
was not a mere vagabond, and has since that time 
received more convincing proofs of my sponsibility, 
yet I could not resist the opportunity of furnishing 
him with ocular demonstration of it, by introducing 
him to one of my most splendid connexions; that 
when he hears me called " That fellow Cowper," 
which has happened heretofore, he may be able, 
upon unquestionable evidence, to assert my gen- 
tlemanhood, and relieve me from the weight of that 
opprobrious appellation. Oh pride! pride!. it de- 
ceives with the subtlety of a serpent, and seems to 
walk erect, though it crawls upon the earth. How 
will it twist and tvrine itself about, to get from 
under the cross, which it is the glory of our Chris- 
tian calling to be able to bear with patience and 
good will. They who can guess at the heart of a 
stranger, and you especially, who are of a com- 



Let. 25, 26, 27. 



LETTERS. 



179 



passionate temper, will be more ready, perhaps, to 
excuse me, in this instance, than I can be to ex- 
cuse myself. But in good truth, it was abomina- 
ble pride of heart, indignation, and vanity, and 
deserves no better name. How should such a 
creature be admitted into those pure and sinless 
mansions, where nothing shall enter that defileth 
did not the blood of Christ, applied by the hand 
of faith, take away the guilt of sin, and leave no 
spot or stain behind if? Oh what contmual need 
have I of an almighty, all-sufficient Saviour! I 
am glad you are acquainted so particularly vpith 
cell the circumstances of my story, for I know that' 
your secrecy and discretion may be trusted vrith 
any thing. A thread of mercy ran through all 
the intricate maze of those afflictive providences, 
so mysterious to myself at the time, and which 
must ever remain so to all, who will not see what 
vras the great design of theui; at the judgment- 
seat of Christ the whole shall be laid open. How 
is the rod of iron changed into a sceptre of love ! 

I thank you for the seeds: I have committed 
some of each sort to the ground, whence they will 
soon spring up like -so many mementos to remind 
me of my friends at the Park. W. C. 



• TO MRS. COWPER. 

Huntingdon, July 13, 1767. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, 

The newspaper has told you the truth. Poor 
Mr. Urvrai being flung. from liis horse, as he was 
going to his church on Sunday morning, received 
• a dreadful fracture on the back part of the scull, 
under which he languished till Thursday evenmg, 
and then died. This awful dispensation has left 
an impression upon our spirits, which will not pre- 
sently be worn off. He died in a poor cottage, to 
which he was carried immediately after his fall, 
about a mile from home; and his body could not 
be brought to his house, till the spirit was gone to 
him who gave it. May it be a lesson to us to 
watch, since we know not the day nor the hour 
when our Lord cpmeth! 

The effect of it upon my circumstances will 
only be a change of the place of my abode. For I 
shall still, by God's leave, continue with Mrs. 
Unwin, whose behaviour to me has always been 
that of a mother to a son. We know not yet 
where we shall settle, but we trust that the Lord, 
whom we seek, will go before us, and prepare a 
Test for us. We have employed our friend Haweis, 
Dr. Conyers of Helmsley in Yorkshire, and Mr. 
NevTton of Olney, to look out a place for us, but 
at present are entirely ignorant under which of the 
three we shall settle, or whether under either. I 
have written to my aunt Madan,.to desire Martin 



to assist us with his inquiries. It is probable we 
shall stay here till Michaelmas. W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

Huntingdon, July 16; 1767. 

DEAR JOE, 

Your wishes that the newspapers may have 
misinformed you are vain. Mr. tJnwin is dead, 
and died in the manner there mentioned. At nine 
o'clock On Sunday morning he was in perfect 
health, and as likely to live twenty years as either 
of us, and before ten was stretched speechless and 
senseless Upon a flock bed, in a poor cottage, where 
(it being impossible to remove him) he died on 
Thursday evening. I. heard liis dying groans, 
the effect of great agony, for he was a strong man, 
and much convulsed in his last moments. The 
few short intervals of sense that were indulged him 
he spent in earnest prayer, and in expressions of a 
firm trust and confidence in the only Saviour. To 
that strong hold we must all resort at last, if we 
woidd have hope in our death: when every other 
refuge fails, we are glad to fly to the only shelter, 
to which we can repair to any purpose; and happy 
is it for us when, the false ground we have chosen 
for ourselves being broken under us, we find our- 
selves obliged to have recourse to the rock which 
can never be shaken; when this is our lot, we re- 
ceive great and undeserved mercy. 

Our society wiU not break up, but we shall 
settle in some other place; where, is at present 
uncertain.* Yours, W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

DEAR JOE, Olney, June 16, 1768. 

I THANK .you for so full an answer to so empty 
an epistle. If Olney furnished any thing for your 
amusement; you should have it in retvirn; but 
occurrences here are as scarce as cucumbers at 
Christmas. 

I visited St. Alban's about a fortnight since in 
person, and I ^dsit it every day in thought. The 
recollection of what passed there, and the conse- 
quences that followed it,, fill my mind continu- 
ally, and make the circumstances of a poor tran- 
sient half-spent life so insipid and unaffecting, 
that I have no heart to think or write much about 
them. Whether the nation is worshipping Mr. 
Wilkes or any other idol, is of little moment to 
one who hopes and believes that he shall shortly 



* On the fourteenth of October following, the Society -was 
setded in the town of Olney in Buckinghamshire, of which 
the Rev. IVIr. Newton was curate. 



180 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 28, 29, 30. 



stand in the presence of the great and blessed God. 
I thank him that he has given me such a deep 
impressed persuasion of this awful truth, as a 
thousand wotlds would not purchase from me. It 
gives a relish to every blessing, and makes every 
trouble light. 

Affectionately yours, W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

DEAR JOE, 17G9. 

Sir Thomas crosses the Alps, and SirCowper, 
for that is liis title at Olney, prefers his home to 
any 'other spot of earth in the world. Horace, 
observing this difference of temper iji different 
persons, cried out a good many years ago, in the 
true spirit of poetry, ' how much one man differs 
from another!' This does not seem a very sublime 
exclamation in English, but I remember we were 
taught to admire it in the original. 

My dear friend, I am obhged to you for your 
invitation : but being long accustomed to retire- 
ment, which I was always fond of, I am now niore 
than ever Vinwilling to revisit those noisy and 
crowded scenes which I never loved, and which 1 
now abhor. I remember you with all the friend- 
ship I ever professed, which is as much as I ever 
entertained for any man. But the strange and 
uncommon incidents of my life have given an en- 
tire new turn to my whole character and conduct, 
and rendered me incapable of receiving pleasure 
from the same employments and amusements of 
which I could readily partake in former days. 

I love you and yours, I thank you for your con- 
tinued remembrance of me, and shall not cease to 
be their and your 

Affectionate friend and servant, W. C. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, 

I HAVE not been behindhand in reproaching 
myself with neglect, but desire to take shame to 
myself for my unprofitableness in this, as well as 
in all other respects. I take the next immediate 
opportunity however of thanking you for yours, 
and of assuring yoii, that instead of being sur- 
prised at your silence, I rather wonder that you, 
or any of my friends, have any room left for so 
careless and neghgent a correspondent in your 
memories. I arh obliged to you for the intelligence 
you send me of my kindred, and rejoice to hear 
of their welfare. He who settles the bounds of 
our habitations has at length cast our lot at a 
great distance from each other; but I do not there- 
fore forget their former kindness to me, or cease 
to be interested in their well being. You live in 
the centre of a world i know you do not delight in. 



Happy are you, my dear friend, in being able to 
discern the insufficiency of all it can afford to fill 
and satisfy the desires of an immortal soul. That 
God who created us for the enjoyment of himself, 
has determined in mercy that it shall fail us here, 
in order that the blessed result of all our inquiries 
after happiness in the creature may be a warm . 
pursuit and a close attachment to our true inter- 
ests, in fellowship and communion with Him, 
through the name and mediation of a dear Re- 
deemer. I bless his goodness and grace, that I 
have any reason to hope I am a partaker with you 
in the desire after better things, than are to be 
found in a world polluted- with sin, and therefore 
devoted to destruction. May he enable us both 
to consider our present life in its only true light, 
as an opportunity put into our hands to glorify 
him amongst men, by a conduct suited to his word 
and will. I am miserably defective in this holy 
and blessed art, but I hope there is at the bottom 
of all my sinful infirmities a sincere desire to live 
just so long as I may be enabled, in some poor 
measure, to answer the end of my existence in 
this respect, and then to obey the summons, and 
attend him m a world where they who are his 
servants here shall pay him an unsinful obedience 
for ever. Your dear mother is too good to mo, and 
puts a more chariti^ble construction upon my si- 
lence than the fact will warrant. I am not better 
cniployed than I should be in corresponding with 
her. 1 have that within which hinders me wretch- 
edly in every thing that I ought to do, but is prone 
to trifle, and let time and every good thing run to 
Waste. I hope however to write to her soon. 

My love and best wishes attend Mr. Cowper, 
and all that hiquire after me. ■ May God be with 
you, to bless yow, and do you good by all his dis- 
pensations ; don't forget me when you are speak- 
ing to our best -friend before his Mercy-seat. 

Yours ever, W. C. 

N. B. / am not married. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, Olney, August 31, 1769. 

A. LETTER from your brother Frederic hrought 
me yesterday the most afilicting intelligence that 
has reached me these many years. I pray to God 
to comfort you, and to enable you to sustain this 
heavy stroke with that resignation .to his will, 
which none but hunself can give, and which he 
gives to none but his own children. How blessed 
and happy is your lot, my dear friend, beyond the 
common lot of the greater part of mankind 5 that 
you know what it is to draw near to God in prayer, 
and are acquainted with a Throne of Grace ! You 
have resources in the infinite love of a dear Re- 
deemer, which are withheld from millions; and 



Let. 31, 33. 



LETTERS. 



181 



the promises of God, which arc yea and amen in 
Jesus, are sufficient to answer all your necessities, 
and to sweeten the bitterest cup which your hea- 
venly Father will ever put into your hand. May 
he now give you liberty to drink at these wells of 
salvation, till you are iilled with consolation and 
peace in the midst of trouble! He has said, when 
thou passest through the fire I will be with thee, 
and when through the floods, they shall not over- 
flow thee. You have need of such a word as this, 
and he knows your need of it, and the time of ne- 
cessity is the time wlien he will be sure to appear 
in behalf -of those who trust in him. I bear you 
and yours- upon my heart before him night and 
day; for I never expect to hear of distress which 
shall call upon me with a louder voice to pray for 
the sufferer. I know the Lord hears me for my- 
self, vile and sinful as I am, and believe and am 
sure that he will hear me for you also. Ho is the 
friend of the widow, and the father of the father- 
less, even God in his holy habitation ; in all our 
afflictions he is afflicted, and chastens us in mercy. 
Surely he will sanctify this dispensation to you, 
do you great and everlasting good by it, make the 
world appear hke dust and vanity in your sight, 
as it truly is, and open to your view the glories of 
a better country, where there shall be no more 
death, neither sorrow nor pain, but God shall 
wipe away all tears from your eye^ forever. O 
that coinfortable word ! ' I have chosen thee in the 
furnace of affliction ;' so that our very sorrows are 
evidences of our- calling, and he chastens us, be- 
cause we are his children. 

My dear cousin, I commit you to the word of his 
grace, and to the comforts of his holy spirit. Your 
life is needful for your family ; may God in mercy 
to them prolong it, and may he preserve you from 
the dangerous effects, which a stroke like this 
might have upon a frame so tender as yours. I 
grieve with you, I pray for you; could 1 do more, 
I would, but God must comfort you. 

Yours, in our dear Lord Jesus, W. C. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

March 5, 1770. . 
My brother continues much as he was. His 
case is a very dangerous one. An imposthume 
of the liver, attended by an asthma and dropsy. 
The physician has little hope of his recovery. I 
believe I might say none at all ; only being a friend 
he does not formally give him over, by ceasing to 
visit him, lest it should sink his spirits. For my 
own part I have no expectation of his recovery, 
except by a. signal interposition of Providence in 
answer to prayer. His case is clearly out of the 
reach of medicine ; but I have seen many a sick- 
ness healed, where the danger has been equally 



threatening, by the' only physician of value. 1 
doubt not he will have an interest in your prayers, 
as he has in the prayers of many. May the Lord 
incline his car, and give an answer of peace ! I 
know it is good to be afflicted. I trust tliat you have 
found it so, and that under tlie teaching of God's 
own spirit we shall both be purified. It is the de- 
sire of my soul to seek a better country, where 
God shall wipe away all tears from the eyes of his 
people : and where, looking back upon the ways 
by which he has led us, we sliall be filled with 
everlasting wonder, love, and praise. I must add 
no more. Yours ever, W. C. 



TO THE REV. J. NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, . March 31, 1770. 

I AM glad that the Lord made you a fellow 
labourer with us in praying my dear brother out 
of darkness into light. It was a blessed work: 
and when it shall be your turn to die in the Lo.rd, 
and to rest from all your labours, that work shall 
follow you. I once entertained hopes of his re- 
covery : from the moment when it pleased God to 
give him light in his soul, there was for four days 
such a visible amendment in his body as surprised 
us all. Dr. Glynn himself was puzzled, and be- 
gan to think that all his threatening conjectures 
would fail of their accomplishment. I am well 
satisfied that it was thus ordered, not for his own 
sake, but for the sake of us, who had been so 
deeply concerned for his spiritual welfare, that he 
might be able to give such evident proof of the 
work of God upon his soul as should leave no 
doubt behind it. As to his friends at Cambridge, 
they knew nothing of the matter. He never spoke 
of these things but to myself, nor to me. when 
others were within hearing, except that he some- 
times would speak in the presence of the nurse. 
He knew well to make the distinction between 
those who could understand liim, and those who 
could not ; and that he was not in circumstances 
to maintain such a controversy as a declaration of 
his new views and sentiments would have exposed 
him to. Just after his death I spoke of this change 
to a dear fi-iend of his, a fellow of the college, who 
had attended him through all his sickness with as- 
siduity and tenderness. But he did not under- 
stand me. 

I now proceed to mention such particulars as I 
can recollect, and which I had not opportunity to 
insert in my letters to Olney ; for I left Cambridge 
suddenly, and sooner than I expected. He was 
deeply impressed with- a sense of the difficulties 
he should have to encounter, if it should please 
God to raise him again. He saw the necessity of 
being faithful, and the opposition he should expose 
himself to by being so. Under the weight of 



182 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 33. 



these thoughts he one day broke out in the follow- 
ing prayer, when only myself was with him, ' 
Lord, thou art light ; and in thee is no darkness 
at all. Thou art the fountain of all wisdom, and 
it is. essential to thee to be good and gracious. I 
am a child, O Lord, teach me how I shall eon- 
duct myself! Give me the wisdom of the serpent 
with the harmlessncss of the dove ! Bless the souls 
thou liast committed to the care of thy' helpless 
miserable creature, who has no wisdom or know- 
ledge of his own, and make me faithful to them for 
thy mercy's sake !' 'Another time he said, ' How 
wonderful it is, that God should look upon man; 
and how much more wonderful, that he should look 
upon such a worm as I am ! Yet he does look 
upon me, and takes the exactest notice of all my 
sufferings. He is present and I see him (I mean 
by faith) ; and he stretches out his arms towards 
me' — and he then stretched out his own — and 
he says — ' Come unto me, all ye that are weary 
and heavy laden, -and I will give you rest !' He 
smiled and wept, when he spoke these words. 
When he expressed himself upon these sub- 
jects, there was a weight and a dignity in his 
manner such' as I never saw before. He 'spoke 
with the greatest deliberation, making a pause at 
the end of every sentence ; and there was some- 
thing in his air and in the tone of his voice, inex- 
pressibly solemn, unlike himself, unlike what I 
had ever seen in another. 

This hath God wrought. I have praised him 
for Ms marvellous act, and have felt a joy of heart 
upon the subject of my brother's -death, such as I 
never felt but in my own conversion. He is now 
before the throne ; and yet a little while and we 
shall meet, never more to be divided. . 

Yours, my very dear, friend, with my affection- 
ate respects to yourself and yours. 

WILLIAM COWPER. 

• Postscript. A day or two before his death he 
grew, so weak and was so very ill, that he required 
continual attendance, so that he had neither 
strength nor opportunity to say much to me. On- 
ly the day before he said he had a sleepless, but a 
composed . and quiet night. I asked him, if he 
had been able to collect his thoughts. He re- 
plied, ' All night long I have endeavoured to 
think upon God and to continue in prayer. I had 
great peace and comfort ; and what comfort I had 
came in that way.' When I saw him the next 
morning at seven'o'clock he was dying, fast asleep, 
and exempted, in all appearance, from the sense 
of those pangs which accompany dissolution. I 
shall be glad to hear from you, my dear friend, 
when you can find time to write, and are so in- 
clined. The death of my beloved brother teems 
with many useful lessons. May God sea! the in- 
struction upon our hesftits ! 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.. 

DEAR JOE, May 8, 1770. 

Your letter did not reach me till the last post, 
when I had not time to -answer it. I left Cam- 
bridge immediately after my brother's death. 

I am obhged to you for the particular account 
you have sent me **♦**** + ♦******, 
He to whom I. have surrendered myself and all 
my concerns hath otherwise appointed, and let his 
will be done. He gives me much which he with- 
holds from others ; and if he was pleased to with- 
hold all that makes an outward difference between 
me and the poor mendicant in the street, it would 
still become me to say, his will be done. 

It pleased God to cut short my brother's con- 
nexions and expectations here, yet not without 
giving him lively and glorious views of a better 
happiness than any he could propose to himself in 
such a world as this. Notwithstanding his great 
learning, (for he was one of the chief men in the 
university in that respect) he was candid and sin- 
cere in his inquiries after truth. Though he could 
not come into my sentiments when I first ac- 
quainted him with them, nor in the many conver- 
sations which I afterwards had with him upon 
the subject, could he be brought to acquiesce in 
them as scriutural and true, yet I had no sooner 
left St. Alban's than he began to study with the 
deepest attention those points in which we differed, 
and to furnish himself with the best writers upon 
them. His mind was kept open to conviction for 
five years, during all which time he laboured in 
this pursuit with unwearied diligence, as leisure 
and opportunity were afforded. Amongst his dy- 
ing words were these, ' Brother, I thought you 
wrong, yet wanted to believe as you did. I found 
myself not able to belies'e, yet always thought I 
should be one day brought to do so.' From the 
study of books, he was brought upon his death- 
bed to the study of himself, and there learnt to 
renounce his righteousness, and his own most 
amiable character, and to submit himself to the 
righteousness which is of God by faith. With 
these views he was desirous of death. Satisfied of 
his interest in the blessing purchased by the blood 
of Christ, he prayed for death wdth earnestness, 
felt the approaches of it with joy, and died in 
peace. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, Olnetf, June 7, 1770. 

I AM am obliged to you for sometimes thinking 
of an unseen friend, and bestowing a letter upon 
me. It gives me pleasure to hear from you, es- 
■pccially to find that our gracious Lord enables 



Let. 35, 36. 



LETTERS. 



183 



you to weather out the storms you meet with, and 
to cast anchor within the veil. 

You judge rightly of the manner in which I 
have been affected by the Lord's late dispensation 
towards my brother. I found in it cause of sor- 
row, that I had lost so near a relation, and one so 
deservedly dear to me, and that he left me just 
when our sentiments upon the most interesting 
subject became the same; but much more cause 
of joy, that it pleased God to give me clear and 
evident proof that he had changed his heart, and 
adopted him into the number of his children. For 
this I hold myself peculiarly bound to thank 
him, because he might have done all that he was 
pleased to do for him, and yet have afforded him 
neither strength nor opportunity to declare it. I 
doubt not that he enlightens the understandings, 
and works a gracious change in the hearts of many 
in their last moments, whose surrounding friends 
are not made acquainted with it. 

He told me that from the time he was first or- 
dained he began to be dissatisfied with his reli- 
gious opinions, and to suspect that there were 
greater things concealed in the Bible, than were 
generally beheved or allowed to be there. From 
the time when I first visited him after my release 
from St. Alban's, he began to read upon the sub- 
ject. It was at that time I informed him of the 
views of divine truth which I had received in that 
school of affliction. He laid what I said to heart, 
and began to furnish himself with the best writers 
upon the controverted points, whose works he 
read with great diligence and attention, comparing 
them all the while with the Scripture. None ever 
truly and ingenuously sought the truth but they 
found it. A spirit of earnest inquiry is the gift 
of God, who never says to any, Seek ye my face 
in vain. Accordingly, about ten days before his 
death, it pleased the Lord to dispel all his doubts, 
and to reveal in his heart the knowledge of the 
Saviour, and to give him firm and unshaken peace 
in the belief of his abiUty and willingness to save. 
As to the affair of the fortune-teller, he never men- 
tioned it to me, nor was there any such paper 
found as you mention, I looked over all his pa- 
pers before I left the place, and had there been 
such a one, must have discovered it. I have heard 
the report from other quarters, but no other parti- 
culars than that the woman foretold him when he 
should die. . I suppose there may be some truth in 
the matter, but whatever he might think of it be- 
fore his knowledge of the truth, and however ex- 
traordinary her predictions might really be, I am 
satisfied that he had then received far other views 
of the wisdom and majesty of God; than to sup- 
pose that he would entrust his secret counsels to a 
vagrant, who did not mean, I suppose, to be un- 
derstood to have received, her intelligence from the 
Fountain of Light, but thought herself sufliciently 
13 



honoured by any who would give her credit for a 
secret intercourse of this kind with the prince of 
darkness. 

Mrs. Unwin is much obliged to you for your 
kind inquiry after her. She is well, I thanlc God, 
as usual, and sends her respects to you. Her son 
is in the ministry, and has the living of Stock, in 
Essex. We were last week alarmed with an ac- 
count of his being dangerously ill; Mrs. Unwin 
went to see him, and in a few days left him out 
of danger. W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

DEAR JOE, Sept. 25, 1770. 

I HAVE not done conversing with terrestrial ob- 
jects, though I should be happy were I able to 
hold more continual converse with a Mend above 
the slues. He has my heart, but he allows a' cor- 
ner in it for all who show me kindness, and there- 
fore one for you. The storm of sixty-three made 
a wreck of the friendships I had contracted in the 
course of many years, yours excepted, which has 
survived the tempest. 

I thank you for your repeated invitation. Sin- 
gular thanks are due to you for so singular an 
instance of your regard. I could not leave Olney, 
unless in a case of absolute necessity, without 
much inconvenience to myself and others. 

W. C* 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
DEAR tTNWiN, Juue 8, 1778. 

I FEEL myself much obliged to you for youi 
kind mtimation, and have given the subject of it 
all my best attention, both before I received your 
letter and since. The result is, that I am per- 
suaded it will be better not to write. I know the 
man and his disposition well ; he is very Uberal in 
his way of thinking, generous and discemitig. 
He is well aware of the tricks that are played upon 
such occasions, and after fifteen years interrup- 
tion of all intercourse between us, would translate 
my letter into this language — pray remember the 
poor. This would disgust him, because he would 
think our former intimacy disgraced by such an 
oblique application. He has not forgotten me, 
and if he had, there are those about him who can 
not come into his presence without reminding him 
of me, and he is also perfectly acquainted with my 
circumstances. It would perhaps give him plea- 
sure to surprise me with a benefit; and if he 



* The subsequent chasm in the Letters of this Volume was 
occasioned by a long and severe illness with which the writer 
was afflicted. 



184 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 37, 38, 39.. 



means me such a favour, I should disappoint Mm 
by asking it. 

I repeat my thanks for your suggestion; you 
see a part of my reasons for thus conducting my- 
self; if we were together I could give you more.* 
Yours affectionately, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

May 26, 1779. 
I AM obliged to you for the Poets; and though I 
little thought I vi'as translating so much money 
out of your pocket into the bookseller's, when I 
turned Prior's poem into Latin, yet I must needs 
say that, if you tliink it worth while to purchase 
the English Classics at all, you can not possess 
yourself of them upon better terms. I have looked 
into some of the volumes, but not having yet finish- 
ed the Register, have merely looked into them. A 
few tilings I have met with, which if they had 
been burned the moment they were written, it 
would have been better for the author, and at 
least as well for his readers. There is not much 
of this, but a little too much. I think it a pity 
the editor admitted ciny; the English muse would 
have lost no credit by the omission of such trash. 
Some of them again seeni to me to have but a very 
disputable right to a place among the Classics; 
and I am quite at a loss when I see them in such 
company, to conjecture what is Dr. Johnson's idea 
or definition of classical merit. But if he inserts 
the poems of some who can hardly be said to de- 
serve such an honour, the purchaser may comfort 
himself with the hope that he will exclude none 
that do. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

AMico Mio, Sept. 21, 1779. 

Be pleased to buy me a glazier's diamond pen- 
cil. I have glazed the two frames designed to re- 
ceive my pine plants. But I can not mend the 
kitchen vrindows, till by the help of that imple- 
ment I can reduce the glass to its proper dimen- 
sions. If I were a plumber I should be a com- 
plete glazier; and possibly the happy time may 
come, when I shall be seen trudging away to the 
neighbouring tovms with a shelf of glass hanging 
at my back. If government should impose ano- 
tax upon that commodity, I hardly know a busi- 
ness in which a gentleman might more success- 
fully employ himself. A Chinese, of ten times 
my fortune, would avail himself of such an oppor- 
tunity without scruple; and why should not I, 



' Tlic allusion in this letter is to Lord Thurlow, who was 
promoted to the Lord High Chancellorship of England in the 
eurly part ol the month in which it was writtca 



who want money as much as any mandarin in 
Chinal Rousseau would have been charmed to 
have seen me so occupied, and would have ex- 
claimed with rapture, " that he had found the 
Emilius who (he supposed) had subsisted only in 
his own idea." I would recommend it to you to 
follow ray example. You will presently 'qualify 
yourself for the task, and may not only amuse 
yourself at home, but may even exercise yoiu' skill 
in mending the church windows; which, as it 
would save money to the parish, would conduce, 
together with your other ministerial accomplish- 
ments, to make you extremely popular in the 
place. 

I have eight pair of tame pigeons. When I 
first enter the garden in a morning, I find them 
perched upon the wall, waiting for their breakfast; 
for I feed them always upon the gravel-walk. If 
your wish should be accomphshed, and you should 
find yourself furnished with the wings of a dove, 
I shall undoubtedl^nd you amongst them. Only 
be so good, if that should be the case, to announce 
yourself by some means or other. For I imagine 
your crop will require something better than tares 
to fill it. 

Your mother and I last week made a trip in a 
post chaise to Gay hurst, the seat of Mr. Wright, 
about four miles off. He imderstood that I did not 
much affect strange faces, and sent over his ser- 
vant on purpose to inform me that he was going 
into Leicesterslure, and that, if I chose to see the 
gardens, I might gratify myself vrithout danger of 
seeing the ■ proprietor. I accepted the invitation, 
and was delighted with all I found there. The 
situation is happy, the gardens elegantly disposed, 
the hot-house in the most flourishing state, and 
the orange-trees the most captivating creatures of 
the kind I ever saw. A man, in short, had need 
have the talents of Cox or Langford, the auc- 
tioneers, to do the vifhole scene justice. Our love 
attends you all. . Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Oct. 31, 1779. 

I WROTE my last letter merely to inform you that 
I had notliing to say, in answer to which you have 
said nothing. I admire the propriety of your con- 
duct, though I am a loser by it. I will endeavour 
to say something now, and shall hope for some- 
thing in return. 

I have been well entertained with Johnson's 
biography, for which I thank you; with one ex- 
ception, and that a swinging one, I think he has 
acquitted himself with his usual good sense and 
sufficiency. His treatment of Milton is unmerci- 
ful to the last degree. He has belaboured that 
great poet's character with the most industrious 



Let. 40, 41. 



LETTERS. 



185 



cruelty. As a man, he has hardly left him the 
shadow of one good quality. Churlishness in his 
private life, and a rancorous hatred of every thing 
royal in his public, are the two colours with which 
he has smeared all the canvas. If he had any vir- 
tues, they are not to be found in the doctor's pic- 
ture of liim, and it is well for Milton that some 
sourness in his temper is the only vice with which 
his memory has been charged ; it is evident enough 
that if his biographer could have discovered more, 
he would not have spared him. As a poet, he has 
treated him with severity enough, and has plucked 
one or two of the most beautiful feathers out of 
his Muse's wing, and trampled them under liis 
great foot. He has passed sentence of condemna- 
tion upon Lycidas, and has taken occasion, from 
that charming poem, to expose to ridicule (what is 
indeed ridiculous enough) the childish prattlement 
of pastoral compositions, as if Lycidas was the 
prototype and pattern of them all. The hveUness 
of the description, the sweetness of the numbers, 
the classical spirit of antiquity that prevails in it, 
go for nothing. I am convinced, by the way, that 
he has no ear for poetical numbers, or that it was 
stopped by prejudice against the harmony of Mil- 
ton's. Was there ever any thing so delightful as 
the music of the Paradise Losf? It is like that 
of a fine organ ; has the fullest and the deepest 
tones of majesty, with all the softness and elegance 
of the Dorian flute. Variety without end, and 
never equalled, unless perhaps by Virgil. Yet the 
doctor has little or nothing to say upon tliis co- 
pious theme, but talks something about the unfit- 
ness of the Enghsh language for blank verse, and 
how apt it is in the mouth of some readers, to de- 
generate into declamation. 

I could talk a good while longer, but I have no 
room; our love attends you. 

Yours aflfectionately, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

My dear frienp, Dec. 2, 1779. 

How quick is the succession of human events! 
The cares of to-day are seldom the cares of to- 
morrow ; and when we lie down at night, we may 
safely say to most of oiu- troubles " Ye have done 
your worst, and we shall meet no more." 

This observation was suggested to me by read- 
ing your last letter ; Which though I have written 
since I received it, I have never answered. When 
that epistle passed under your pen, you were mi- 
serable about your tithes, and your imagination 
was hung round with pictures, that terrified you 
to such a degree as made even the receipt of mo- 
ney burdensome. But it is all over now. You 
sent away your farmers in good humour (for you 
can make people merry whenever you please), and 



now you have nothing to do but to clunk your 
purse, and laugh at what is past. Your delicacy 
makes you groan under that which other men 
never feel, or feel but lightly, A fly that settles 
upon the tip of the nose, is troublesome ; and this 
■is' a comparison adequate to the most that man- 
kind in general are sensible of, upon such tiny oc- 
casions. But the flies that pester you, always get 
between your eye-lids, where the annoyance is al- 
most insupportable. 

I would follow your advice, and endeavour to fur- 
nish Lord North with a scheme of supplies for the 
ensuing year, if the difliculty I find in answering 
the call of my own emergencies did not make me 
despair of satisfying those of the nation. I can say 
but this ; if I had ten acres of land in the world, 
whereas I have not one, and in those ten acres 
should discover a gold mine, richer than all Mexico 
and Peru, when I had reserved a few ounces for 
my own annual supply, I would willingly give the 
rest to government. My ambition would be more 
gratified by annihilating the national incmnbrances 
than by going daily down to the bottom of a mine 
to wallow in my own emolument. This is patriot- 
ism — you will allow, but alas, this virtue is for the 
most part in the hands of those who can do no good 
with it ! He that heis but a single handful of it, 
catches so greedily at the first opportunity of grow- 
ing rich, that his patriotism drops to the ground, 
and he grasps the gold instead of it. He that 
never meets vdth such an opportunity, holds it fast 
in his clenched fist, and says, — " Oh, how much 
good I would do if I could !" 

Your mother says — " Pray send my dear love." 
There is hardly room to add mine, but you wUl 
suppose it. Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MT DEAR FRIEND, F'cb. 27, 1780. 

As you are pleased to desire my letters, I am 
the more pleased with writing them, though, at 
the same time, I must needs testify my surprise 
that you should think them worth receiving, as I 
seldom send one that I think favourably of myself. 
This is not to be understood as an imputation 
upon your taste or judgment, but as an encomiiun 
upon my own modesty and humility, which I 
desire you to remark well. It is a just obsei-vation 
of Sir Joshua'Reynolds, that though men of ordi- 
nary talents may be highly satisfied with their 
own productions, men of true genius never are. 
Whatever be their subject, they always seem to 
themselves to fall short of it, even when they seem 
to others most to excel. And for this reason — 
because they have a certain sublime sense of per- 
fection which other men are strangers to, and 
which they themselves in their performances are 



186 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 42, 43. 



not able to exemplify. Your servant, Sir Joshua! 
I little thought of seeing you when I began, but 
as you have popped in you are welcome. 

When I wrote last, I was little incUned to send 
you a copy of verses entitled the Modern Patriot, 
but was not quite pleased with a Une or two which 
I found it difficult to mend, therefore did not. At 
night I read Mr. Burke's speech in the newspaper, 
and was so well pleased with his proposals for a 
reformation, and with the temper in which he 
made them, that I began to think better of his 
cause, and burnt my verses. Such is the lot of 
the man who writes upon the subject of the day: 
the aspect of affair.s changes in an hour or two, 
and his opinion with it; what was just and well- 
deserved satire in the morning, in the evening 
becomes a libel; the author commences his ovni 
judge, and while he condemns with unrelenting 
severity what he so lately approved, is sorry to 
find that he has laid his leaf-gold upon touch-wood, 
which crumbled away under his fingers. Alas ! 
what can I do with my witl I have not enough 
to do great things with, and these httle things are 
so fugitive, that while a man catches at the sub- 
ject, he is only filling liis hand with smoke. I must 
do with it as I do with my hnnet; I keep Mm for 
the most part in a cage, but now and then set open 
the door that he may whisk about the room a little, 
and then shut him up again. My whisking wit 
has produced the following, the subject of which 
is more important than the manner in which I 
have treated it seems to imply, but a fable may 
speak truth, and all truth is sterling ; I only pre- 
mise, that in a philosophical tract in the Register, 
I found it asserted that the glow-worm is the 
nightingale's food.* 

An officer of a regiment, part of which is quar- 
tered here, gave one of the soldiers leave to be 
drunk six weeks, in hopes of curing him by satie- 
ty — he was drunk six weeks, and is so still, as 
often as he can find an opportunity. One vice 
may swallow up another, but no coroner in the 
state of Ethics ever brought in his verdict, when a. 
vice died, that it was— ^eZo de se. 
■ Thanks for all you have done, and all you in- 
tend ; the biography will be particularly welcome. 
Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. J. NEWTON. 

March \8,nS0. 
I AM obliged to you for the communication of 
your con'espondence with . It was impossi- 
ble for any man, of any temper whatever, and 



' This letter contained the beautifiU fable of the Nightin- 
gale and Glow-worm. 



however wedded to his own purpose, to resent so 
gentle and friendly an exhortation as you sent him. 
Men of lively imaginations are not often remarka- 
ble for solidity of -judgment. They have gener- 
ally strong passions to bias it, and are led far 
away from their proper road, in pursuit of pretty 
phantoms of their own creating. No .law ever 
did or can effect what he has ascribed to that of 
Moses ; it is reserved for mercy to subdue the cor- 
rupt inclinations of mankind, which threatenings 
and penalties, through the depravity of the heart, 
have always had a tendency rather to inflame. 

The love of power seems as natural to kings, as 
the desire of liberty is to their subjects ; the excess 
of cither is vicious, and tends to the ruin of both. 
There are many, I believe, who wish the present 
corrupt state of things dissolved, in hope that the 
pure primitive constitution will spring up from the 
ruins. But it is not for man, by himself man, to 
bring order out of confusion ; the progress from 
one to the other is not natural, much less necessa- 
ry, and without the intervention of divine aid, 
impossible; and they who are for making the 
hazardous experiment, would certainly find them- 
selves disappointed. 

Affectionately yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM* UN WIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND^ March 28, 1780. 

I have heard nothing more from Mr. Newton, 
upon the subject you mention ; but I dare say that 
having been given to expect the benefit of your 
nomination in behalf of liis nephew, he still de- 
pends upon it. His obhgations to Mr. have 

been so numerous, and so weighty, that though he 
has, in a few instances, prevailed upon himself to 
recommend an object now and then to his patron- 
age, he has very sparingly, if at all, exerted his 
interest with him in behalf .of his own relations. 

With respect to the ad\ice you are required to 
give to a young lady, that she may be properly 
instructed in the manner of keeping the sabbath, 
I just subjoin a few hints that have occurred to me 
upon the occasion ; not because I think you want 
them, but because it would seem unkmd to withr 
hold them. The sabbath then, I think, may be 
considered, first, as a commandment, no less bind- 
ing upon modern christians than upon ancient 
Jews, because the spiritual people amongst them did 
not think it enough to abstain from manual occu- 
pations upon that day ; but, entering more deeply 
into the meaning of the precept, allotted those 
hours they took from the world, to the cultivation 
of hoUness in their own souls, which ever was, 
and ever wUl be a duty incumbent upon all who 
ever heard of a sabbath, and is of perpetual obli- 
gation both upon Jews and christians j (the com- 



Let. 44,45. 



LETTERS. 



187- 



mandment, therefore, enjoins it ; the prophets have 
also enforced it; and in many instances, botli 
scriptural and modem, the breach of it has been 
punished with providential and' judicial severity 
that may make by-standers tremble) : secondly, as 
a privilege, which you well know how to dilate 
upon, better than I can tell you : thirdly, as a sign 
of that covenant by which believers are entitled to 
a rest that yet remaineth : fourtlily, as the sine 
qua non of the christian character ; and upon this 
head I should guard against being misunderstood 
to mean no more than two attendances upon pub- 
lic worship, which is a form complied with by 
■ thousands who never kept a sabbath in their lives. 
Consistence is necessary, to give substance and 
soUdity to the whole. To sanctify the day at 
chiuch, and to trifle it away out of church, is pro- 
fanation, and vitiates all. After all, I could ask 
my catechumen one short question—' Do you love the 
day, or do you not 1 If you love it, you will never 
inquire how far you may safely deprive yourself 
of the enjoyment of it. If you do not love it, and 
you find yourself oMiged in conscience to ac- 
knowledge it, that is an alarming sjanptom, and 
ought to make you tremble. If you do not loveit, 
then it is a weariness to you, and you wish it was 
over. The ideas of labour and rest are not more 
opposite to each other than the idea of a sabbath, 
and that dislike and disgust with which it fills the 
souls of thousands to be obliged to keep it. It is 
worse than bodily labour.' W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, April 6, 1780. 

I NEYER was, any more than yourself, a friend 
to pluralities; they are generally foimd in the 
hands of the avaricious, whose insatiable hunger 
after preferment proves them unworthy of any at all. 
They attend much to the regular payment of their 
dues, but not at all to the spiritual interest of their 
parishioners. Having forgot their duty, or never 
known it, they differ in nothing from the laity, ex- 
cept their outward garb, and their exclusive right 
to the desk and pulpit. But when pluralities seek 
the man, instead of being sought by him ; and 
when the man is honest, conscientious, and pious ; 
careful to employ a substitute in those respects 
like himself; and, not contented vfith this, will see 
with his own eyes that the concerns of his parishes 
are decently and dihgently administered ; in that 
case, considering the present dearth of such cha- 
racters in the ministry, I think it an event advan- 
tageous to the people, and much to be desired by all 
who regret the great and -apparent want of sobriety 
and earnestness among the clergy. A man who 
does not seek a living merely as a pecuniary emol- 
ument has no need, in my judgment, to reftise one 



because it is so. He means to do his duty, and by 
doing it he earns his wages. The two rectories 
being contiguous to each other, and followdng 
easily under the care of one pastor, and both so 
near to Stock that you can visit them with- 
out difficulty, as often as you please, I see no 
reasonable objection, nor does your mother. As 
to the wry-mouthed sneers and illiberal miscon- ■ 
structions of the censorious, I know no better shield 
to guard you against them, than what you are 
already furnished with — a clear and unoffending 
conscience.' 

I am obliged to you for what you said upon the 
subject of book-buying, and am very fond of avail- 
ing myself of another man's pocket, when I can 
do it creditably to myself, and without injury to 
him. Amusements are necessary, in a retirement 
Uke mine, especially in such a sable state of mind 
as I labour under. The necessity of amusement 
makes me sometimes write verses-^it made nie a 
carpenter, a bird-cage maker, a gardener — and has 
lately taught me to draw, and to draw too with 
such surprising proficiency in the art, considering 
my total ignorance of it two months ago, that when 
I show your mother my productions, she is all ad- 
miration and applause. 

You need never fear the communication of what 
you entrust to us in confidence. You know your 
mother's delicacy in this point sufficiently; and as 
for me, I once wrote a Connoisseur upon the sub- 
ject of secret keepmg, and from that day to this I 
believe I have never divulged one. 

We were much pleased with Mr. Nevrton's ap- 
plication to you for a charity sermon, and with 
what he said upon that subject in his last letter, 
' that he was glad of an opportunity to give you 
that proof of his regard.' 

Believe me yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

Olney, April 16, 1780. 
Since I wrote my last we have had a visit 

from . I did not feel myself vehemently 

disposed to receive him with that cojuplaisance, 
from which a stranger generally infers that he is 
welcome. By his manner, which was rather bold 
than easy, I judged that there was no occasion for 
it, and that it was a trifle which, if he did not meet 
with, neither would he feel the want of. He has 
the air of a traveled man, but not of a traveled 
o-entleman; is quite delivered from that reserve 
wliich is so common an ingredient in the English 
character, yet does not open himself gently and 
gradually, as men of polite behaviour do, but bursts 
upon you all at once. He talks very loud, and 
when our poor little robins hear a great noise, they 
are immediately seized with an ambition to sui-pass 



188 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 46, 47, 48. 



it; the increase of their vociferation occasioned an 
increase pf his, and his in return acted as a stimu- 
lus upon theirs; neither side entertained a thought 
of giving up the contest, wliich .became continually 
more interesting to our ears, during the whole 
visit. The birds hovpever survived it, and so did 
we. They perhaps flatter themselves they gained 

a complete victory, but I beUeve "Mr. could 

have killed them both in another hour. W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

DEAR SIR, May 3, 1780. 

You indulge me in such a variety of subjects 
and allow me such a latitude of excursion in this 
scribbling employment, that I have no excuse for 
silence. I am much obliged to you for swallowing 
such boluses as I send you, for the sake of my 
gilding, and verily believe that I am the only man 
alive, from whom they would be welcome to a pa- 
late, like yours. I wish I could make them more 
splendid than they are, more alluring to the eye 
at least, if not more pleasing to the taste ; but my 
leaf gold is tarnished, and has received such a tinge 
from the vapours that are ever brooding over my 
mind, that I think it no small proof of your par- 
tiality to me, that you will read my letters. I am 
not fond of long-winded metaphors; I have always 
observed, that they halt at the latter end of their 
progress, and so do mine. I deal much in ink in- 
deed, but not such ink as is employed by poets, 
and writers of essays. Mine is a harmless fluid, 
and guilty of no deceptions, but such as may pre- 
vail without the least injury to the person imposed 
on. I draw mountains, valleys, woods, and streams, 
and ducks, and da;b-chicks. I admire them my- 
self, and Mrs. Unwin admires them; and her 
praise, and my praise put together, are fame enough 
for me. O ! I could spend whole days and moon- 
light nights in feeding upon a lovely prospect! 
My eyes drink the rivers as they flow. If every 
human being upon earth could think for one quar- 
ter of an hour as I have done for many years, there 
might perhaps be many miserable men among 
them, but not an unawakened one could be found, 
from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle. At pre- 
sent, the difl'erence between them and me is greatly 
to their advantage. I delight in baubles, and 
know them to be so : for rested in, and viewed with- 
out a reference to their author,, what is the earth, 
what are the planets, what is the sun itself but a 
bauble 1 Better for a man never to have seen them, 
or to sec them with the eyes of a brute, stupid and 
unconscious of what he beholds, than not to be 
able to say, ' The Maker of all these wonders is 
my friend!' Their eyes have never been opened, 
to see that they are trifles ; mine have been, and 
will be till they are closed for ever. They think a 



fine estate, a large conservatory, a hot-house rich 
as a West-Indian garden, things of consequence; 
■visit them vidth pleasure, and muse upon them 
with ten tunes more. I am pleased vnth a frame 
of four lights, doubtful whether the few pines it 
contains vdll ever be worth a farthing; amuse my- 
self with a greenhouse which lord Bute[s gardener 
could take upon his back, and walk av^ay with; 
and when I have paid it the accustomed visit, and 
watered it, and given it air, I say to myself — ' This 
is not mine, 'tis a plaything lent me for the pre- 
sent; I must leave it soon.' W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Olney, May 6, 1780. 

I am much obUged to you for your speedy answer 
to my queries. I know less of the law than a 
country attorney, yet sometimes I think I have al- 
most as much business. My former connexion 
with the profession has got wind; and though I 
earnestly profess, and protest, and proclaim it 
abroad that I know nothing of the matter, they 
can not be persuaded to believe, that a head once 
endued with a legal periwig can ever be deficient 
in those natural endowments it is supposed to 
cover. I have had the good fortune to be once or 
twdce in the right, which, added to the cheapness 
of a gratuitous counsel, has advanced my credit to 
a degree I never expected to attain in the capacity 
of a Iaw3^er. Indeed, if two of the wisest in the 
science of jmisprudence may give opposite opinions 
on the same point, which does not unfrequently 
happen, it seems to be a matter of indifference 
whether a man answers by rule or at a venture. 
He that stumbles upon the right side of the ques- 
tion is just as useful to his client as he that ar- 
rives at the same end by regular approaches, and 
is conducted to the mark he auns at by the greatest 
authorities. 

These violent attacks of a distemper so often 
fatal, are very alarming to all who esteem and re- 
spect the chancellor as he deserves. A life of con- 
finement, and of anxious attention to important 
objects, where the habit is bilious to such a terrible 
degree, threatens to be but a short one : and I wish 
he may i»ot be made a text for men of reflection to 
moralize upon, affording a conspicuous instance of 
the transient and fading nature of all himian ac- 
complishments and attainments. 

Yours affectionately, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM .UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, May 8, 1780. 

My scribbling humour has of late been entirely 



Let. 49. 



LETTERS. 



189 



absorbed in the passion for landscape drawing. It 
it is a most amusing art, and like every other art 
requires much practice and attention. 

Nil sine multo 
Vita labore dedit morualibus. 

Excellence is providentially placed beyond the 
reach of indolence, that success may be the reward 
of industry, and that idleness may be punished 
with obscurity and disgrace. So long as I am 
pleased with an employment, I am capable of un- 
wearied application, because my feelijigs are all 
of the intense kind. I never received a little plea- 
sure from any thing in my life ; if I am delighted, 
it is in the extreme. The unhappy consequence 
of this temperature is, that my attachment to any 
occupation seldom outlives the novelty of it. That 
nerve of my imagination, that feels the touch of 
any particidar amusement, twangs under the 
energy of the pressure with so much vehemence, 
that it soon becomes sensible of weariness and fa- 
tigue. Hence I draw an unfavourable prognostic, 
and expect that I shall shortly be constrained to 
look out for sometMng else. Then perhaps I may 
string the harp again, and be able to comply vdth 
your demand. 

Now for the visit you propose to pay us, and 
propose not to pay us'; the hope of which plays 
upon your paper, like a jack-o-lantern upon the 
ceiling. This is no mean simile, for Virgil, (you 
remember) uses it. 'Tis here, 'tis there, it vanishes, 
it returns, it dazzles you, a cloud interposes, and it 
is gone. However just the comparison, I hope 
you will contrive to spoil it, and that your final 
determination will be to come. As to the masons 
you expect, bring them with you — bring brick, 
bring mortar, bring every thing that would oppose 
itself to your journey — all shall be welcome. I 
have a greenhouse that is too small, come and en- 
large it; build me a pinery; repair the garden- 
wall, that has great need of your assistance; do 
any thing; you can not do too touch; so far from 
thinking you and your train troublesome, we shall 
rejoice to see you, upon these or upon any other 
terms you can propose. But to be serious — you 
will do well to consider that a long summer is, be- 
fore you — that the party will not have such ano- 
ther opportunity to meet this great while ; that 
you may finish your masonry long enough before 
winter, though you should not begin this month, 
but that you can not always find your brother and 
sister Powley at Olney. These, and some other 
considerations, such as the desire we have to see 
you, and the pleasure we expect from seeing }-ou 
all together, may, and I think, ought to overcome 
your scruples. 

Prom a general recollection of lord Clarendon's 
History of the Rebellion, I thought (and I remem- 
ber I told you so) that there was a striking resem- 
blance between that period and the present. But 



I am now reading, and have read three volumes 
of Hume's History, one of which is engrossed en- 
tirely by tliat subject. There I see reason to alter 
my opinion, and the seeming resemblance has dis- 
appeared upon a more particular information. 
Charles succeeded to a long train of arbitrary prin- 
ces, whose subjects had tamely acquiesced in the 
despotism of their masters, till their privileges were 
all forgot. He did but tread in their steps, and 
exemplify the principles in which he had been 
brought up, when he oppressed his people. But 
just at that time, unhappily for the monarch, the 
subject began to see, and to see that he had a right 
to property and freedom. This marks a sufficient 
difference between the disputes of that day and 
the present. But there was another main cause 
of that rebellion, which at this time does not ope- 
rate at all. The king was devoted to the hierar- 
chy ; his subjects were puritans, and would not 
bear it. Every circumstance of ecclesiastical or- 
der and disciphne was an abominatioii to them, 
and in his esteem an indispensable duty. And 
though at last he was obliged to give up many 
tilings, he would not abolish episcopacy, and till 
that were done his concessions could liave no con- 
ciliating effect. These two concurring causes 
were indeed sufficient to set three Idngdoms in a 
flame. But they subsist not now, nor any%ther, 
1 hope, notwithstanding the bustle made by the 
patriots, equal to the production of such terrible 
events. Yours, my dear friend, W. C, 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, May 10, 1780. 

I DO not write to comfort you : that office is not 
likely to be well perforriled by one who has no 
comfort for himself; nor to comply with an im- 
pertinent ceremony, which in general might well 
be spared upon such occasions : but because I would 
not seem indifferent to the concerns of those I 
have so much reason to esteem and love. If I did 
not sorrow for your brother's death, I should ex- 
pect that nobody would for mine ; when I knew 
him, he was much beloved, and I doubt not con- 
tinued to be so. To five and die together is the 
lot of a few happy families, who hardly know what 
a separation means, and one sepulchre serves them 
all ; but the ashes of our kindred are dispersed in- 
deed. Whether the American gulf has swallow- 
ed up any other of my relations, I know not ; it has 
made many mourners. 

Beheve me, my dear cousin, though after a long 
silence which perhaps nothing less than the pre- 
sent concern could have prevailed with me to in- 
terrupt, as much as ever. 

Your affectionate kinsman, W. C. 



190 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Le,t. 50, 51. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 



praise dearly, especially from the judicious, and 
those who have so much delicacy themselves as not 
MY DEAR FRIEND, May 10, 1780. to offend mine in giving it. But then, 1 found 

If authors could have lived to adjust and authcn- this consequence attending, or likely to attend the 
ticate their own text, a commentator would have eulogium you bestowed — if my friend thought me 
been an useless creature. For instance — if Dr. ' vvitty before, he shall think me ten times more wit- 
Bentley had found, or opined that he had found, I ty hereafter — where I joked once, I will joke five 



the word tube, where it seemed to present itself to 
you, and had judged the subject worthy of his cri 
tical acmnen, he woidd either have justified the 
corrupt reading, or have substituted some inven 
tion of his own, in defence of wliich he would 
have exerted all his polemical abilities, and have 
quarreled with half the hterati in Europe. Then 
suppose the writer himself, as in the present case, 

to interpose with a gentle whisper, thus 'If 

you look again, doctor, you will perceive that what 
appears to you to be tube, is neither more nor less 
than the simple monosyllable ink, but I wrote it in 
great haste, and the want of sufRcient precision 
in the character has occasioned your mistake : you 
will be especially satisfied, when you see the sense 
elucidated by the explanation.' — But I question 
whether the doctor would quit his ground, or allow 
any author to be a competent judge in his own 
case. The world, however, would acquiesce im- 
mediately, and vote the critic useless. 

James Andrews, who is my Michael Angelo, 
pays me many compUments on my success in the 
art of drawing, but I have not yet the vanity to 
think myself qualified to furnish your apartment. 
If I should ever attain to the degree of self-opinion 
requisite to such an undertaking, I shall labour at 
it with pleasure. I can only say, though I hope 
not with the affected modesty of the above-men- 
tioned Dr. Bentley, who said the same thing, 
Me quoque dicunt 
Vatem pastores. Sed noii Ego credulus illis. 

A crow, rook, or ravefi, has built a nest in one 
of the young elm-trees, at the side of Mrs. Aspray's 
orchard. In the violent storm that blew yesterday 
morning, I saw it agitated to a degree that seem- 
ed to threaten its immediate destruction, and ver- 
sified the following thoughts upon the occasion.* 

W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, June 8, 1780. 

It is possible I might have indulged myself in 
the pleasure of writing to you, without waiting for 
a letter from you, but for a reason which you will 
not easily guess. Your mother communicated to 
me the satisfaction you expressed in my corres- 
pondence, that you thought me entertaining and 
clever, and so forth : now you must know, 1 love 



• Cowpor's Fable of the Raven concluded this letter. 



times, and for one sensible remark, I will send liim 
a dozen. Now this foolish vanity would have 
spoiled me quite, and would have made me as dis- 
gusting a letter-writer as Pope, who seems to have 
thought that unless a sentence was well turned, 
and every period pointed vnth some conceit, it was 
not worth the carriage. Accordingly, he is to me, 
except in very few instances, the most disagreea- 
ble maker of epistles that ever I met with. I was 
wilUng, therefore, to wait till the impression your 
coimnendation had made upon the foolish part of 
me was worn off, that I might scribble away as 
usual, and write my uppermost thoughts, and those 
only. 

You are better skilled in ecclesiastical law than 
I am. Mrs. P. desires me to inform her, whether 
a parson can be obliged to take an apprentice. For 
some of her husband's opposers at D , threat- 
en to clap one upon him. Now I tliink it would 
be rather hard, if clergymen, who are not allowed 
to exercise any handicraft whatever, should be 
subject to such an imposition. If Mr. P. was a 
cordwainer, or a breeches-maker, all the week, and 
a preacher only on Sundays, it would seem rea- 
sonable enough, in that case, that he should take 
an apprentice if he chose it. But even then, in 
my poor judgment, he ought to be left to his op- 
tion. If they mean by an apprentice, a pupil, 
whom they will oblige him to hew into a parson, 
and after chipping away the block that hides the 
minister within, to quaUfy him to stand erect in a 
pulpit — tliat indeed is another consideration — But 
still we Uve in a free country, and I can not bring 
myself even to suspect that an English divine can 
possibly ba liable to such compulsion. Ask your 
uncle, however, for he is wiser in these things than 
either of us. 

I thank j'ou for your two inscriptions, and like 
the last the best; the thought is just and fine — 
but the two last lines arc sadly damaged by the 
monkish jingle of peperit and reperit. I have 
not yet translated them, nor do I promise to do it, 
though at some idle hour perhaps I may. In re- 
turn, I send you a translatioA of a simile in the 
Paradise Lost. Not having that poem at hand, 
I can not refer you to the book and page, but you 
may hunt for it, if you think it worth your while. 
It begins — 

' So when, from mountain tops, the dusky clouds 
Ascending, &c.'* 



' For the translation of this simile, see Cowper's Poems. 



Let. 52, 53. 



LETTERS. 



191 



If you spy any fault in my Latin, tell me, for I 
am sometimes in doubt; but, as I told you when 
you was here, I have not a Latin book in the 
world to consult, or correct a mistake by; and 
some years have passed since I was a school-boy. 



An English Versification of a Thought that popped into 

my Head tieo MontJis since. 

Sweet stream ! * &c. 

Now tliis is not so exclusively applicable to a 

maiden, as to be the sole property of your sister 

Shuttleworth. If you look at Mrs. Unwin, you 

will see that she has not lost her right to this just 

praise by marrying you. 

Your mother sends her love to all and mine 
comes jogging along by the side of it. 

Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

DEAR SIR, June 12, 1780. 

We accept it as an effort of your friendship, 
that you could prevail with yourself, in a time of 
such terror and distress, to send us repeated ac- 
counts of yours and Mrs. Newton's welfare ; you 
supposed, with reason enough, that we should be 
apprehensive for your safety, situated as you were, 
apparently, vrithin the reach of so much danger. 
We rejoice that you have escaped at all, and that, 
except the anxiety which you must have felt, both 
for yourselves and others, you have suffered no- 
thing upon this dreadftd occasion. A metropolis in 
flames, and a nation in ruins, are subjects of con- 
templation for such a mind as yours as will leave a 
lasting impression behind them. It is well that 
the design died in the execution, and will be bu- 
ried, I hope never to rise again, in the ashes of 
its own combustion. There is a melancholy plea- 
sure in looking back upon such a scene, arising 
from a comparison of possibilities with facts ; the 
enormous bulk of the intended mischief with the 
abortive and partial accompUshment of it; much 
was done, more indeed than could have been sup- 
posed practicable in a well-regulated city, not un- 
furnished with a military force for its protection. 
But surprise and astonishment seem at first to 
have struck every nerve of the police with a palsy; 
and to have disarmed government of all its 
powers. 

I congratulate you upon the wisdom that vrith- 
held you from entering yourself a member of the 
Protestant association. Your friends who did so 
have reason enough to regret their doing it, even 
though they should never be called upon. Inno- 
cent as they are, and they who know them can 
not doubt of their being perfectly so, it is likely to 



* Vide Poems. 



bring an odium on the profession they make, that 
will Tiot soon be forgotten. Neither is it possible 
for a quiet, inoffensive man, to discover, on a sud- 
den, that lys zeal has carried him into such com- 
pany, without being to the last degree shocked at 
his imprudence. Their religion was an honour- 
able mantle, like that of Elijah; but the majority 
wore cloaks of Guy Fawkes's time, and meant 
nothing so little as what they pretended. 

W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
June 18, 1780. 

REVEREND AND DEAR WILLIAM, 

The affairs of kingdoms, and the concerns of 
individuals, are variegated alike with the checker- 
work of joy and sorrow. The news of a great 
acqmsition in America has succeeded to terrible 
tumults in London; and the beams of prosperity 
are now playing upon the smoke of that confla- 
gration which so lately terrified the whole land. 
These sudden changes, which are matter of every 
man's observation, and may therefore always be 
reasonably expected, serve to hold up the chin of 
despondency above water, and preserve mankind 
in general from the sin and misery of accounting 
existence a burden not to be endured — an evil we 
should be sure to encounter, if we were not war- 
ranted to look for a bright reverse of our most af- 
flictive experiences. The Spaniards were sick of • 
the war at. the very: commencement of it; and I 
hope that, by this time, the French themselves 
begin to find themselves a Uttle indisposed, if not 
desirous of peace, which that restless and med- 
dUng temper of theirs is incapable of desiring for 
its own sake. But is it true, that this detestable 
plot was an egg laid in France, and hatched in 
London, under the influence of French corrup- 
tion! — Nam te scire, deos quoniam propius con- 
tingis, oportet. The offspring has the features 
of such a parent, and yet, without the clearest 
proof of the fact, I would not willingly charge 
upon a civUized nation what perhaps the most 
barbarous Would abhor the thought of I no sooner 
saw the surmise however in the paper, than I im- 
mediately began to write Latin verses upon the 
occasion. ' An odd effect,' you will say, ' of such 
a circumstance:' — but an effect, nevertheless, that 
whatever has, at any time, moved my passions, 
whether pleasantly or otherwise, has always had 
upon me : were I to express what I feel upon such 
occasions in prose, it would be verbose, inflated, 
and disgusting. I therefore have recourse to 
verse, as a suitable vehicle for the most vehement 
expressions my thoughts suggest to me. What I 
have written, I did not v/rite so much for the com- 
fort of the English, as for the mortification of the 



192 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 54, 55, 



French. You will immediately perceiv* there- 
fore that I have been labouring in vain, and that 
this bouncing explosion is likely to spend itself in 
the air. For I have no means of circujating what 
follows, through all the French territories: and 
unless that, or something lilce it, can -be done, my 
indignation will be entirely fruitless. Tell me 
how I can convey it into Sartine's pocket, or who 
will lay it upon his desk for me. But read it first, 
and unless you think it pointed enough to sting 
the Gaul to the quick, burn it. 

In seditionem horrendam, corruptelis Gallicis, utfertur, 
Londini nuper exortam. 

Perfida, crudelis, victa etlymphata furore, 

Nou armis, laurum Gallia fraude petit. 
Venalem pretio plebem condnsit, et urit 

TJndique privatas patriciasque domos. 
Nequicquara conata sua, fcedissiraa sperat 

Posse tamen'nostra nos superare nianu. 
Gallia, vanastruis! Precibus nunc utere ! Vinces, 

Nam mites timidis, supplicibusque sumus. 

I have lately exercised my ingenuity in con- 
triving an exercise for yours, and have composed a 
riddle, which, if it does not make you laugh before 
you have solved it, will probably do it afterwards. 
I would transcribe it now, but am really so fatigued 
with writing, that unless I knew you had a quinsy, 
and that a fit of laughter might possibly save your 
life, I could not prevail with myself to do it. 

What could you possibly mean, slender as you 
are, by sallying out upon your two walking sticks 
at two in the morning, into the midst of such a 
tumult 1 We admire your prowess, but can not 
commend your prudence. 

Our love attends you all, collectively and indi- 
vidually. 

Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, June 23, 1780; 

A WORD or two in answer to two or three 
questions of yours, which I have hitherto taken 
no notice of. I am not in a scribbling mood, and 
shall therefore make no excursions to amuse either 
myself or you. The needful will be as much as 
I can manage at present — tlie playful must wait 
for another opportunity. 

I thank you for your offer of Robertson ; but I 
have more reading upon my hands at this present 
writing than I shall get rid of in a twelve-month ; 
and this moment recollect that I have seen it al- 
ready. He is an author that I admire much ; with 
one exception, that I think his style is too laboured. 
Hume, as an Ixistorian, pleases me more. 

I have just read enough of the Biogrophia Bri- 
tannica to say, that I have tasted it, and have no 



doubt but I shall like it. I am pretty much in the 
garden at this seasoii of the year, so read but lit- 
tle. In smnmer-time I am as giddy-headed as a 
boy, and can settle to nothing. Winter condenses 
me, and makes me lumpish, and sober; and then 
I can read all day long. 

For the same reasons, I have no need of the 
landscapes at present; when I want them I vnll 
renew my apphcation, and repeat the' description, 
but it will hardly be before October. 

Before I rose this morning, I composed the three 
following stanzas; I send them because I like 
them pretty well myself; and if you should not, 
you must accept this handsome compliment as an 
amends for their deficiencies. You may-print the 
lines, if you judge them worth it.* 

I have only time to add love, &c., and my two 
initials. W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, June 23, 1780. 

Your reflections upon the state of London, the 
sins and enormities of that great city, while you 
had a distant view of it from Greenwich, seem to 
have been prophetic of the heavy stroke that fell 
upon it just after. Man often prophesies without 
knowing it ; a spirit speaks by him which is not 
Ms own, though he does not at that time suspect 
that he is under the influence of any other. Did 
he foresee what is always foreseen by him who 
dictates what he supposes to be his own, he would 
suffer by anticipation, as well as by consequence ; 
and wish perhaps as ardently for the happy igno- 
rance, to which he is at present so much indebted, 
as some have foolishly and inconsiderately done 
for a knowledge that would be but another name 
for misery. 

And why have I said all this 1 especially to you, 
who have hitherto said it to me — ^not because I 
had the least desire of informing a wiser man than 
myself, but because the observation was naturally 
suggested by the recollection ' of your letter, and 
that letter, though not the last, happened to be 
uppermost in my mind. I can compare this mind 
of mine to nothing that resembles it more, than to 
a board that is itnder the carpenter's plane (I mean 
while I am writing to you,) the shavings are my 
uppermost thoughts; after a few strokes of the 
tool, it acquires a new surface; this again, upon a 
repetition of his task, he takes off, and a new sur- 
face still succeeds — whether 'the shavings of the 
present day will be worth your acceptance, I know 
not, I am unfortunately made neither of cedar 
nor of mahogany; but Truncus Jiculnus, inutile 



■ Verses on the burning of Lord Mansfield's Library, &c 



Let. 56. 



LETTER^. 



193 



lignum — consequently, though I should be planed 
till I am as thin as a wafer, it will be but rubbish 
to the last. 

It is not strange that you should be the subject 
of a false report; for the sword of slander, like 
that of war, devours one as well as another; and a 
blameless character is particiilarly delicious to its 
unsparing appetite. But that you should be the 
object of such a report, you who meddle less with 
the designs of government than almost any man 
that lives under it, this is strange indeed. It is 
well, however, when they who account it good 
sport to traduce the reputation of another, invent 
a story that refutes itself I wonder they do not 
always endeavour to accommodate their fiction to 
the real character of the person; their tale woiUd 
then at least have an air of probability, and it might 
cost a peaceable good man much more trouble to 
disprove it. But perhaps it would not be easy to 
discern what part of your conduct hes more open 
to such an attempt than another ; or what it is 
that you either say or do, at any time, that pre- 
sents a fair opportunity to the most ingenious 
slanderer, to slip in a falsehood between your 
■words, or actions, that shall seem to be of a piece 
with either. You hate compliment, I know ; but 
by your leave tliis is not one — it is a truth—worse 
and worse — now I have praised you indeed — well, 
you must thank yourself for it ; it was absolutely 
done without the least intention on my part, and 
proceeded from a pen that, as far as I can remem- 
ber, was never guilty of flattery since I knew how 
to hold it. He that slanders me, paints me blacker 
than I am, and he that flatters me, whiter — they 
both daub me; and when I look in the glass of 
conscience, I see myself disguised by both— I had 
as lief my tailor should sew gingerbread nuts on 
ray coat instead of buttons, as that any man should 
call my Bristol stone a diamond. The tailor's 
trick would not at all embellish my suit, nor the 
flatterer's make me at all the richer. I never 
make a present to my friend of what I disUke my- 
self Ergo (I have reached the conclusion at last,) 
I did not mean to flatter you. 

We have sent a petition to lord Dartmouth, by 
this post, praying him to interfere inparUament in 
behalf of the poor lace-makers. I say we, because I 
have signed it; Mr. G. drew it up, Mr. 



did not think it grammatical, therefore he would 
not sign it. Yet I think Priscian himself would 
have pardoned the manner for the sake of the 
matter. I dare say if his lordsliip does not com- 
ply with the prayer of it, it will not be because he 
thinks it of more consequence to vsrrite grammati- 
cally, than that the poor should eat, but for some 
better reason. 
My love to all under your roof. 

Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

July 2, 1780. 
Carissime, I am glad of your confidence, and 
have reason to hope I shall never abuse it. If you 
trust me with a secret, I am hermetically sealed; 
and if you call for the exercise of my judgment, 
such as it is, I am never freakish or wanton in the 
use of it, much less mischievous and malignant. 
Critics, I believe, do not often stand so clear of 
these vices as I do. I like your epitaph, except 
that I doubt the propriety of the word imviaturus ; 
which, I think, is rather applicable to fruits than 
flowers ; and except the last pentameter, the asser- 
tion it contains being rather too obvious a thought 
to finish with; not that I think an epitaph should be 
pointed like an epigram. But still there is a close- 
ness of thought and expi'ession necessary in the 
conclusion of all these httle things, that they may 
leave an agreeable flavour upon the palate. What- 
ever is short, should be nervous, masculine, and 
compact. Little men are so; and little poems 
should be so; because, where the work is short, 
the author has no right to the plea of weariness ; 
and laziness is never admitted as an available ex- 
cuse in any thing. Now you know my opinion, 
you will very likely improve upon my improvement, 
and alter my alterations for the better. To touch 
and retouch is, though some writers boast of negli- 
gence, and others would be ashamed to show their 
foul copies, the secret of almost all good writing, 
especially in verse. I am never weary of it my- 
self; and if you would take as much pains as I 
do, you would have no need to ask for my correc- 
tions. 

Hie sepultus est 

Inter- suorum lacrymas 

GULIELMUS NORTHCOT, 

Gulielmi et Marise filius 

Unicus, unice dilectus, 

dui floris ritu succisus est semihiantis, 

Aprilis die septimo, 

1780. ^t. 10. 



Care vale! Sed non isternum, care, valeto! 

Namque iterum tecum, sim niodo dignus ero : 
Turn nihil amplexus poterit divellere nostros, 

Nee tu marcesces, nee lacrymabor ego. 

Having an English translation of it by me, I 
send it, though it may be of no use. 

Farewell ! "but not forever," Hope replies, 
"Trace but his steps, and meet him in the skies!" 
There nothing shall renew our patting pain, 
Thou Shalt not wither, nor I weep again I 

The stanzas that I sent you are maiden ones, 
having never been seen by any eye but your 
mother's and your own. 



194 



CO'Wl'ER'S WORKS. 



Let. 57, 58, 59. 



If you send me franks, I shall write long let- 
ters — Valete, sicut et nos valemus! Aviate, sicut 
et Tios amamus. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MON AMI, July 8, 1780. 

Ir you ever take the tip of the chancellor's ear 
between your finger and thumb, you can hardly 
improve the opportimity to better pui'pose, than if 
you should whisper into it the voice of compassion 
and lenity to the lace-makers. I am an eye-wit- 
ness of their poverty, and do know that hundreds 
in this little town are upon the point of starving, 
and that the most unremitting industry is but 
barely suificient to keep them from it. I know 
that the bill by which they would have been so 
fatally afl!ected is thrown out : but lord Stormont 
threatens them with another ; and if another like 
it should pass, they are undone. We lately sent 
a petition from hence to lord Dartmouth ; I signed 
it, and am sure the contents are true. The pur- 
port of it was to inform him that there are very 
near one thousand two hundred lace-makers in 
this beggarly town, the most of whom had reason 
enough, while the bill was in agitation, to look 
upon every loaf they bought as the last they should 
£ver be able to earn. I can never think it good 
policy to incm: the certain inconvenience of ruin- 
ing thirty thousand, in order to prevent a remote 
and possible damage though to a much greater 
number. The measure is like a scythe, and the 
poor lace-makers are the sickly crop that trembles 
before the edge of it. The prospect of peace vvdth 
America is like the streak of dawn in their hori- 
zon ; but this bill is like a black cloud behind it, that 
threatens their hope of a comfortable day with 
utter extinction. 

I did not perceive, till this moment, that I had 
tacked two similes together; a practice which, 
though warranted by the example of Homer, and 
allowable in an epic poem, is rather luxuriant and 
licentious in a letter ; lest I should add another, I 
conclude. W. C. • 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
July 11, 1780. 

I ACCOUNT myself sufficiently commended for 
my Latin exercise, by the number of translations 
it has undergone. That which you distinguished 
in the margin by the title of " belter," was the 
production of a friend; and, except that for a 
modest reason he omitted the third couplet, I think 
it a good one. To finish the group, I have trans- 
lated it myself; and though I would not wish you 
to give it to the world, for more reasons than one, 



especially lest some French hero should call me to 
account for it — I add it on the other side. An 
author ought to be the best judge of his own mean- 
ing ; and whether I have succeeded or not, I can 
not but wish, that where a translator is wanted, 
the writer was always to be Ms own. 

False, cruel, disappointed, stung to (he heart, 
France quits the warrior's for the assassin's part; 
To dirty hands, a dirty bride conveys. 
Bids' the low street and lofty palace blaze. 
Her sons too weak to vanquish us alone. 
She hires the worst and basest of our own, 
Kneel, France ! a suppliant conquers us with ease, . 
We always spare a coward on his knees. 

I have often wondered that Dryden's illustrious 
epigram on Milton (in my mind the second best 
that ever was made) has never been translated into 
Latin, for the admiration of the learned in other 
countries. I have at last presumed to venture upon 
the task myself The great closeness of the ori- 
ginal, which is equal in that respect to the most 
compact Latin I ever saw, made it extremely diffi- 
cult. 

Tres, tria, &c.' 

I have not one bright thought upon the chan- 
cellor's recovery ; nor can I strike off so much as 
one sparkling atom from that brilliant subject. It 
is not when I will, nor upon what I will, but as a 
thought happens to occur to me ; and then I ver- 
sify, whether I will or not. I never write but for 
my amusement ; and what I write is siu'e to an- 
swer that end, if it answers no other. If, besides 
this purpose, the more desirable one of entertain- 
ing you be effected, I then receive double fruit of 
my labour, and consider this produce of it as a 
second crop, the more valuable, because less ex- 
pected. But when I have once remitted a compo- 
sition to you, I have done vsdth it. It is pretty 
certain that I shall never read it or think of it again. 
From that moment I have constituted you sole 
judge of its accompfishments, if it has any, eind 
of its defects, which it is sure to have. 

For this reason I decline answering the ques- 
tion with wliich you concluded your last, and can 
not persuade myself to enter into a critical examen 
of the two pieces upon lord Mansfield's loss, either 
with respect to their intrinsic or comparative merit ; 
and indeed after- having rather discouraged that 
use of them which you had designed, there is no 
occasion for it. W. C. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, Juhj 20, 1780. 

Mr. Newton having desired me to be of the 
party, I am come to meet him. You see me sixteen 



• Vid. Poems. 



Let. 60, 61. 



LETTERS. 



195 



years older at the least, than when I saw you last ; but 
the effects of time seem to have taken place rather 
on the outside of my head, than within it. What 
was brown is become gray, but what was foohsh, 
remains- foolish still. Green fruit must rot before 
it ripens, if the season is such as to afford it nothing 
but cold winds and dark clouds, that interrupt every 
ray of sunshine. My days steal away silently, 
and march on (as poor mad King Lear would have 
made his soldiers march) as if they were shod vnth 
felt; not so silently but that I hear them; yet 
were it not that I am always listening to their 
flight, having no infirmity that I had not when I 
was much younger, I should deceive myself with 
an imagination that I am still young. 

I am fond of writing as an amusement, but do 
not always find it one. Being rather scantily fur- 
nished with subjects that are good for any thing, 
and corresponding only with those who have no 
relish for such as are good for nothing, I often find 
myself reduced to the necessity, the disagreeable 
necessity, of writing about myself. This does 
not mend the matter much ; for though in a de- 
scription of my own condition, I discover abundant 
materials to employ my pen upon, yet as the task 
is not very agreeable to me, so I am sufficiently 
aware that it is likely to prove irksome to others. 
A painter who should confine himself in the ex- 
ercise of his art to the drawing of his own picture, 
must be a wonderful coxcomb, if he did not soon 
grow sick of liis occupation ; and be peculiarly for- 
tunate, if he did not make others as sick as him- 
self 

Remote as your dwelling is from the late scene 
of riot and confusion, I hope that though you could 
not but hear the report, you heard no more, and 
that the roarings of the mad multitude did not 
reach you. That was a day of terror to the innocent, 
and the present is a day of still greater terror to the 
guilty. The law was for a few moments like an 
arrow in the quiver, seemed to be of no use, and 
did no execution ; now it is an arrow upon the 
string, and many, who despised it lately, are trem- 
bling as they stand before the point of it. 

I have talked more already than I have formerly 
done in three visits — you remember my taciturnity, 
never to be forgotten by those who knew me ; not 
to depart entirely from what might be, for aught I 
know, the most shining part of my character — I 
here shut my mouth, make my bow, and return to 
OIney. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, July 27, 1780. 

As two men sit silent, after having exhausted 
all their topics of conversation: one says — '•It is 
very fine weather,' — and the other says — ' Yes ;' — 



one blows his nose, and the other rubs his eye- 
brows ; (by the way this is very much in Homer'a 
manner)- such seems to be the case between you 
and me. After a silence of some days I write you a 
long something, that (I suppose) was nothing to 
the purpose, because it has not afforded you ma- 
terials for an answer. Nevertheless, as it often 
happens in the case above-stated, one of the dis- 
tressed parties, being deeply sensible of the awk- 
wardness of a dumb duet, breaks silence again, 
and resolves to speak, though he has nothing to 
say. So it fares with me, I am with you again in 
the form of an epistle, though, considering my 
present emptiness, I have reason to fear that your 
only joy upon the occasion will be, that it is con- 
veyed to you in a frank. 

When I began, I expected no interruption. But 
if I had expected interruptions without end, I 
should have been less disappointed. First came 
the barber ; who, after having embellished the out- 
side of my head, has left the inside just as unfiir- 
nished as he found it. Then came Olney bridge, " 
not into the house, but into the conversation. The 
cause relating to it was tried on Tuesday at Buck- 
ingham. The judge directed the jury to find a 
verdict favourable to Olney. The jury consisted 
of one knave and eleven fools. The last-mention- 
ed followed the afore-mentioned, as sheep follow a 
Bell-wether, and decided in direct opposition to the 
said judge. Then a flaw was discovered in the in- 
dictment. The indictment was quashed, and an 
order made for a new trial. The new trial will be 
in the King's Bench, where said knave and said 
fools will have nothing to do with it. So the men 
of Olney fling up their caps, and assure themselves 
of a complete victory. A victory will save me and 
your mother many shillings, perhaps some po\mds, 
which, except that it has afforded me a subject to 
write upon, was the only reason why I said so much 
about it. I know you take an interest in all that 
concerns us, and will consequently rejoice with us 
in the prospect of an event in which we are con- 
cerned so nearly. Yours affectionately, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DKAR SIR, July 30, 1780. 

You may think perhaps that I deal more liberal- 
ly with Mr. Unwin, in the way of poetical export, 
than I do vdth you, and I believe you have reason 
— the truth is this — if I walked the streets with a 
fiddle under my arm, I should never think of per- 
forming before the window of a privy counsellor, 
or a chief justice, but should rather make free with 
ears more liliely to be open to such amusement. — 
The trifles I produce in this way are indeed such 
trifles, that I can not think them seasonable pre- 
sents for you. Mr. Unwin himself would not be 



196 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 62, 63- 



offended if I was to tell him that there is this dif- 
ference between him and Mr. Newton ; that the 
latter is already an apostle, while he himself is on- 
ly undergoing the business of an incubation, with 
a hope that he may be hatched in time. When 
my muse comes forth arrayed in sables, at least in 
a robe of graver cast, I make no scruple to direct 
her to my friend at Hoxton. This has been one 
reason why I have so long delayed the riddle. But 
lest 1 should seem to set a value upon it, that I 
do not, by making it an object of still further in- 
quiry, here it comes. 

I am just two and two, I am warm, I am cold,- 
And the parent of numbers that can not be told, 
I am lawful, unlawful — a duty, a fault, 
I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought, 
An extraordinary boon, and a matter of course, 
And yielded with pleasure — when taken by force. 

W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWm. 

MY DE.\R FRIEND, August 6, 1780. 

You like to hear from me — This is a very good 
reason why I should write — But I have nothing 
to say — This seems equally a good reason why I 
shovdd not. — Yet if you had ahghted from your 
horse at our door tliis morning, and at tliis present 
writing being five o'clock in the afternoon, had 
found occasion to say to me — ' Mr. Covsrper, you 
have not spoke since I came in, have you resolved 
never to speak again T it would be but a poor re- 
ply, if in answer to the summons I should plead 
inabihty as my best and only excuse. And this 
by the way suggests to me a seasonable piece of 
instruction, and reminds me of what I am very 
apt to forget, when I have any epistolary business 
in hand, that a letter may be written upon any 
thing or nothing just as that any thing or nothing 
happens to occur. A man that has a journey be- 
fore him twenty miles in length, which he' is to 
perform on foot, will not hesitate and doubt whe- 
ther he shall set out or not, because he does not 
readily conceive how he shall ever reach the end 
of it ; for he knows, that by the simple operation 
of moving one foot forward first, and then the 
other, he shall be sure to accomplish it. So it is 
in the present case, and so it is in- every similar 
case. A letter is written as a conversation is main- 
tained, or a journey performed, not by preconcert- 
ed or premeditated means, a new contrivance, or an 
invention never heard of before, but merely by 
maintaining a progress, and resolving as a postil- 
lion does, having once set out, never to stop till we 
reach the appointed end. If a man may talk with- 
out thinking, why may he not write upon the same 
terms '? A grave gentleman of the last century, 
a tic-wig, si^uarc-toe, Steinkirk figure^ would say, 



— ' My good sir, a man has no right to do either.' 
But it is to be hoped that the present century has 
nothing to do with the mouldy opinions of the last, 
and so good Sir Launcelot, or Sir Paul, or what- 
ever be your name, step into your picture frame 
again, and look as if you thought for another cen- 
tury, and leave us moderns in the mean- time to 
think when we can, and to write whether we can 
or not, else we might as well be dead as you are. 

When we look back upon our forefathers, we 
seem to look back upon the people of another na- 
tion, almost upon creatures of another species. 
Their vast rambling mansions, spacious halls, and 
painted casements, the gothic porch smothered vdth 
honeysuckles, their httle gardens and high walls, 
their box -edgings, balls of holly, and yew-tree sta- 
tues, are become so entirely unfashionable now, 
that we can hardly believe it possible, that a peo- 
ple who resembled us so little in their taste, should 
resemble us in any thing else. But in every thing 
else, I suppose, they were our counterparts exact- 
ly ; and time, that has sewed up the slashed sleeve, 
and reduced the large- trunk hose to a neat pair of 
silk stockings, has left human nature just where 
it found it. The inside of the man at least has 
undergone no change. His passions, appetites, 
and aims are just what they ever were. They 
wear perhaps a handsomer disguise than they did 
in days of yore : for pliilosophy and hterature will 
have their effect upon the exterior ; but in every 
other respect a modern is only an ancient in a dif- 
ferent dress: W. C 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

August 21, 1780. 
The following occurrence ought not to be pass- 
ed over in silence, in a place where so few notable 
ones are to be met with. Last Wednesday night, 
while we were at supper, between the hours of 
eight and nine, I heard an unusual noise in the 
back parlour, as if one of the hares was entangled, 
and endeavouring to disengage herself. 1 was just 
going to rise from table, when it ceased. In about 
five minutes, a voice on the outside of the parlour 
door inquired if one of my hares had got away. I 
immediately rushed into the next room, and found 
that my poor favourite Puss had made her escape. 
She had gnawed in sunder the strings of a lattice 
work, with which I thought I had sufficiently se- 
cured the window, and which I preferred to any 
other sort of blind, because it admitted plenty of 
air. From thence I hastened to the kitchen, where 
I saw the redoubtable Thomas Freeman, who told 
me, that having seen her, just after she had drop- 
ped into the street, he attempted to cover her with 
his hat, but she screamed out, and leajied directly 
over his head. I then desired him to pursue as fast 



Let. 64, C5. 



LETTERS. 



197 



as possible, and added Richard Coleman to the 
chase, as being nimbler, and can-ying less weight 
than Thomas ; not expecting to see her ag;iin, but 
desirous to learn, if possible, what became of her. 
In something less than an hour, Richard returned, 
almost breathless, with the following account. 
That soon after he began to run, he left Tom be- 
hind him, and came in sight of a most numerous 
hunt, of men, women, children, and dogs ; that he 
did his best to keep back the dogs, and presently 
outstripped the crowd, so that the race was at last 
disputed between himself and Puss — she ran right 
through the town, and down the lane that leads to 
Dropshort — a little before she came to the house, he 
got the start and turned her ; she pushed for the 
town again, and soon after she entered it sought 
shelter in Mr. Wagstaff's tan-yard, adjoining to 
old Mr. Drake's — Sturge's harvest men were at 
supper, and saw her from the opposite side of tlie 
way. There she encountered the tan-pits full of 
water; and while she was struggling out of one 
pit, and plunging into another, and almost drown- 
ed, one of the men drew her out by the ears and 
secured her. She was then well washed in a buck- 
et, to get the lime out of her coat, and brought 
home in a sack at ten o'clock. 

This frolic cost us four shillings, but you may 
believe we did not grudge a farthing of it. The 
poor creature received only a little hurt in one of 
her claws, and in one of her ears, and is now al- 
most as well as ever. 

I do not call this an answer to your letter, but 
such as it is I send it, presuming upon that interest 
which I know you take in my minutest concerns, 
which I can not express better than in the words of 
Terence a little varied — 'Nihil mei a te alienum 
putas. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COtJSIN, AugUst 31, 1780. 

I AM obhged to you for your long letter, which 
did not seem so, and for your short one, which was 
more than I had any reason to expect. Short as 
it was, it conveyed to me two interesting articles 
of intelligence. An account of your recovering 
from a fever, and of lady Cowper's death. The 
latter was, I suppose, to be expected, for by what 
remembrance I have of her ladyship, who was ne- 
ver much acquainted with her, she had reached 
those years that are always found upon the borders 
of another world. As for you, your time of life 
is comparatively of a youthful date. You may 
think of death as much as you please (you can not 
think of it too much), but I hope you will live to 
think of it many years. 

It costs me not much difficulty to suppose that 
my friends who were already grown old, when I 



saw them last, are old still ; but it costs me a good 
deal sometimes to think of those who were at that 
time young, as being older than they were. Not 
having been an eyewitness of the change that time 
has made in them, and my former idea of them not 
being corrected by observation, it remains the 
same; my memory presents me with this image 
unimpaired, and while it retains the resemblance 
of what they were, forgets that by this time the 
picture may have lost much of its likeness, through 
the alteration that succeeding years have made in 
the original. I know not what impressions Time 
may have made upon your person, for while his 
claws (as our grannams called them) strike deep 
furrows in some faces, he seems to sheathe them 
with much tenderness, as if fearful of doing, injury 
to others. But though an enemy to the person, 
he is a friend to the mind, and you have found 
him so. Though even in this respect his treat- 
ment of lis depends upon what he meets with at 
our hands ; if we use him well, and hsten to his 
admonitions, he is a friend indeed, but otherwise 
the worst of enemies, who takes from us daily 
something that we valued, and gives us nothing 
better in its stead. It is well with them who, like 
you, can stand a tiptoe on the mountain top of 
human life, look down with pleasure upon the 
valley they have passed, and sometimes stretch 
their wings in joyful hope of a happy flight into 
eternity. Yet a little while and your hope will be 
accomplished. 

When you can favour me with a little account 
of your own family, without inconvenience, I shall 
be glad to receive it ; for though separated from 
my kindred by little more than half a century of 
miles, I know as Uttle of their concerns as if oceans 
and continents were interposed between us. 

Yours, my dear cousin, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Sept. 3, 1780. 

I AM glad you are so provident, and that, while 
you are young, you have furnished yourself with 
the means of comfort in old age. Your crutch 
and your pipe may be of use to you, (and may 
they be so) should your years be extended to an 
antediluvian date; and for your perfect accommo- 
dation, you seem to want nothing but a clerk called 
Snufl[le, and a sexton of the name of Skeleton, to 
make your ministerial equipage complete. 

I think I have read as much of the first volume 
of the Biographia as I shall ever read. I find it 
very amusing; more so perhaps than it would 
have been had they sifted their characters with 
more exactness, and admitted none but those who 
had in some way or other entitled themselves to 
immortality, by deserving well of the public. Such 



198 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let, 66. 



a compilation would perhaps have been more ju- 
dicious, though I confess it would have afforded 
less variety. The priests and monies of earlier, 
and the doctors of later da3's, who have signalized 
themselves by nothing but a controversial pam- 
phlet, long since thrown by, and never to be pe- 
rused again, might have been forgotten without 
injury or loss to the national character for- learning 
or genius. This observation suggested to me the 
following lines, which may serve to illustrate my 
meaning, and at the same time to give my criti- 
cism a sprightlier air. 

Oh fond attempts, &c.* 

Virgil admits none but worthies into the Elysian 
Fields ; I can not recollect the lines in which he 
describes them all, but these in particular I well 
remember — 

ftuique sui memores alios fecere merendo, 
Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes. 

A chaste and scrupulous conduct like his would 
well become the writer of national biography. — 
But enough of this. 

Our respects attend Miss Shuttleworth, with 
many thanks for her intended present. Some 
purses derive all their value from their contents, 
but tliese will have an intrinsic value of their own : 
and though mine should be often empty, wliich is 
not an improbable supposition, I shall still esteem 
it highly on its own account. 

If you could meet with a second-hand Virgil, 
ditto Homer, both Iliad and Odyssey, together 
with a Clavis, for I have no Lexicon, and all tole- 
rably cheap, I shall be obhged to you if you will 
make the purchase. Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Seft. 7, 1780. 

As many gentlemen as there are in the world, 
who have children, and heads capable of reflecting 
on the important subject of their education, so 
many opinions there are about it; many of them 
just and sensible, though almost all differing from 
each other. With respect to the education of boys, 
I think they are generally made to draw in Latin 
and Greek trammels too soon. It is pleasing, no 
doubt, to a parent to see his child already in some 
sort a proficient in those languages, at an age when 
most others are entirely ignorant of them; but 
hence it often happens, that a boy, who could con- 
jstrue a fable of .^sop at six or seven years of age. 



Verses ' On observing some Names of little Note recorded 
in the Biographia Britannica.' 



having exhausted his little stock of attention and 
diligence in making that noble acquisition, grows 
weary of liis task, conceives a disUke for study, 
and perhaps makes but a very indifferent progress 
afterwards. The mind and body have in this re- 
spect a striking resemblance of each other. In 
childhood, they are both nimble, but not strong; 
they can skip and frisk about with wonderful agi- 
hty, but hard labour spoils them both. In maturer 
years they become less active, but more vigorous, 
more capable of a fixed application, and can make 
themselves sport with that which a little earlier 
would have affected them with intolerable fatigue. 
I should recommend it to you therefore (but after 
all you must judge for yourself) to allot the two 
next years of Uttle John's scholarship to writing 
and arithmetic, together with which, for variety's 
sake, and because it is capable of being formed into 
an amusement, I would mingle geography, a sci- 
ence (which, if not attended to betimes, is seldom 
made an object of much consideration) essentially 
necessary to the accompUslmaent of a gentleman, 
yet (as I know by sad experience) imperfectly, if 
at all, inculcated in the schools. Lord Spenser's 
son, when he was four years of age, knew the 
situation of every kingdom, country, city, river, 
and remarkable mountain in the world. For this 
attainment, which I suppose his father had never 
made, he was indebted to a plaything ; having 
been accustomed to amuse Mmself with those maps 
which are cut into several compartments, so as to 
be throv^m into a heap of confusion, that they may 
be put together again with an exact coincidence 
of all their angles and bearings, so as to form a 
perfect whole. , 

If he begins Latm and Greek at eight, or even 
at nine years of age, it is surely soon enough. 
Seven years, the usual allowance for those acquisi- 
tions, are more than sufficient for the purpose, es- 
pecially vvith his readiness in learning; for you 
would hardly wish to have him qualified for the 
university before fifteen, a period, in my mind, 
much too early for it, and when he could hardly 
be trusted there without the utmost danger to his 
morals. Upon the whole, you will perceive that 
in my judgment the difficulty, as well as the wis- 
dom, consists more in bridling in,' and keeping 
back, a boy of his parts, than in pushing him for- 
ward. If therefore at the end of the two next 
years, instead of putting a grammar into his hand, 
you should allow him to amuse himself with some 
agreeable writers upon the subject of natural phi- 
losophy for another year, I tliink it would answer 
well. There is a book called Cosmotheoria Puerilis, 
there are Derham's Physico, and Astrotheology, 
together with several others in the same manner, 
very intelhgible even to a child, and full of useful 
instruction. W, C. 



Let. 67, 68. 



LETTERS. 



199 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Sept. 17, 1780. 

You desire my further thoughts on the subject 
of education. I send you such as had for the most 
part occurred to me when I wrote last, but could 
not be comprised in a single letter. They are in- 
deed on a diflerent branch of this interesting theme, 
but not less important than the former. . 

Ithinkit your liappiness, and wish you to think 
it so yourself, that you are in every respect quali- 
fied for the task of instructing your son, and pre- 
paring him for the imiversity, without committing 
him to the care of a stranger. In my judgment, 
a domestic education deserves the preference to a 
public one on a hundred accounts, which I have 
neither time nor room to mention. I shall only 
touch upon two or three that I can not but con- 
sider as havmg a right to your most earnest atten- 
tion. 

In a pubUc school, or indeed in any school, his 
morals are sure to be but little attended to, and his 
religion not at all. If he can catch the love of vir- 
tue from the fine things that are spoken of it in 
the classics, and the love of hohness from the cus- 
tomary attendance upon such preaching as he is 
likely to hear, it will be well; but I am sure you 
have had too many opportunities to observe the 
inefficacy of' such means, to expect any such ad- 
vantage from them. In the mean time, the more 
powerful influence of bad example, and perhaps 
bad company, will continually counterwork these 
oiJy preservatives he can meet with, and may pos- 
sibly send him home to you, at the end of five or 
six years, such as you will be sorry to see him. 
You escaped indeed the contagion yourself; but a 
few instances of happy exemption from a general 
malady are not sufficient warrant to conclude, that 
it is therefore not infectious, or may be encoun- 
tered without danger. 

You have seen too much of the world, and are 
a man of too much reflection, nof to have ob- 
served that in proportion as the sons of a family 
approach to years of maturity, they lose a sense of 
obligation to their parents, and seem at last almost 
divested of that tender affection which the nearest 
of aU relations seems to demand from them. I 
have often observed it myself, and have always 
thought I could sufficiently account for it, without 
laying all the blame upon the children. "While 
they continue in their parents' house, they are 
every day obliged, and every day reminded how 
much it is their interest, as well as duty, to be 
obliging and affectionate in return. But at eight 
or nine years of age the boy goes to school. From 
that moment he becomes a stranger in his father's 
house. The course of parental kindness is inter- 
rupted. The smiles of his mother, those tender 
14 



admonitions, and the solicitous care of both his 
parents, arc no longer before his cye.s — year after 
year he feels himself more and more detached from 
them, till at last he is so eflectually weaned from 
the connexion, as to find himself happier any 
where than in their company. 

I should have been glad of a frank for this letter, 
for I have said but little of what I could say upon 
this subject, and perhaps I may not be able to 
catch it by the end again. If I can, I shall add to 
it hereafter. Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Oct. 5, 1780. 

Now for the sequel — you have anticipated one 
of my arguments in favour of a private education, 
therefore I need say but little about it. The foUy 
of supposing that the mother-tongue, in some re- 
spects the most difficult of all tongues, may be ac- 
quired without a teacher, is predominant in all the 
public schools that I have ever heard of To pro- 
nomice it well, to speak and to wrrite it with fluency 
and elegance, are no easy attainments ; not one in 
fifty of those who pass through Westminster and 
Eton, arrive at any remarkable proficiency in these 
accomplishments; and they that do are more in- 
debted to their own study and application for it, 
than to any instruction received there. In general, 
there is nothing so pedantic as the style of a school- 
boy, if he aims at any style at all; and if he does 
not, he is of course inelegant, and perhaps un- 
grammatical. A defect, no doubt, in great measure 
owing to want of cultivation; for the same lad that 
is often commended for his Latin, frequently would 
deserve to be whipped for his English, if the favdt 
were not more the master's than his own. I know 
not where this evil is so likely to be prevented as 
at home — supposing always, nevertheless, (which 
is the case in. your instance) that the boy's parents, 
and their acquaintance, are persons of elegance 
and taste themselves. For to converse with those 
who converse with propriety, and to be directed to 
such authors as have refined and improved the lan- 
guage by their productions, are advantages which 
he can not elsewhere enjoy in an equal degree. 
And though it requires some time to regulate the 
taste, and fix the judgment, and these effects 
must be gradually wrought even upon the best un- 
derstanding, yet I suppose much less time will be 
necessary for the purpose than could at first be 
imagined, because the opportunities of improve- 
ment are continual. 

A public education is often recommended as the 
most effectual remedy for that bashful and awk- 
ward restraint, so epidemical among the youth of 
our country. But I verily beheve that instead of 
being a cure, it is often the cause of it. For seven 



200 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 69, 70. 



or eight years of his Ufa, the boy has hardly seen 
or conversed with a man, or a woman, except the 
maids at his boarding-house. A gentleman or a 
lady are consequently such novelties to hun, that 
he is perfectly at a loss to know what sort of be- 
haviour he should preserve before them. He plays 
with his buttons, or the strings of his hat, he 
blows his nose, and hangs down his head, is con- 
scious of his own deficiency to a degree that makes 
him quite unhappy, and trembles lest any one 
should speak to him, because that would quite 
overwhelm him. Is not all this miserable shyness 
the efiect of his education 1 To me it appears to 
be so. If he saw good company every day, he 
would never be terrified at the sight of it, and a 
room full of ladies and gentlemen would alarm him 
no more than the chairs they sit on. Such is the 
effect of custom. 

I need add nothing further on this subject, be- 
cause I beheve little John is as likely to be ex- 
empted from this weakness as most young gentle- 
men we shall meet with. He seems to have his 
father's spirit in this respect, in whom I could 
never discern the least trace of bashfulness, though 
I have often heard him complain of it. Under 
your management, and the influence of your ex- 
ample, I think he can hardly fail to escape it. 
If he does, he escapes that which has made many 
a man uncomfortable for life; and ruined not a 
few, by forcing them into mean and dishonourable 
company, where only they could be free and 
cheerful. 

Connexions formed at school are said to be last- 
ing, and often beneficial. There are two or three 
stories of this kind upon record, which would not 
be so constantly cited as they are, whenever this 
subject happens to be mentioned, if the chronicle 
that preserves their remembrance had many be- 
sides to boast of For my own part, I found such 
friendships, though warm enough in their com- 
mencement, surprisingly liable to extinction; and 
of seven or eight, whom I had selected for inti- 
mates out of about three hundred, in ten years 
time not one was left me.' The truth is, that there 
may be, and often is, an attachment of one boy to 
another, that looks very like a friendship; and 
while they are in circumstances that enable them 
mutually to oblige and to assist each other, pro- 
mises well, and bids fair to be lasting. But they 
are Yio sooner separated from each other, by enter- 
ing into the world at large, than other connexions, 
and new employments, in which they no longer 
share together, efface the remembrance of what 
passed in earlier days, and they become strangers 
to each other for ever. Add to this, that the inan 
frequently differs so much from the boy; his prin- ' 
ciple.-i, manners, temper, and conduct, undergo so ' 
gr(';it an alteration, that we no longer recognise in 
him our old playfellow, but fmd him utterly un- 



worthy and mifit for the place he once held in our 
affections. 

To close this article, as I did the last, by apply- 
ing myself immediately to the present concern 

little John is happily placed above all occasion for 
dependence on all such precarious hopes, and need 
not be sent to school in quest of some great men 
in embryo, who may possibly make his fortmie. 
Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO MRS. NEWTON. 

DEAR MADAM, Oct. 5, 1780. 

When a lady speaks, it is not civil to make her 
wait a week for an answer — I received your letter 
within this hour, and, foreseeing that the garden 
will engross much of my time for some days to 
come, have seized the present opportunity to ac- 
knowledge it. I congratulate you on Mr. New- 
ton's safe arrival at Ramsgate, maliing no doubt 
but that he reached that place without difficulty 
or danger, the road thither from Canterbury being 
so good as to afford room for neither. He has 
now had a view of the element, with which he was 
once so familiar, but which I thinli he has not 
seen for many years. The sight of his old ac- 
quaintance will revive in his mind a pleasing re- 
collection of past deliverances, and when he looks at 
him from the beach, he may say — ' You have for- 
merly given me trouble enough, but I have cast 
anchor now where your billows can never reach 
me.' — It is happy for him that he can say so. 

Mrs. Unwin returns you many thanks for your 
anxiety on her account. Her health is consider- 
ubly mended upon the whole, so as to afford us a 
hope that it vsdll be established. Our love attends 
you. Yours, dear madam, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN 

Nov. 9, 1780. 

I WROTE the following last sunmier. The tra- 
gical occasion of it really happened at the next 
house to ours. I am glad when I can find a sub- 
ject to work upon ; a lapidary I suppose accounts 
it a laborious part of the business to rulj away the 
roughness of the stone ; but it is my amusement, 
and if after all the polishing 1 can give it, it dis- 
covers some little lustre, I tliink myself well re- 
warded for my pains.* 

I shall charge you a halfpenny a-piece for every 
copy I send you, the short as well as the long. 
This is a sort of afterclap you Uttle expected, but 
I can not possibly afford them at a cheaper rate. 
If this method of raising money had occurred to 
me sooner, I should have made the bargain sooner: 



' Verses on a Goldfinch starved to death in a cage. 



Let. 71, 72, 73. 



LETTERS. 



201 



but am glad I have hit upon it at last. It will be 
a considerable encouragement to my muse, and 
act as a powerful stimulus to my industry. If the 
American war should last much longer, I may be 
obliged to raise my price, but this I shall not do 
without a real occasion for it — it depends much 
upon lord North's conduct in the article of sup- 
plies — if he imposes an additional tax on any thing 
that I deal in, the necessity of this measure, on my 
part, will be so apparent, that I dare say you will 
not dispute it. W. C 

In the interval between this and the following 
letter, the writer commenced the First Volume of 
his Poems. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. 
MY DEAR FRIEND, December 25, 1780. 

Weary with rather a long walk in the snow, I 
am not lilcely to write a very sprightly letter, or to 
produce any thing that may cheer this gloomy 
season, unless I have recourse to my pocket-book, 
where perhaps I may find something to transcribe, 
something that was written before the sun had 
taken leave of our hemisphere, and when I was 
less fatigued than I am at present. 

Happy is the man who knows just so miich of 
the law, as to make Inmself a httle merry now and 
then with the solemnity of juridical proceedings. 
I have heard of common law judgments before 
now, indeed have been present at the delivery of 
some, that, according to my poor apprehension, 
while they paid the utmost respect to the letter of 
a statute, have departed widely from the spirit of 
it ; and, being governed entirely by the point of 
law, have left equity, reason, and common sense, 
behind them at an infinite distance. You will 
judge whether the following report of a case, 
drawn up by myself, be not a proof and illustra- 
tion of this satirical assertion.* 

Yours afiectionately, W. C. 

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, December, 1780. 

Poetical reports of law cases are not very 
common, yet it seems to me desirable that they 
sliould be so. Many advantages would accrue 
from such a measure. They would in the first 
place be more commodiously deposited in the me- 
mory, just as hnen, grocery, or other such matters, 
when neatly packed, are known to occupy less 
room, and to he more conveniently in any trunk, 
chest, or box, to which they may be committed. 
In the next place, being divested of that infinite 



' Tlie 'Report of an adjudged case, not to be found in any 
of the books,' concluded this letter. Vide Poems. 



circmnlocution, and the endless embarrassment in 
which they are involved by it, they would become 
surprisingly intelligible, hi comparison with their 
present obscurity. And lastly, they would by this 
means be rendered susceptible of musical embel- 
Ushment, and instead of being quoted in the coun- 
try, with that dull monotony, which is so weari- 
some to by-standers, and frequently lulls even the 
judges themselves to sleep, might be rehearsed in 
recitation ; which would have an admirable effect, 
in keeping the attention fixed and lively, and could 
not fail to disperse that heavy atmosphere of sad- 
ness and gravity, which hangs over the jurispru- 
dence of our country. I remember many years 
ago being informed by a relation of mine, who in 
his youth had applied himself to the study of the 
law, that one of his fellow-students, a gentleman" 
of sprightly parts, and very respectable talents of 
the poetical kind, did actually engage in the pro- 
secution of such a design ; for reasons I suppose 
somewhat similar to, if not the same with those I 
have now suggested. He began with Coke's In- 
stitutes; a book so rugged in its style, that an at- 
tempt to polish it seemed an Herculean labour, 
and not less arduous and difficult, than it would 
be to give the smoothness of a rabbit's fur to the 
prickly back of a hedge-hog. But he succeeded 
to admiration, as you will perceive by the follow- 
ing specimen, which is all that my said relation 
could recollect of the performance. 

Tenant in fee 

Simple, is he, 
And need neither quake nor quiver, 

Who hath his lands, 

Fi-ee from demands. 
To him, and his heirs for ever. 

You have an ear for music, and a taste for verse, 
which saves me the trouble of pointing out with a 
critical nicety the advantages of such a version. I 
proceed, therefore, to what I at first intended, and 
to transcribe the record of an adjudged case thus 
managed, to which indeed what I premised was 
intended merely as an introduction.* 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Feb. 15, 1781. 

I AM glad you were pleased with my report of 
soextraordinary a case. If the thoughtof versifying 
the decisions of our courts of justice had struck 
me, while I had the honour" to attend them, it 
would perhaps have been no difficult matter to 
have compiled a volxmie of such amusing and 
interesting precedents ; which, if they wanted the 
eloquence of the Greek or Roman oratory, would 



This letter concludes with the poetical lav? case of "Koso 
plaimiff— Eyes, defendants," before refeiTed to. 



302 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 74, 75. 



have amply compensated that deficiency by the 
harmony of rhyme and metre. 
' Your account of my uncle and your mother 
gave me great pleasure. I have long been afraid 
to inquire after some in whose vsrelfare I always 
feel myself interested, lest the question should pro- 
duce a painful answer. Longevity is the lot of so 
few, and is so seldom rendered comfortable by the 
associations of good health and good spirits, that I 
could not very reasonably suppose either your re- 
lations or mine so happy in those respects, as it 
seems they are. May they continue to enjoy those 
blessings so long as the date of Ufe shall last. I 
do not think in these costermonger days, as I have 
a notion FalstafF calls them, an antediluvian age 
is at all a desirable tiling ; but to live comfortably, 
while we do live, is a great matter and comprehends 
in it every thing that can be wished for on this 
side the curtain that hangs between Time and 
Eternity. 

Farewell ray better friend than any I have to 
boast of either among the lords, or gentlemen of 
the house of commons. Yours ever, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, April 2, 1781. 

Fine weather, and a variety of extraforaneous 
occupations (search Johnson's dictionary for that 
word, and if not found there, insert it — for it saves 
a deal of circumlocution, and is very lawfully com- 
poxmded) make it difficult (excuse the length of 
the parenthesis, which I did not foresee the length 
of when I began it, and which may perhaps a lit- 
tle perplex the sense of what I am writing, though, 
as I seldom deal in that figure of speech, I have 
the less need to make an apology for doing it at 
present) make it difficult (I say) for me to find 
opportunities for writing. My morning is en- 
grossed by the garden ; and in the afternoon, till I 
have drunk tea, I am fit for nothing. At five we 
walk ; and when the walk is over, lassitude recom- 
mends rest, and again I become fit for nothing. The 
current hour therefore, which (I need not tell you) is 
comprised in the interval between foiur and five, is 
devoted to your service, as the only one in the 
twenty-four which is not otherwise engaged. 

I do not wonder that you have felt a great deal 
upon the occasion you mention in your last, espe- 
cially on account of the asperity you have met 
with in the behaviour of your friend. Reflect, 
however, that as it is natural to you to have very 
fine feelings, it is equally natural to some other 
tempers, to leave those feelings entirely out of the 
question, and to speak to you, and to act towards 
you, just as they do towards the rest of mankind, 
without the least attention to the irritability of 
your system Men of a rough and unsparing 



address should take great care, that they be always 
in the right : the justness and propriety of their 
sentiments and censures being the only tolerable 
apology that can be made for such a conduct, espe- 
cially in a country where civihty of behaviour is 
inculcated even from the cradle. But in the in- 
stance now under our contemplation, I think you 
a sufferer under the weight of an animadversion 
not founded in truth, and which, consequently, you 
cUd not deserve. I account him faithful in the 
pulpit, who dissembles nothing, that he believes, 
for fear of giving offence. To accommodate a dis- 
course to the judgment and opinion of others, for 
the sake of pleasing them, though by doing so 
we are obliged to depart widely from our own, is 
to be unfaithful to ourselves at least, and can not 
be accounted fideUty to him, whom we profess to 
serve. But there are few men who do not stand 
in need of the exercise of charity and forbearanfce ; 
and the gentleman in question has afforded you an 
ample opportunity in tliis respect, to show how 
readily, though differmg in your views, you can 
practise all that he could possibly expect from you, 
if your persuasion corresponded exactly with his 
own. 

With respect to Monsieur le Cure, I think- you 
not quite excusable for suffering such a man to 
give you any uneasiness at all. The grossness 
and injustice of liis demand ought to be its own 
antidote. If a robber should miscall you a pitiful 
fellow for not carrying a purse full of gold about 
you, would his brutality give you any concern 1 
I suppose not. Why then have you been dis- 
tressed in the present instance 1 

Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
May 1, 1781, 

Your mother says I must write, and must ad- 
mits of no apology ; I might otherwise plead that 
I have nothing to say, that I am weary, that I am 
dull, that it would be more convenient therefore 
for you, as well as for myself, that I should let it 
alone ; but all these pleas, and whatever pleas be- 
sides either disinclination, indolence, or necessity 
might suggest, are overruled, as they ought to be, 
the moment a lady adduces her irrefiragable argu- 
ment, you must. You have still however one com- 
fort left, that what I must write, you may, or may 
not read, just as it shall please you, unless lady 
Anne at your elbow should say, you must read it, 
and then, like a true knight, you wdll obey with- 
out looking for a remedy. 

In the press, and speecUly will be published, in 
one volume octavo, price three shillings. Poems, 
by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq. 
You may suppose, by the size of the publication, 



Let. 76, 77. 



LETTERS. 



203 



that the greatest part of them have been long kept 
secret, because you yourself have never seen them : 
but the truth is, that they are most of them, ex- 
cept what you have in your possession, the pro- 
duce of the last winter. Two-thirds of the com- 
pilation will be occupied by four pieces, the first of 
which sprung up in the month of December, and 
the last of them in the mouth of March. They 
contain, 1 suppose, in all about two thousand and 
five hundred lines ; are known, or to be known in 
due time, by the names of Table Talk — The 
Progress of Error — Truth— Expostulation. Mr. 
Newton writes a Preface, and Johnson is the pub- 
lisher. The principal, I may say the only reason 
why I never mentioned to you, till now, an affair 
which I am just going to make known to all the 
world, (if that Mr. All-thc-world should think it 
worth his knowing) has been this ; that till with- 
in these few days, I had not the honour to know it 
myself This may seem strange, but it is true; 
for not knowing where to find underwriters who 
would choose to insure them ; and not finding it 
convenient to a purse like mine, to run any hazard, 
even upon the credit of my own ingenuity, I was 
very much in doubt for some weeks, whether any 
bookseller would be wilhng to subject himself to an 
ambiguity, that might prove very expensive in case 
of a bad market. But Johnson has heroically set 
all peradventures at defiance, and takes the whole 
charge upon himself. So out I come. I shall be 
glad of my translations from Vincent Bourne, in 
your next frank. My Muse wOl lay herself at your 
feet immediately on her first public appearance. 
Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



respect, therefore, I and my contemporary bards 
are by no means upon a par. They write when 
the delightful influences of fine weather, fine 
prospects, and a brisk, motion of the animal spi- 
rits, make poetry almost the language of nature; 
and I, when icicles depend from all the leaves of 
the Parnassian laurel, and when a reasonable 
man would as little expect to succeed in verse, as 
to hear a blackbird whistle. This must be my 
apology to you for whatever want of fire and ani- 
mation you may observe in what you will shortly 
have the perusal of. As to the public, if they like 
me not, there is no remedy. A friend will weigh 
and consider all disadvantages, and make as large 
allowances as an author can wish, and larger per- 
haps than he has any right to expect; but not so 
the world at large ; whatever they do not like, they 
will not by any apology be persuaded to forgive, 
and it would be in vain to tell them, that 1 wrote 
my verses in January, for they would immedi- 
ately reply, " Why did not you write them in 
MayT' A question that might puzzle a wiser 
head than we poets arc generally blessed with. 

W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MY DEAR SIR, May 9, 178L 

I AM in the press, and it is in vain to deny it. 
But how mysterious is the conveyance of intelli- 
gence from one end to the other of your great 
city ! — Not many days since, except one man, and 
he but little taller than yourself, all London was 
ignorant of it ; for I do not suppose that the public 
prmts have yet announced the most agreeable 
tidings, the title page, which is the basis of the 
advertisement, having so lately reached the pub- 
lisher ; and now it is known to you, who Uve at 
least two miles distant from my confidant upon 
the occasion. 

My labours are principally the production of 
the last winter; all indeed, except a few of the 
minor pieces. When I can find no other occupa- 
tion, I think, and when I tliink, I amvery apt to 
do it in rhyme. Hence it comes to pass that the 
season of the year wliich generally pinches off the 
flowers of poetry, unfolds mine, such as they are 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UN WIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, May 10, 178L 

It is Friday; I have just drank tea, and just 
perused your letter: and though this answer can 
not set off till Sunday, I obey the warm impulse 
I feel, which will not permit me to postpone the 
business till the regrdar time of writing. 

I expected you would be grieved; if you had 
not been so, those sensibilities which attend you 
upon every other occasion, must have left you 
upon this. I am sorry that I have given you pain, 
but not sorry that you have felt it. A concern of 
that sort would be absurd, because it would be to 
regret your friendship for me and to be dissatisfied 
with the effect of it. Allow yourself however 
three minutes only for reflection, and your pene- 
tration must necessarily dive into the motives of 
my conduct. In the first place, and by way of 
preface, remember that I do not (whatever your 
partiality may incline you to do) account it of 
much consequence to any friend of mine, whether 
he is, or is not employed by me upon such an oc- 
casion. But all affected renunciations of poetical 
merit apart, (and all unaffected expressions of the 
sense I have of my own littleness in the poetical 
character too) the obvious and only reason why I 
resorted to Mr. Newton, and not to my friend 
Unwin, was this — that the former Uved in Lon- 
don, the latter at Stock; the former was upon the 
spot to correct the press, to give instructions re- 
specting any sudden alterations, and to settle with 



and crowns me with a winter gariand. In this the publisher every thing that might possibly occur 



204 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 78. 



in the course of such a business: the latter could 
not be applied to, for these purposes, without what 
would be a manifest encroachment on his kind- 
ness; because it might happen, that the trouble- 
some office might cost him now and then a jour- 
ney, which it was absolutely impossible for me to 
endure the thought of 

When I wrote to you for the copies you have 
sent me, I told you I was making a collection, but 
not with a design to publish. There is nothing 
truer, than that at that time I had not the smallest 
expectation of sending a volume of Poems to the 
press. I had several small pieces that might 
amuse, but I would not, when I pubHsh, make the 
amusement of the reader my only object. When 
the winter deprived me of other employments, I 
began to compose, and seeing six or seven months 
before me, which would naturally afford me much 
leisure for such a purpose, I undertook a piece of 
some length; that finished, another; and so on, 
till 1 had amassed the nmnber of lines I mentioned 
in my last. 

Believe of me what you please, but not that I 
am indifferent to you, or your friendship for me, 
on any occasion. 

Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, May 23, 178L 

If a writer's friends have need of patience, how 
much more the writer! Your desire to see my 
muse in public, and mine to gratify you, must 
both suffer the mortification of delay — I expected 
that my trumpeter would have informed the world 
by this time of all that is needful for them to know 
upon such an occasion; and that an advertising 
blast, blown through every newspaper, would have 
said — ' The poet is coming.' — But man, especially 
man that writes verse, is born to diappointments, 
as surely as printers and booksellers are born to be 
the most dilatory and tedious of all creatures. The 
plain EngUsh of this magnificent preamble is, that 
the season of publication is just elapsed, that the 
town is going into the country every day, and 
that my book can not appear till they return, that 
is to say not till next winter. Tliis misfortune 
however comes not without its attendant advan- 
tage; I shall now have, what I should not other- 
wise have had, an opportimity to correct the press 
myself; no small advantage upon any occasion, 
but especially important, where poetry is concern- 
ed! A single erratum may knock out the brains 
of a whole passage, and that perhaps, which of all 
others the unfortunate poet is the most proud of 
Add to this, that now and then there is to be found 
in a printing house a presumptuous intermeddler, 
who will fancy himself a poet too, and what is 



still worse, a better than he that employs him. 
The consequence is, that with cobbling, and tin- 
kering, and patching on here and there a shred of 
his own, he makes such a difference betWeen the 
original and the copy, that an author can not 
know his own work again. Now as I choose to 
be responsible for nobody's dulness but my own, 
I am a httle comforted, when I reflect that it will 
be in my power to prevent all such impertinence, 
and yet not without your assistance. It will be 
qmte necessary, that the correspondence between 
me and Johnson should be carried on without the 
expense of postage, becavise proof sheets would 
make double or treble letters, which expense, as in 
every instance it must occur twice, first when the 
packet is sent, and again when it is returned, 
would be rather inconvenient to me, who, as you 
perceive, am forced to live by my wits, and to him, 
who hopes to get a little matter no doubt by the 
same means. Half a dozen franks therefore to 
me, and totidem to him, will be singularly accept- 
able, if you can, without feehng it in any respect 
a trouble, procure them for me. 

I am much obliged to you for your offer to sup- 
port me in a translation of Bourne. It is but 
seldom, however, and never except for my amuse- 
ment, that I translate ; because I find it disagreea- 
ble to work by another man's pattern; I should at 
least be sure to find it so in a business of any 
length. Again, that is epigrammatic and vsdtty 
m Latin, which would be perfectly insipid in Eng- 
lish; and a translator of Bourne would firequently 
find himself obliged to supply what is called the 
turn, which is in fact the most difficult, and the 
most expensive part of the whole composition, and 
could not perhaps, in many instances, be done 
with any tolerable success. If a Latin poem is 
neat, elegant, and musical, it is enough — but Eng- 
hsh rea:ders are not so easily satisfied. To quote 
myself, you will find, in comparing the Jack-daw 
with the original, that I was obliged to sharpen a 
point which, though smart enough in the Latin, 
would, in Enghsh, have appeared as plain, and 
as blunt as the tag of a lace. I love the memory 
of Vinny Bourne. I think him a better Latin 
poet than Tibullus, Propertius, Ausonius, or any 
of the writers in his way, except Ovid, and not at 
all inferior to him. I love him too with a love of 
partiality, because he was usher of the fifth form 
at Westminster, when I passed through it. He 
was so good-natured, and so indolent, that I lost 
more than I got by him ; for he made me as idle as 
himself He was such a sloven, as if he had 
trusted to his genius as a cloak for every thing 
that could disgust you in his person ; and indeed 
in his writings he has almost made amends for 
all. His hmnour is entirely original — he can 
speak of a magpie or a cat in terms so exclusively 
appropriated to the character he draws, that one 



Let. 79, 80. 



LETTERS. 



205 



would suppose him animated by the spirit of the 
creature he describes. And with all his drollery 
there is a mixture of rational, and even religious 
reflection, at times: and always an air of plea- 
santry, good-nature, and humanity, that makes 
him, in my mind, one of the most amiable writers 
in the world. It is not common to meet with an 
author who can make you smile, and yet at no- 
body's expense: who is always entertaining, and 
yet always harmless; and who, though always 
elegant, and classical to a degree not always found 
in the classics themselves, charms more by the sim- 
plicity and playfulness of his ideas, than by the neat- 
ness and the purity of his verse ; yet such was poor 
Vinny. I remember seeing the Duke of Richmond 
set fire to his greasy locks, and box hisears to put 
it out again. Since I began to write long poems, I 
seem to turn up my nose at the idea of a short 
one. I have lately entered upoi'i one, which, if 
ever finished, can not easily be comprised in 
much less than a thousand lilies ! But this must 
make part of a second publication, and be accom- 
panied, in due time, by others not yet thought of; 
for it seems (what I did not know till the booksel- 
ler had occasion to tell me so) that single pieces 
stand no chance, and that nothing less than a 
volume will go down. You yourself afford me a 
proof of the certainty of this inteUigence, by send- 
ing me franks which nothing less than a volume 
can fill. I have accordingly sent you one, but am 
obliged to add, that had the wind been in any 
othe"r point of the compass, or, blowing as it does 
froin the east, had it been less boisterous, you 
must have been contented with a much shorter 
letter, but the abridgment of every other occupa- 
tion is very favourable to that of writing. 

I am glad I did not expect to hear from you by 
this post, for the boy has lost the bag in which your 
letter must have been enclosed — another reason 
for my prolixity ! Yours aiFectionately, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, May, ViSl. 

I BELIEVE I never give you trouble without feel- 
ing more than I give ; so much by way of preface 
and apology. 

Thus stands the case — Johnson has begun to 
print, and Mr. Newton has already corrected the 
first sheet. This unexpected despatch makes it 
necessary for me to furnish myself with the means 
of communication, viz. the franks, as soon as may 
be. There are reasons (I believe I mentioned them 
in my last) why I choose to revise the proofs my- 
self: — nevertheless, if your delicacy must suffer 
•the puncture of a pin's point in procuring the franks 
for me, I release you entirely from the task : you 
iSure as free as if I had never mentioned them. But 



you will ol)ligc me by a speedy answer upon this 
subject, because it is expedient that tlie printer 
should know to whom he is to send his copy ; and 
when the press is once set, those humble servants 
of the poets are rather impatient of a!ny delay, be- 
cause the types are wanted for other authors, who 
are equally impatient to be born. 

This fine weather I suppose sets you on horse- 
back, and allures the ladies into the garden. If I 
was at Stock, I should be of their party ; and while 
they sat knotting or netting in the shade, should 
comfort myself with the thought, that I had not a 
beast under me, whose walk would seem tedious, 
whose trot would jumble me, and whose gallop 
might throw me into a ditch. What nature ex- 
pressly designed me for I have never been able to 
conjecture ; I seem to myself so universally dis- 
qualified for the common and customary occupa- 
tions and amusements of mankind. When I was 
a boy, I excelled at cricket and foot-ball, but the 
fame I acquired by achievements that way is long 
since forgotten, and I do not know that I have 
made a figure in any thing else. I am sure, how- 
ever, that she did not design me for a horseman ; 
and that, if all men were of my mind, there would 
be an end of all jockeyship for ever. I am rather 
straitened for time, and not very rich in materials, 
therefore, with our joint love to you all, conclude 
myself, Yours ever, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
MY DEAR FRIEND, June 5, 1781, 

If the old adage be true, that ' he gives twice, 
who gives speedily,' it is equally true that he who 
not only uses expedition in giving, but,- gives more 
than was asked, gives thrice at least. Such is the 

style in which Mr. confers a favour. He 

has not only sent me franks to Johnson, but imder 
another cover, has added six to you. These last, 
for aught that appears by your letter, he threw in 
of his own mere bounty. I beg that my share of 
thanks may not be wanting on this occasion, and 
that when you write to him next you will assure 
him of the sense I have of the obligation, which is 
the more flattering, as it includes a proof of liis 
predilection in favour of the poems his franks are 
destined to enclose. May they not forfeit his good 
opinion herea,fter, nor yours, to whom I hold my- 
self indebted in the first place, and who have equal- 
ly given me credit for their deservings! Your 
mother says, that although there are passages in 
them containing opinions which will not be uni- 
versally subscribed to, the world will at least allow 
what my great modesty will not permit me to sub- 
join. I have the highest opinion of her judgment, 
and know, by having experienced the soundness 
of them, that her observations are always worthy 



20G 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 81. 



of attention and regard. Yet, strange as it may 
seem, I do not feci the vanity of an author, when 
she commends me— but I feci something better, a 
spur to my diligence, and a cordial to my spirits, 
both together animating me to deserve, at least not 
to fall short of her expectations. For I verily be- 
lieve, if my dulness should earn me the character 
of a dunce, the censure would affect her more than 
me ; not that I am insensible of the value of a 
good name, either as a man or an author. With- 
out an ambition to attain it, it is absolutely miattaina- 
ble under either of those descriptions. But my 
life having been in many respects a series of mor- 
tifications and disappointments, I am become less 
apprehensive and impressible perhaps in some points 
than I should otherwise have been ; and though I 
should be exquisitely sorry to disgrace my friends, 
could endxire my own share of the affliction with 
a reasonable measure of tranquillity. 

These seasonable showers have poured floods 
upon all the neighbouring parishes, but have pass- 
ed us by. My garden languishes, and, what is 
worse, the fields too languish, and the upland grass 
is burnt. These discriminations are not fortuitous. 
But if they are providential, what do they import ■? 
I can only answer, as a friend of mine once an- 
swered a mathematical question in the schools — 
".Prorsus nescio." Perhaps it is, that men, who 
will not believe what they can not understand, may 
learn the folly of their conduct, while their very 
senses are made to witness against them ; and them- 
selves in the course of Providence become the sub- 
jects of a thousand dispensations they cannot ex- 
plain. But the end is never answered. The les- 
son is inculcated indeed frequently enough, but 
nobody learns it. Well. Instruction vouchsafed 
in vain is, I suppose, a debt to be accounted for 
hereafter. You must understand this to be a soU- 
loquy. I wrote ray thoughts without recollecting 
that I was writing a letter, and to you. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, JuUC 24, 1781. 

The letter you withheld so long, lest it should 
give me pain, gave me pleasure. Horace says, the 
poets are a waspish race; and from my own expe- 
rience of the temper of two or three, with whom 
I was formerly connected, I can readily subscribe 
to the character he gives them. But for my own 
part, I have never yet felt that excessive irritability, 
wliich some writers discover, when a friend, in the 
words of Pope, 

"Just hints a fault, or hesitates dislike."- 
Least of all would I give way to such an unsea- 
sonable ebullition, merely because a civil question 
is proposed to me with such gentleness, and by a 
man whose concern for my credit and character I 



verily beUeve to be sincere. I reply, therefore, not 
peevishly, but vrith a sense of the kindness of your 
intentions, that I hope you may make yourself 
very easy on a subj ect, that I can perceive has oc- 
casioned you some solicitude. When I wrote the 
poem called Truth, it was indispensably necessary 
that I should set forth that doctrine wliich I know 
to be true, and that I should pass what I under- 
stood to be a just censure upon opinions and per- 
suasions that differ from, or stand in direct oppo- 
sition to it ; because, though some errors may be 
innocent, and even religious errors are not always 
pernicious, yet in a case where the faith and hope 
of a Christian are concerned, they must necessa- 
rily be destructive ; and because, neglecting this, 
I should have betrayed my subject; either sup- 
pressing what, in my judgment, is of the last im- 
portance, or giving countenance by a timid silence, 
to the very evils it was my design to combat. That 
you may understand me better, I will subjoin — 
that I wrote that poem on purpose to inculcate the 
eleemosynary character of the gospel, as a dispen- 
sation of mercy, in the most absolute sense of the 
word, to the exclusion of all claims of merit on the 
part of the receiver ; consequently to set the brand 
of invalidity upon the plea of works, and to dis- 
cover, upon spiritual ground, the absurdity of that 
notion, which includes a solecism in the very terms 
of it, that man, by repentance and good works, 
may deserve the mercy of his Maker : I call it a 
solecism, because mercy deserved ceases to be mer- 
cy, and must take the name of justice. This is 
the opinion which I said in my last the world 
would not acquiesce in ; but except this, I do not 
recollect that I have introduced a syllable into any 
of my pieces, that they can possibly object to ; and 
even this I have endeavoured to deliver from doc- 
trinal dryness, by as many pretty things, in the 
way of trinket and plaything, as I could muster 
upon the subject. So that if I have rubbed their 
grnns, I have taken care to do it with a coral, and 
even that coral embelUshed by the ribbon to which 
it is tied, and recommended by the tinkling of all 
the bells I could contrive to annex to it. 

You need not trouble yourself to call on John- 
son; being perfectly acquainted with the progress 
of the business, I am able to satisfy your curiosity 
myself— the post before the last I returned to him 
the second sheet of Table Talk, which he had 
sent me for correction, and wliich stands foremost 
in the volume. The delay has enabled me to add 
a piece of considerable length, which, but for the 
delay, would not have made its appearance upon 
this occasion; it answers to the name of Hope. 

I remember a line in the Odyssey, which, lite- 
rally translated, imports that there is notliing in 
the world more impudent than the belly. But had 
Homer met with an instance of modesty like yours, 
he would cither have suppressed that observation, 



■Let. 82, 83. 



LETTERS. 



207 



\ or at least have qualified it with an exception. I 
'hope that, for the future, Mrs. Unwin will never 
suffer you to go to London without putting 
sVme victuals in your pocket; for what a strange 
aiticle would it make in a newspaper, that a tall, 
well-dressed gentleman, by his appearance a cler- 
gyjt^an, and with a purse of gold in his pocket, 
wag found starved to death in the street. How 
would it puzzle conjecture to account for such a 
phenomenon ! Some would suppose that you had 
been kidnapped, like Betty Canning, of hungry 
memory; others would say, the gentleman was a 
methddist, and had practised a rigorous self-denial, 
wliich had unhappily proved too hard for his con- 
stitution; but I will venture to say that nobody 
would divine the real cause, or suspect for a mo- 
ment, that your modesty had occasioned the tragedy 
in question. By the way, is it not possible, that 
the spareness and slenderness of your person may 
be owdng to the same cause 7 for surely it is rea- 
sonable to suspect that the bashfulness which could 
prevail against you, on so trying an occasion, may 
be equally prevalent on others. I remember having 
been told by Colman, that when he once dined 
with Garrick, he repeatedly pressed him to eat 
more of a certain dish, that he was known to be 
particularly fond of; Colman as often refused, and 
at last declared he could not : " But could not you," 
says Garrick, " if you was in a dark closet by 
yourself?' The same question might perhaps be 
put to you with as much, or more propriety, and 
therefore I recommend it to you, either to furnish 
yourself with a Uttle more assurance or always to 
eat in the dark. 

We sympathize with Mrs. Unwin; and if it 
will be any comfort to her to know it, can assure 
her, that a lady in our neighbourhood is always, 
on such occasions, the most miserable of all things, 
and yet escapes with great facUity through all the 
dangers of her state. Yours, ut semper. W.C, 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

July 6, 1781. 

We are obliged to you for the rugs, a commo- 
dity that can never come to such a place as this 
at an unseasonable time. We have given one to 
an industrious poor widow, with four cliildren, 
whose sister overheard her shivering in the night, 
and with some difficulty brought her to confess 
the next morning, that she was half perished for 
want of sufficient covering. Her said sister bor- 
rowed a rug for her at a neighbour's immediately, 
which she had used only one night when yours 
arrived: and I doubt not but we shall meet with 
others, equally indigent and deserving of your 
bounty. 

Much good may your humanity do you, as it 



does so much good to others ! — You can no where 
find objects more entitled to your pity than where 
your pity seeks them. A man, whose vices and 
irregularities have brought his Uberty and life into 
danger, will always be viewed with an eye of com- 
passion by those who understand what hiunan 
nature is made of; and while we acknowledge the 
severities of the law to be founded upon principles 
of necessity and justice, and are glad that there is 
such a barrier provided for the peace of society, if 
we consider that the difference between ourselves 
and the culprit is not of our own making, we shall 
be, as you are, tenderly affected by the view of his 
misery; and not the less so because he has brought 
it upon himself. 

I give you joy of your own hair, no doubt you 
are considerably a gainer in your appearance by 
being disperiwiged. The best wig is that which 
most resembles the natural hair. Why then should 
he, who has hair enough of his own, have recourse 
to imitation 1 I have little doubt but that if an 
arm or leg could have been taken off with as little 
pain as attends the amputation of a curl or a lock 
of hair, the natural Umb would have been thought 
less becoming, or less convenient, by some men, 
than a wooden one, and have been disposed of ac- 
cordingly. 

Having begun, my letter with a miserable pen, 
I was unwilling to change it for a better, lest my 
writing should not be all of a piece. But it has 
worn me and my patience quite out. Yours ever, 

W.C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY VERY DEAR FRIEND, July 12, 1781. 

I AM going to send, what when you have read, 
you may scratch your head, and say, I suppose, 
there's nobody knows, whether what I have got, 
be verse or not — by the tune and the time, it 
ought to be rhyme; but if it be, did you ever see, 
of late or of yore, such a ditty before"? 

I have writ Charity, not for popularity, but as 
well as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the 
reviewer should say " to be sure, the gentleman's 
muse wears methodist shoes, you may know by 
her pace, and talk about grace, that she and her 
bard have Uttle regard, for the taste and fashions, 
and ruling passions, and hoidening play, of the 
modern day; and though she assmiie a borrowed 
pliune, and now and then wear a tittering air, 'tis 
only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and 
gay, as they go that way, by a production, on a 
new construction; she has baited her trap, in hopes 
to snap all that may come, with a sugar-plmn." 

His opinion in this will not be amiss ; 'tis what 

I intend my principal end; and if I succeed, and 
folks should read, till a few are brought to a se- 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 84. 



rious thought, I should think I am paid, for all I 
have said, and all I have done, though I have run, 
many a time, after a rhyme, as far as from hence, 
to the end of my sense, and by hook or crook, 
write another book, if I live and am here, another 
year. 

I have heard before, of a room with a floor, laid 
upon springs, and such like tlungs, with so much 
art, in every part, that when you went in, you was 
forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a 
grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with 
a deal of state, in a figure of eight, without pipe or 
string, or any such thing; and now I have writ, in a 
rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as you 
advance, will keep you still, though against your 
will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come 
to an end of what I have penn'd ; which that you 
may do, ere Madam and you are quite worn out 
with jigging about, I take my leave, and here you 
receive, a bow profound, down to the ground, from 
your humble me — W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Juhj 29, 1781. 

Having given the case you laid before me in 
your last all due consideration, I proceed to an- 
swer it ; and in order to clear my way, shall, in 
the first place, set down my sense of those passages 
in Scripture which, on a hasty perusal, seem to 
clash with the opinion I am going to give — " if a 
man smite one cheek, turn the other." — " If he 
take thy cloak, let liim take thy coat also." — That 
is, I suppose, rather than on a vindictive principle 
avail yourself of that remedy the law allows you, 
in the way of retaliation, for that was the subject 
immediately under the discussion of the speaker. 
Nothing is so contrary to the genius of the Gospel, 
as the gratification of resentment and revenge ; 
but I can not easily persuade myself to think, that 
the author of that dispensation could possibly ad- 
vise his followers to consult their own peace at the 
expense of the peace of society, or inculcate an 
universal abstinence from the use of lawful reme- 
dies, to the encouragement of injury and oppres- 
sion. 

St. Paul again seems to condemn the practice 
of going to law, " Why do ye not rather suffer 
wrong "? &c." But if we look again, we shall find 
that a litigious temper had obtained, and was pre- 
valent among the professors of the day. This he 
condemned, and with good reason; it was un- 
seemly to the last degree, that the disciples of the 
Prince of Peace should worry and vex each other 
with injurious treatment, and unnecessary dis- 
putes, to the scandal of their religion in the eyes 
of the heathen. But surely he did not mean any 
more than his Master, in the place above alluded 



to, that the most harmless members of society 
should receive no advantage of its laws, or should 
be the only persons in the world who should de- 
rive no benefit from those institutions, without 
which society can not subsist. Neither of them 
could mean to throw down the pale of property, 
and to lay the Christian part of the world open, 
throughout all ages, to the incursions of unUmited 
violence and wrong. 

By this time you are sufficiently aware, ttat I 
think you have an undisputable right to recover 
at law what is so dishonestly withheld from yoii. 
The fellow, I suppose, has discernment enough 
to see a diflerence between you and the generality 
of the clergy; and cunning enough to conceive 
the purpose of turning your meekness and for- 
bearance to good account, and of coining them 
into hard cash, which he means to put in his 
pocket. But I would disappoint him, and show 
him, that though a Christian is not to be quarrel-, 
some, he is not to be crushed — and that though 
he is but a worm before God, he is not such a 
worm, as every selfish unprincipled wretch may 
tread upon at his pleasure. 

I lately heard a story from a lady, who has spent 
many years of her life in France, somewhat to the. 
present purpose. An Abbe, universally esteemed 
for his piety, and especially for the meekness of 
his manners, had, yet undesignedly, given some 
offence to a shabby fellow in his parish. The man, 
concluding he might do as he pleased with so for- 
giving and gentle a character, struck him on one 
cheek, and bade him turn the other. The good 
man did so, and when he had received the two 
slaps, wMch he thought himself obliged to submit 
to, turned again, and beat Mm soundly. I do not 
wish to see you follow the French gentleman's 
example, but I believe nobody that has heard the 
story condemns him much for the spirit he showed 
upon the occasion. 

I had the relation from Lady Austen,* sister to 
Mrs. Jones, wife of the minister at Clifton. She 
is a most agreeable woman, and has fallen in love 
with your mother and me; insomuch, that I do 
not know but she may settle at Olney. Yester- 
day se'ennight we all dined together in the Spin- 
nic — a most delightful retirement, belonging to 
Mrs. Throckmorton of Weston. Lady Austen's 
lackey, and a lad that waits on me in the garden, 
drove a wheelbarrow full of eatables and drinka- 
bles to the scene of our Fete Champetre. A board 
laid over the top of the wheelbarrow served us for 
a table; our dining-room was a root-house lined 
with moss and ivy. At six o'clock, the servants, 
who had dined under a great elm upon the ground, 
at a Uttle distance, boiled the kettle, and the said 



* Widow of Sir Robert Austen, Bart, and the lady alluded 
to in the advertisement prefixed to tlie Task. 



Let. 85, 86. 



LETTERS. 



209 



wheelbarrow served usfor a tea-table. We then 
took a walk into the wilderness, about half a mile 
off, and were at home again a little after eight, 
having spent the day together from noon till eve- 
ning, without dne cross occurrence, or the least 
weariness of each other. A happiness few parties 
of pleasure can boast of. 

Yours, with our joint love, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, AugUSt 25, 1781. 

We rejoice with you sincerely in the bnth of 
another son, and in the prospect you have of Mrs. 
Unwin's recovery; may your three children, and 
the next three, when they shall make their ap- 
pearance, prove so many blessmgs to their parents, 
and make you wish that you had twice the nimi- 
ber. But what made you expect daily that you 
should hear from me 1 Letter for letter is the law 
of all correspondence whatsoever, and because I 
wrote last, I have indulged myself for some time 
in expectation of a sheet from you. — Not that I 
govern myself entirely by the punctilio of recipro- 
cation, but having been pretty much occupied of 
late, I was not soxxj to find myself at hberty to 
exercise my discretion, and furnished with a good 
excuse if I choose to be silent. 

I expected, as you remember, to have heen pub- 
lished last spring, and was disappointed. The 
delay has afforded me an opportunity to increase 
the quantity of my publication by about a third ; 
and if ray muse has not forsaken me, which I 
rather suspect to be the case, may possibly yet add 
to it. I have a subject in hand, which promises 
me a great abundance of poetical matter, but 
which, for want of a something I am not able to 
describe, I can not at present proceed with. The 
name of it is Retirement, and my purpose, to re- 
commend the proper improvement of it, to set forth 
the requisites for that end, and to enlarge upon 
the happiness of that state of hfe, when managed 
as it ought to be. In the course of my joiu-ney 
through this ample theme, I should wish to touch 
upon the characters, the deficiencies, and the mis- 
takes of thousands, who enter on a scene of retire- 
ment, unqualified for it in every respect, and with 
such designs as to have no tendency to promote 
either their own happiness or that of others. But 
as I have told you before, there are times when I 
am no more a poet than I am a mathematician ; 
and when such a time occurs, I alwaj's think it 
better to give up the point, than to labour it in 
vain. I shall yet again be obliged to trouble you 
for franks; the addition of three thousand lines, 
or near that number, having occasioned a demand 
which I did not always foresee; but your obliging 



friend, and your obliging self, having allowed me the 
liberty of application, I make it without apology. 

The solitude, or rather the duality of our con- 
dition at Olney, seems drawing to a conclusion. 
You have not forgot, perhaps, that the building 
we inhabit consists of two mansions. And be- 
cause you have only seen the inside of that part 
of it which is in our occupation, I therefore in- 
form you, that the other end of it is by far the 
most superb, as well as the most commodious. 
Lady Austen has seen it, has set her heart upon 
it, is going to fit it up and furnish it, and if she 
can get rid of the remaining two years of the lease 
of her London house, will probably enter upon it in 
a twelve-month. You will be pleased with this 
inteUigence, because I have already told you, that 
she is a woman perfectly well-bred, sensible, and 
in every respect agreeable ; and above all, because 
she loves your mother dearly. It has in my eyes 
(and I doubt not it wdll have the same in yours) 
strong marks of providential interposition. A fe- 
male friend, and one who bids fair to prove her- 
self worthy of the appellation, comes, recommended 
by a variety of considerations, to such a place as 
Olney. Since Mr. Nevrton went, and till tliis 
lady came, there was not in the kingdom a retire- 
ment more absolutely such than ours. We did 
not want company, but when it came, we found 
it agreeable. A person that has seen much of the 
world, and understands it well, has high spirits, 
a hvely fancy, and great readiness of conversation, 
mtroduces a sprightUness into such a scene as this, 
which if it was peaceful before, is not the worse 
for being a Uttle enlivened. In case of ilhiess too, 
to which all are liable, it was rather a gloomy pros- 
pect, if we allowed ourselves to advert to it, that 
there was hardly a woman m the place from whom 
it would have been reasonable to have expected 
either comfort or assistance. The present curate's 
wife is a valuable person, but has a family of her 
ovsTi, and though a neighbour, is not a very near 
one. But if this plan is effected, we shall be in a 
manner one family, and I suppose never pass a 
day without some intercourse with each other. 

Your mother sends her warm affections, and 
welcomes into the world the new-born William. 
Yom's, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
MY DEAR FRIEND, October 6, 1781. 

What a world are you daily conversant with, 
which I have not seen these twenty years, and 
shall never see again ! The arts of dissipation (I 
suppose) are no where practised vrith more refine- 
ment or success, than at the place of your present 
residence. By your account of it, it seems to be 



210 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 87. 



just what it was when I visited it, a scene of idle- 
ness, and luxury, music, dancing, cards, walking, 
riding, bathing, eating, drinking, coffee, tea, scan- 
dal, dressing, yawning, sleeping, the rooms per- 
haps more magnificent, because the proprietors are 
grown richer, but the manners and occupations 
of the company just the same. Though my life 
has long been hke that of a recluse, I have not tlie 
temper of one, nor am I in the least an enemy to 
cheerfulness and good humour; but I can not env}^ 
you your situation; I even feel myself constrained 
to prefer the silence of this nook, and the snug fire- 
side in our own diminvitive parlour, to all the splen- 
dour and gaiety of Brighton. 

You ask me, how I feel on the occasion of my 
approaching publication'? Perfectly at my ease. 
If I had not been pretty well assv\red before hand 
that my tranquillity would be but little endangered 
by such a measure, I would never have engaged in 
it; for I can not bear disturbance. I have had in 
view two principal objects ; first to amuse myself; 
and secondly, to compass that point in such a man- 
ner, that others might possibly be the better for 
my amusement. If I have succeeded, it will give 
me pleasure; but if I have failed, I shall not be 
mortified to the degree that might perhaps be ex- 
pected. I remember an old adage (though not 
where it is to be found), bene vixit, qui bene latuit, 
and if I had recollected it at the right time, it 
should have been the motto to my book. By the 
way, it will make an excellent one for Retire- 
ment, if you can but tell me whom to quote for it. 
The critics can not deprive me of the pleasure I 
have in reflecting, that so far as my leisure has 
been employed in writing for the public, it has 
been conscientiously employed, and with a view 
to their advantage. There is nothing agreeable, 
to be sure, in being chronicled for a dunce ; but I 
believe there lives not a man upon earth, who 
would be less affected by it than myself With 
all this indifference to fame, which you know me 
too well to suppose me capable of affecting, I have 
taken the utmost pains to deserve it. This may 
appear a mystery or a paradox in practice, but it 
is true. I considered that the taste of the day is 
refined, and delicate to excess, and that to disgust 
that dehcacy of taste, by a slovenly inattention to 
it, would be to forfeit at once all hope of being 
useful ; and for this reason, though I have written 
more verse this last year, than perhaps any man 
in England, I have finished, and polished, and 
touched, and retouched, with the utmost care. 
If after all I should be converted into waste paper, 
it may be my misfortune, but it will not be my 
fault. I shall bear it with the most perfect se- 
jenity. 

I do not mean to give a copy : he is a 

good-natured little man, and crows exactly like a 



cock, but knows no more of verse than the cock 
he imitates. 

Whoever supposes that Lady Austen's fortune 
is precarious, is mistaken. I can assure you, upon 
the ground of the most circumstantial and authen- 
tic infonnation, that it is both genteel and per- 
fectly safe. Yours, W. C. 



TO MRS. COWPER. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, Oct. 19, 1781. 

Your fear lest I should think you unworthy 
of my correspondence, on account of your delay to 
answer, may change sides now, and more properly 
belongs to me. It is long since I received your 
last, and yet I believe I can say truly, that not a 
post has gone by me since the receipt of it, that 
has not reminded me of the debt I owe you, for 
your obliging and unreserved communications both 
in prose and verse, especially for the latter, because 
I consider them as marks of your peculiar confi- 
dence. The truth is, I have been such a verse- 
maker myself, and so busy in preparing a volume 
for the press, which I imagine will make its ap- 
pearance in the course of the vsdnter, that I hardly 
had leisure to listen to the calls of any other en- 
gagement. It is however finished, and gone to 
the printer's, and I have nothing now to do with 
it, but to correct the sheets as they are sent to 
me, and consign it over to the judgment of the pub- 
lic. It is a bold undertaking at this time of day, 
when so many writers of the greatest abilities have 
gone before, who seem to have anticipated every 
valuable subject, as well as all the graces of poeti- 
cal embellishment, to step forth into the world in 
the character of a bard, especially when it is con- 
sidered, that luxury, idleness, and vice, have de- 
bauched the public taste, and that nothing hardly 
is welcome but childish fiction, or what has at least 
a tendency to excite a laugh. I thought, however, 
that I had stiunbled upon some subjects, that had 
never before been poetically treated, and upon 
some others, to wMch I unagined it would not be 
difficult to give an air of novelty by the manner 
of treating them. My sole drift is to be useful ; 
a point which however I knew I should in vain 
aim at, unless I could be likewise entertaining. I 
have therefore fixed these two strings upon my 
bow, and by the help of both have done my best 
to send my arrow to the mark. My readers will 
hardly have begun to laugh, before they will be 
called upon to correct that levity and peruse me 
with a more serious air. As to the effect, I leave 
it alone in His hands, who can alone produce it: 
neither prose nor verse can reform the manners 
of a dissolute age, much less can they inspire a 
sense of reUgious obligation, luiless assisted and 



Let. 88, 89. 



LETTERS. 



211 



made efficacious by the power who superintends 
the truth he has vouchsafed to impart. 

You made my heart ache with a sympathetic 
sorrow, when you described the state of your mind 
on occasion of your late visit into Hertfordshire 
Had I been previously informed of your journey 
before you made it, I should have been able to 
have foretold all your feehng vnth the most un- 
erring certainty of prediction. You will never 
cease to feel upon that subject; but with your prin 
ciples of resignation, and acquiescence in the di- 
vine will, you will always feel as becomes a chris- 
tian. "We are forbidden to murmur, but we are 
not forbidden to regret ; and whom we loved ten- 
derly while hving, we may still pursue with an af- 
fectionate remembrance, without having any oc- 
casion to charge ourselves with rebellion against 
the sovereignty that appointed a separation. A 
day is coming, when I am confident you will see 
and know, that mercy to both parties was the prin- 
cipal agent in .a scene, the recollection of which is 
still painful. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, NoV. 5, 1781. 

I GIVE you joy of your safe return from the lips 
of the great deep. You did not mdeed discern 
many signs of sobriety, or true wisdom, among the 
people of Brighthelmstone, but it is not possible to 
observe the manners of a multitude, of whatever 
rank, without learning something; I mean, if a 
man has a mind like yours, capable of reflection. 
If he sees nothing to imitate, he is sure to see 
something to avoid ; if nothing to congratulate his 
fellow creatures upon, at least much to excite his 
compassion. There is not, I think, so melancholj^ 
a sight in the world (an hospital is not to be com- 
pared vdth it) as that of a thousand persons dis- 
tinguished by the name of gentry, who, gentle 
perhaps by nature, and made more gentle by edu- 
cation, have the appearance of being innocent and 
inoffensive, yet being destitute of all religion, or 
not at all governed by the religion they profess, 
are none of them at any great distance from an 
eternal state, where self-deception will be impossi- 
ble, and where amusements can not enter. Some 
of them, we may say, will be reclaimed — it is most 
probable indeed that some of them will, because 
mercy, if one may be allowed the expression, is 
fond of distinguishing itself by seeking its objects 
among the most desperate class ; but the Scripture 
gives no encouragement to the warmest charity to 
hope for deliverance for them all. When I see an 
afflicted and an unhappy man, I say to myself, 
there is perhaps a man whom the world would 
envy, if they knew the value of his sorrows, which 
are possibly intended only to soften his heart, and 



to turn his affections toward their proper centre. 
But when I see or hear of a crowd of voluptuaries, 
who have no ears but for music, no eyes but for 
splendour, and no tongue but for impertinence and 
folly — I say, or at least I see occasion to say — 
This is madness — This persisted in must have a 
tragical conclusion — It will condemn you, not only 
as christians unworthy of the name, but as intelli- 
gent creatures — You know by the light of nature, 
if you have not quenched it, that there is a God, 
and that a life like yours can not be according to 
liis will. 

I ask no pardon of you for the gravity and gloomi- 
ness of these reflections, which I stumbled on when 
I least expected it ; though, to say the truth, these 
or others of a like complexion are sure to occur to 
me when I think of a scene of public diversion 
like that you have lately left. 

I am inclined to hope that Johnson told you the 
truth, when he said he should publish me soon af- 
ter Christmas. His press has been rather more 
punctual in its remittances, than it used to be ; we 
have now but little more than two of the longest 
pieces, and the small ones that are to follow, by 
way of epilogue, to print off, and then the affair 
is finished. But once more I am obhged to gape 
for franks ; only these, which I hope will be the 
last I shall want, at yours and Mr. 's conve- 
nient leisure. 

We rejoice that you have so much reason to be 
satisfied with John's proficiency. The more spi- 
rit he has, the better, if his spirit is but managea- 
ble, and put under such management as your pru- 
dence and Mrs. Unwin's will suggest, I need not 
guard you against severity, of which I conclude 
there is no need, and which I am sure you are not 
at all inclined to practise without it ; but perhaps 
if I was to whisper beware of too much indulgence 
— I should only give a hint that the fondness of a 
father for a fine boy might seem to justify. I have 
no particular reason for the caution, at this dis- 
tance it is not possible I should, but in a case like 
yours, an admonition of that sort seldom wants 
propriety. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, NoV. 26, 1781. 

I WROTE to you by the last post, supposing you 
at Stock ; but lest that letter should not follow you 
to Laytonstone, and you should suspect me of un- 
reasonable delay, and lest the frank you have sent 
me should degenerate into waste paper, and perish 
upon my hands, I vprite again. The former let- 
ter, however, containing all my present stock of 
intelligence, it is more than possible that this may 
prove a blank, or but httle worthy your acceptance. 
You will do me the justice to suppose, that if I 



312 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 90. 



covJd be very entertaining, I would be so, because, 
by giving me credit for such a willingness to please, 
you only allow me a share of that universal vani- 
ty, which inclines every man, upon all occasions, 
to exhibit himself to the best advantage. To say 
the truth, however, when I write, as I do to you, 
not about business, nor on any subject that ap- 
proaches to that description, I mean mhch less my 
correspondent's amusement, which my modesty 
will not always permit me to hope for, than my 
own. There is a pleasure annexed to the commu- 
nication of one's ideas, whether by word of mouth, 
or by letter, which nothing earthly can supply the 
place of, and it is the delight we find in this mu- 
tual intercourse, that not only proves us to be crea- 
tures intended for social life, but more than any 
thing else perhaps fits us for it. I have no patience 
with philosophers — they, one and all, suppose (at 
least I understand it to be a prevailing opinion 
among them) that man's weakness, his necessitie 
his inability to stand alone, have furnished the pre- 
vailing motive, under the influence of which he 
renounced at first a Ufe of solitude, and became a 
gregarious creature. It seems to me more reasona- 
ble, as well as more honourable to my species, to 
suppose, that generosity of soul, and a brotherly 
attachment to ovuc own kind, drew us, as it were, 
to one conmion centre, taught us to build cities, 
and inhabit them, and welcome every stranger, 
that would cast in his lot amongst us, that we 
might enjoy fellowship with each other, and the 
luxury of reciprocal endearments, without which 
a paradise could afford no comfort. There are in- 
deed all sorts of characters in the world ; there are 
some whose understandings are so sluggish, and 
whose hearts are such mere clods, that they live in 
society without either contributing to the sweets 
of it, or having any relish for them. A man of 
this stamp passes by our window continually — I 
never saw him conversing with a neighbour but 
once in my Ufe, though I have known him by sight 
these twelve years ; he is of a very sturdy make, 
and has a round belly, extremely protuberant, 
which he evidently considers as his best friend, be- 
cause it is his only companion, and it is the labour 
of his life to fill it, I can easily conceive, that it 
is merely the love of good eating and drinking, 
and now and then the want of a new pair of shoes, 
that attaches this man so much to the neighbour- 
hood of his fellow mortals ; for suppose these exi- 
gencies, and others of a lilce kind, to subsist no 
longer, and what is there that could possibly give 
society the preference in his esteem 1 He might 
strut about with his two thumbs upon his hips in 
the wilderness, he could hardly be more silent than 
he is at Olney, and for any advantage, or comfort, 
or friendship, or brotherly affection, he could not 
be more destitute of such blessings there, than in 
liis present situation. But other men have some- 



thing more than guts to satisfy; there are the yearn- 
ings of the heart, which, let philosophers say what 
they will, are more importunate than all the neces- 
sities of the body, that will not suffer a creature, 
worthy to be called human, to be contented vdth 
an insulated life, or to look for liis friends among 
the beasts of the forest. Yourself, for instance ! 
It is not because there are no tailors or pastry-cooks 
to be found upon Salisbury plain, that you do not 
choose it for your abode, but because you are 
a philanthropist — because you are susceptible 
of social impressions, and have a pleasure in doing 
a kindness when you can. Now upon the word 
of a poor creature, I have said all that I have said, 
without the least intention to say one word of it 
when I began. But thus it is vnth my thoughts 
— when you shake a crab-tree the fruit falls ; good 
for nothing indeed when you have got it, but still 
the best that is to be expected from a crab-tree. 
You are welcome to them, such as they are, and 
if you approve my sentiments, tell the philosophers 
of the day, that I have outshot them all, and have 
discovered the true origin of society, when I least 
looked for it. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Jan. 5, 1782. 

Did I allow myself to plead the common excuse 
of idle correspondents, and esteem it a sufficient 
reason for not writing, that I have nothing to write 
about, I certainly should not write now. But I 
have so often found, on similar occasions, when a 
great penury of matter has seemed to threaten me 
with an utter impossibility of hatching a letter, 
that nothing is necessary but to put pen to paper, 
and go on, in order to conquer all difficulties ; that, 
availing myself of past experience, I now begin 
with a most assured persuasion, that sooner or later, 
one idea naturally suggesting another, I shall come 
to a most prosperous conclusion. 

In the last Review, I mean in the last but one, 
I saw Johnson's critique upon Prior and Pope. I 
am bound to acquiesce in his opinion of the latter, 
because it has always been my own. I could never 
agree with those who preferred him to Dryden ; 
nor with others (I have known such, and persons 
of taste and discernment too) who could not allow 
him to be a poet at all. He was certainly a me- 
chanical maker of verses, and in every line he ever 
wrote, we see indubitable marks of most indefati- 
gable industry and labour. Writers who find it 
necessary to make such strenuous and painful ex- 
ertions, are generally as phlegmatic as they are 
correct ; but Pope was, in this respect, exempted 
from tlie common lot of authors of that class. 
With the unwearied application of a plodding Fle- 
mish painter, who draws a shrimp with the most 



Let. 91. 



LETTERS. 



213 



minute exactness, he had all the genius of one of 
the first masters. Never I believe were such ta- 
lents and such drudgery united. But I admire 
Dryden most, who has succeeded by mere dint of 
genius, and in spite of a laziness and carelessness 
almost peculiar to himself His faults are num- 
berless, and so are his beauties. His faults are 
those of a great man, and his beauties are such (at 
least sometimes) as Pope, with all his touching, 
and retouching, could never equal. So far, there- 
fore, I have no quarrel with Johnson. But I can 
not subscribe to what he says of Prior. In the 
first place, though my memory may fail me, I do 
not recollect that he takes any notice of his Solo- 
mon ; in my mind the best poem, whether we con- 
sider the subject of it, or the execution, that he 
ever wrote. In the next place, he condemns him 
for introducing Venus and Cupid into his love- 
verses, and concludes it impossible his passion 
could be sincere, because when he would express 
it he has recourse to fables. But when Prior wrote, 
those deities were not so obsolete as they are at 
present. His contemporary vraters, and some 
that succeeded him, did not think them beneath 
their notice. Tibullus, in reahty, disbelieved their 
existence as much as we do ; yet Tibullus is al- 
lowed to be the prince of all poetical inamoratos, 
though he mentions them in almost every page. 
There is a fashion in these things, which the Doc- 
tor seems to have forgotten. But what shall we 
say of his fusty-rusty remarks upon Henry and 
Emma 1 I agree with him, that morally consider- 
ed, both the knight and his lady are bad charac- 
ters, and that each exhibits an example which 
ought not to be followed. The man dissembles in 
a way that would have justified the woman had 
she renounced hun ; and the woman resolves to 
follow him at the expense of delicacy, propriety, 
and even modesty itself. But when the critic calls 
it a dull dialogue, who but a critic will believe him 1 
There are few readers of poetry of either sex, in 
this country, who can not remember how that en- 
chanting piece has bewitched them, who do not 
know, that instead of finding it tedious, they have 
been so delighted with the romantic turn of it, as 
to have overlooked all its defects, and to have giv- 
en it a consecrated place in their memories, with- 
out ever feeling it a burthen. I wonder ahnost, 
that as the Bacchanals served Orpheus, the boys 
and girls do not tear this husky, dry, commentator, 
limb from limb, in resentment of such an injury done 
to their darling poet. I admire Johnson as a man of 
great erudition and sense ; but when he sets him- 
self up for a judge of writers upon the subject of 
love, a passion which I suppose he never felt in his 
life, he might as well think himself qualified to 
pronounce upon a treatise on horsemanship, or the 
art of fortification. 

The next packet I receive will bring me, I im- 



agine, the last proof sheet of my volume, which 
will consist of about three hundred and fifty pages 
honestly printed. My pubUc entree therefore is 
not far distant. Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, Jan. 17, 1782. 

I AM glad we agree in our opinion of king critic, 
and the writers on whbm he has bestowed his an- 
imadversions. It is a matter of indifierence to me 
whether I think with the world at large or not, 
but I wish my friends to be of my mind. The 
same work will wear a different appearance in the 
eyes of the same man, according to the different 
views with which he reads it ; if merely for his 
amusement, his candour being in less danger of a 
twist from interest or prejudice, he is pleased vvith 
what is really pleasing, and is not over curious to 
discover a blemish, because the exercise of a mi- 
nute exactness is not consistent with his purpose. 
But if he once becomes a critic by trade, the case is 
altered. He must then at any rate establish, it 
he can, an opinion in every mind, of his uncom- 
mon discernment, and his exquisite taste. This 
great end he can never accomplish by thinking in 
the track that. has been beaten under the hoof of 
public judgment. He must endeavour to con- 
vince the world, that their favourite authors have 
more faults than they are aware of, and such as 
they have never suspected. Having marked out 
a writer, universally esteemed, whom he finds it 
for that very reason convenient to depreciate 
and traduce, he will overlook some of his beau- 
ties, he will faintly praise others, and in such a 
manner as to make thousands, more modest, though 
quite as judicious as himself, question whether 
they are beauties at all. Can there be a stronger 
illustration of all that I have' said, than the severity 
of Johnson's remarks upon Prior, I might have 
said the injustice 1 His reputation as an author 
who, with much labour indeed but with admira- 
ble success, has embellished all his poems with the 
most charming ease, stood unshaken till Johnson 
thrust his head against it. And how does he at- 
tack him in this his principal forf? I can not re- 
collect his very words, but I am much mistaken, 
indeed, if my memory fails me with respect to the 
purport of them. "His words," he says, "appear 
to be forced into their proper places ; there indeed 
we find them, but find liliewise that their arrange- 
ment has been the effect of constraint, and that 
without violence they would certaiidy have stood 
in a different order." By your leave, most learned 
Doctor, this is the most disingenuous remark I ever 
met with, and wotdd have come with a better grace 
from Curl, or Dennis. Every man conversant 
with verse-writmg knows, and knows by painful 



214 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 93, 



experience, that the familiar style is of all styles 
the most difficult to succeed in. To make verse 
speak the language of prose, without being prosaic, 
to marshall the words of it in such an order, as 
they might naturally take' in falling from the lips 
of an extemporary speaker, yet without meanness ; 
harmoniously, elegantly, and without seeming to 
displace a syllable for the sake of the rhyme, is one 
of the most arduous tasks a poet can undertake. 
He that could accomplish tliis task was Prior ; 
many have imitated his excellence in this particu- 
lar, but the best copies have fallen far short of the 
original. And how to tell us, after we and our 
fathers have admired him for it so long, that he is 
an easy writer indeed, but that his ease has an air 
of stiffness in it, in short, that his ease is not ease, 
but only something like it, what is it but a self- 
contradiction, an observation that grants what it is 
just going to deny, and denies what it has just 
granted, in the same sentence, and in the same 
breath 1 — But I have filled the greatest part of my 
sheet with a very uninteresting subject. I will 
only say, that as a nation we are not much indebt- 
ed, in point of poetical credit, to this too sagacious 
and unmerciful judge ; and that for myself in par- 
ticular, I have reason to rejoice that he entered 
upon and exhausted the labours of liis office, be- 
fore my poor volume cOuld possibly become an ob- 
ject of them. By the way, you can not have a book 
at the time you mention; I have hved a fortnight 
or more in expectation of the last sheet, which is 
not yet arrived. 

You have already furnished John's memory 
with by far the greatest part of what a parent could 
wish to store it with. If all that is merely trivial, 
and all that has an immoral tendency, were ex- 
punged from our English poets, how would they 
shrink, and how would some of them completely 
vanish. I believe there are some of Dryden's Fa- 
bles, which he would' find very entertaining ; they 
are for the most part fine compositions, and not 
above his apprehension ; but Dryden has written 
few things, that are not blotted here and there 
with an unchaste allusion, so that you must pick 
his way for him, lest he should tread in the dirt. 
You did not mention Milton's Allegro and Pense- 
roso, which I remember being so charmed vsdth 
when I was a boy that I was never weary of them. 
There are even passages in the paradisiacal part 
of the Paradise Lost, which he might study with 
advantage. And to teach him, as you can, to de- 
liver some of the fine orations made in the Pan- 
dsemonium, and those between Satan, Ithuriel, 
and Zephon, with emphasis, dignity, and proj^rie- 
ty, might be of great use to him hereafter. The 
sooner the ear is formed, and the organs of speech 
are accustomed to the various inflections of the 
voice, which the rehearsal of those passages de- 
mands, the better. I should think too, that Thom- 



son's Seasons might afford him some useful les^ 
sons. At least they would have a tendency to 
give his mind an observing and a philosophical 
turn. I do not forget that he is but a child. But 
I remember, that he is a child favoured with tal- 
ents superior to his years. We were much pleas- 
ed with his remarks on your almsgiving, and doubt 
notbutit will be verified with respect tothe two gui- 
neas you sent us, which have made four Christian 
people happy. Ships I have none, nor have 
touched a pencil these three years ; if ever I take 
it up again, which I rather suspect I shall not (the 
employment requiring stronger eyes than mine), 
it shall be at John's service. 

Yours, my dear friend, W. C 



TO THE. REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Feb. 2, 1782. 

Though 1 value your correspondence highly 
on its own account, I certainly value it the more 
in consideration of the many difficulties under 
which you carry it on. Having so many other 
engagements, and engagements so much more 
worthy your attention, I ought to esteem it, as I 
do, a singular proof of your friendship, that you 
so often make an opportunity to bestow a letter 
upon me ; and this, not only because mine, which 
I write in a state of mind not very favourable to 
religious contemplations, are never worth your 
reading, but especially because while you consult 
my gratification and endeavour to amuse my me- 
lancholy, your thoughts are forced out of the only 
channel in which they delight to flow, and con- 
strained into another so different and so little in- 
teresting to a mind like yours, that but for me, 
and for my sake, they would perhaps never visit 
it. Though I should be glad therefore to hear 
from you every week, I do not complain that I 
enjoy that privilege but once in a fortnight, but 
am rather happy to be indulged in it so often. 

I thank you for the jog you gave Johnson's 
elbow ; communicated from him to the printer it 
has produced me two more sheets, and two more 
will bring the business, I suppose, to a conclusion. 
I sometimes feel such a perfect indifference with 
respect to the pubUc opinion of my book, that I 
am ready to flatter myself no censure of review- 
ers, or other critical readers, would occasion me 
the smallest disturbance. But not feeling myself 
constantly possessed of this desirable apathy, I am 
sometimes apt to suspect, that it is not altogether 
sincere, or at least that I may lose just in the mo- 
ment when I may happen most to want it. Be 
it however as it may, I am still persuaded that it. 
is not in their power to mortify me much. I have 
intended well, and performed to the best of my 
ability — so far was right, and this is a boast of 



Let. 93. 



LETTERS. 



215 



which they can not rob me. If they condemn my 
poetry, I must even say with Cervantes, "Let 
them do better if they can!" — if my doctrine, they 
judge that which they do not understand; I shall 
except to the jurisdiction of the court, and plead. 
Coram nonjudice. Even Horace could say, he 
sliould neither be the plumper for the praise, nor 
the leaner for the condemnation of Ms readers; 
and it will prove me wanting to myself indeed, if, 
supported by so many sublimer considerations 
than he was master of, I can not sit loose to po- 
pularity, which, like the wind, bloweth where it 
listeth, and is equally out of our command. If 
you, and two or three more such as you, say, 
well done , it ought to give me more contentment 
than if I could earn Churcliill's laurels, and by 
the same means. 

I wrote to Lord Dartmouth to apprise him of 
my intended present, and have received a most 
affectionate and obliging answer. 

I am rather pleased that you have adopted other 
sentiments respecting our intended present to the 
critical Doctor. I allow him to be a man of gi- 
gantic talents, and most profound learning, nor 
have I any doubts about the universality of his 
knowledge. But by what I have seen of his ani- 
madversions on the poets, I feel myself much dis- 
posed to question, in many instances, either his 
candour or his taste. He finds fault too often, 
like a man that, having sought it very industrious- 
ly, is at last obliged to stick it on a pin's point, 
and look at it through a microscope ; and I am 
sure I could easily convict him of having denied 
many beauties, and overlooked more. Whether 
his judgment be in itself defective, or whether it 
be warped by collateral considerations, a writer 
upon such subjects as I have chosen would pro- 
bably find but little mercy at his hands. 

No winter since we knew Olney has kept us 
more confined than the present. We have not 
more than three times escaped into the fields, 
since last autumn. Man, a changeable creature 
in himself, seems to subsist best in a state of va- 
riety, as his proper element — a melancholy man at 
least is apt to grow sadly weary of the same walks, 
and the same pales, and to find that the same 
scene will suggest the same thoughts perpetually. 

Though I have spoken of the utility of changes, 
we neither feel nor wish for any in our friend- 
ships, and consequently stand just where we did 
with respect to your whole self. 

Yours, my dear sir, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Feb. 9, 1782. 

I 

I THANK you for Mr. Lowth's verses. They ! 
are so good, that had I been present when he 
15 



spoke them, I should have trembled for the boy, 
lest the man should disappoint the hopes such 
early genius had given birth to. It is not com- 
mon to see so lively a fancy so correctly managed, 
and so free from irregular exuberance, at so un- 
experienced an age; fruitful, yet not wanton, and 
gay without being tawdry. When schoolboys 
write verse, if they have any fire at all, it general- 
ly spends itself in flashes, and transient sparks, 
which may indeed suggest an expectation of 
something better hereafter, but deserve not to bo 
much commended for any real merit of their own. 
Their wit is generally forced and false, and their 
sublunity, if they affect any, bombast. I remem- 
ber well when it was thus with me, and when a 
turgid, noisy, unmeaning speech in a tragedy, 
which I should now laugh at, afforded me rap- 
tures, and filled me with wonder. It is not in 
general till reading and observation have settled 
the taste, that we can give the prize to the best 
writing, in preference to the worst. Much less 
are we able to execute what is good ourselves. 
But Lowth seems to have stepped into excellence 
at once, and to have gained by intuition what we 
little folks are happy if we can learn at last, after 
much labour of our own, and instruction of others. 
The compUments he pays to the memory of King 
Charles, he would probably now retract, though 
he be a bishop, and his majesty's zeal for episco- 
pacy was one of the causes of his ruin. An age 
or two must pass, before some characters can be 
properly understood. The spirit of party em- 
ploys itself in veiling their faults, and ascribing 
to them virtues which they never possessed. See 
Charles's face drawn by Clarendon, and it is a 
handsome portrait. See it more justly exhibited 
by Mrs. Macauley, and it is deformed to a degree 
that shocks us. Every feature expresses cunning, 
employing itself in the maintaining of tyranny — 
and dissimulation, pretending itself an advocate 
for truth. 

My letters have already apprized you of that 
close and intimate connexion that took place be- 
tween the lady you visited in CLueen Ann-street, 
and us. Notliing could be more promising, though 
sudden in the commencement. She treated us 
vnth as much unreservedness of communication, 
as if we had been bom in the same house, and 
educated together. At her departure, she herself 
proposed a correspondence, and because writing 
does not agree with your mother, proposed a cor- 
respondence vdth me. By her own desire I wrote 
to her under the assumed relation of a brother, and 
she to me as my sister. 

I thank you for the search you have made after 
my intended motto, but I no longer need it. — Our 
love is always with yourself and family. 

Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



216 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 94 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

Feb. 16, 1782. 
Caraccioli says, — " There is something very 
bewitcliing in authorship, and that he who has 
once written will write again." It may be so — I 
can subscribe to the former part of his assertion 
from my own experience, having never found an 
amusement, among the many I have been obliged 
to have recourse to, that so well answered the 
purpose for which I used it. The quieting and 
composing effect of it was such, and so totally ab- 
sorbed have I sometimes been in my rhyming oc- 
cupation, that neither the past nor the future 
(those themes which to me are so fruitful in re- 
gret at other times), had any longer a share in my 
contemplation. For this reason I wish, and have 
often wished, since the fit left me, that it would 
seize me again; but hitherto I have wished it in 
vain. I see no want of subjects, but I feel a total 
disability to discuss them. Whether it is thus with 
other writers or not, I am ignorant, but I should 
suppose my case in this respect a little peculiar. 
The voluminous writers at least, whose vein of 
fancy seems always to have been rich in propor- 
tion to their occasions, can not have been so unlike, 
and so unequal to themselves. There is this dif- 
ference between my poetship and the generality 
of thevi — they have been ignorant how much they 
have stood indebted to an Almighty power for the 
exercise of those talents they have supposed their 
own. Whereas I know, and know most perfectly, 
and am perhaps to be taught it to the last, that my 
power to think, whatever it be, and consequently 
my power to compose, is, as much as my outward 
form, afforded to me by the same hand that makes 
me, in any respect, to differ from a brute. This 
lesson, if not constantly inculcated, might perhaps 
be forgotten, or at least too slightly remembered. 

W, C. 



■" Caraccioli* appears to me to have been a wise 
man, and I believe he Was a good man in a reli- 
gious sense. But his wisdom and his goodness 
both savour more of the philosopher than the 
Christian. In the latter of these characters he 
seems defective principally in this — that instead 
of sending his reader to God as an inexhaustible 
sour(;e of hajipiness to his intelligent creatures, and 
exhorting liiin to cultivate communion with his 
Maker, he directs him to his own heart, and to 



* These cursory remarlcs of Cowper appear his^hly worthy 
of pre.servaiion. Tliey were written on several scraps of pa- 
fier, without any title, and find perhaps their most suitable 
plare as a sequel to the letter in which lie quoted the writer, 
whose character he has here sketched at full length, and with 
£ masterly hand. 



the contemplation of his own faculties and powers 
as a never-faihng spring of comfort and content 
He speaks even of the natxnal man as made in 
the image of God, and supposes a resemblance 
of God to consist in a sort of independent self- 
sufficing and self-complacent feUcity, which can 
hardly be enjoyed without the forfeiture of all hu- 
mility, and a flat denial of some of the most im- 
portant truths in Scripture. 

" As a philosopher he refines to an excess, and 
his arguments, instead of convincing others, if 
pushed as far as they would go, would convict him 
of absurdity himself When for instance he would 
depreciate earthly riches by telling us that gold 
and diamonds are only matter modified in a parti- 
cular way, and thence concludes them not more 
valuable in themselves than the dust under our 
feet, his consequence is false, and his cause is hurt 
by the assertion. It is that very modification that 
gives them both a beauty and a value — a value, 
and a beauty recognised in Scripture, and by the 
universal consent of all well informed and civilized 
nations. It is in vain to tell mankind, that gold 
and dirt are equal, so long as their experience con- 
vinces them of the contrary. It is necessary there- 
fore to distinguish between the thing itself and the 
abuse of it. Wealth is in fact a blessing, when 
honestly acquired, and conscientiously employed; 
and when otherwise, the man is to be blamed and 
not his treasure. How does the Scripture combat 
the vice of covetousness 7 not by asserting that 
gold is only earth exhibiting itself to us under a 
particular modification, and therefore not worth 
seeking; but by telling us that covetousness is 
idolatry, that the love of money is the root of all 
evil, that it has occasioned in some even the ship- 
wreck of their faith, and is always, in whomsoever 
it obtains, an abomination. 

" A man might have said to Caraccioli, Give me 
your purse full of ducats, and I will give you my 
■old wig ; they are both composed of the same mat- 
ter under different modifications. What could 
the philosopher have replied? he must have made 
the exchange, or have denied his own principles. 

" Again, when speaking of sumptuous edifices, 
he calls a palace an assemblage of sticks and 
stones, which a puff of wind may demoUsh, or a 
spark of fire consume; and thinks he has reduced 
a magnificent building and a cottage to the same 
level, when he has told us that the latter viewed 
through an optic glass may be made to appear as 
large as the former, and that the former seen 
through the same glass inverted may be reduced 
to the jjitiful dimensions of the latter; has he in- 
deed carried his point 1 is he not rather imposing 
on the judgment of his readers, just as the glass 
would impose upon their senses'? How is it pos- 
sible to deduce a substantial argmnent in this case 
I from ;ui acknowledged deception of the sight ? The 



Let. 95, 96. 



LETT£>RS. 



217' 



objects continue what they were, the palace is 
still a palace, and the cottage is not at all ennobled 
in reality, though we contemplate them ever so 
long through an illusive medium. There is in 
fact a real difference between them, and such a 
one as the Scripture itself takes very emphatical 
notice of, assuring us that in the last day, much 
shall be required of him to whom much was given ; 
that every man shall be then considered as a stew- 
ard, and render a strict account of the things with 
which he was intrusted. This consideration in- 
■ deed may make the dwellers in palaces tremble, 
who, living for the most part in the continued 
abuse of their talents, squandering and wasting 
and spending upon themselves their Master's trea- 
sure, will have reason enough to envy the cottager, 
whose accounts will be more easily settled. But 
to tell mankind, that a palace and a hovel are the 
same thing, is to affront their senses, to contradict 
their knowledge, and to disgust their understand- 
ings. 

" Herein seems to consist one of the principal 
differences between Philosophy and Scripture, or 
the Wisdom of Man and the Wisdom of God. 
The former endeavours indeed to convince the 
judgment, but it frequently is obliged to have re- 
course to unlavpful means, such as misrepresenta- 
tion and the play of fancy. The latter addresses 
itself to the judgment likewise, but it carries it; 
point by awakening the conscience, by enlighten- 
ing the understanding, and by appealing to our 
own experience. As Philosophy therefore can not 
make a Christian, so a Christian ought to take 
care that he be not too much a Philosopher. It is 
mere folly instead of wisdom, to forego those ar- 
guments, and to shut our eyes upon those motives 
which Truth itself has pointed out to us, and 
which alone are adequate to the purpose, and to 
busj' ourselves in making vain experiments on the 
strength of others of our own invention. In fact, 
the world which, however it has dared to contro- 
vert the authenticity of Scripture, has never been 
able to impeach the wisdom of its precepts, or the 
reasonableness of its exhortations, has sagacity 
enough to see through the fallacy of such reason- 
ings, and will rather laugh at the sage, who de- 
clares war against matter of fact, than become pro- 
selj'tes to his opinion." 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Feb. 24, 1782. 

If I should receive a letter from you to-morrow, 
you must still remember that I am not in your 
debt, having paid you by anticipation — Knowing 
that you take an interest in my publication, and 
that j'ou have waited for it witli some impatience, 
I write to inform you that, if it is possible for a 



printer to be punctual, I shall come forth on the 
lirst of March. I have ordered two copies to 
Stock; one for Mr. John Unwin. It is possible, 
after all, that my book may come forth without a 
Preface. Mr. Newton has written (he could in- 
deed write no other) a very sensible as well as a 
Aery friendly one; and it is printed. But the book- 
seller, who knows him well, and esteems him high- 
ly, is anxious to have it cancelled, and, with my 
consent first obtained, has offered to negociate that 
matter with the author. — He judges, that though 
it would serve to recommend the volume to the 
religious, it would disgust the profane, and that 
there is in reality no need of any Preface at all. I 
have found Johnson a very judicious man on other 
occasions, and am therefore wihing that he should 
determine for me upon this. 

There are but few persons to whom I present 
my book. The lord chancellor is one. I enclose 
m a packet I send by this post to Johnson a letter 
to his lordship which will accompany the volume ; 
and to you I enclose a copy of it, because I know 
you will have a friendly curiosity to see it. An 
author is an important character. Whatever his 
merits may be, the mere circumstance of author- 
ship warrants his approach to persons, whom 
otherwise perhaps he could hardly address with- 
out being deemed impertinent. He can do me 
no good. If I should happen to do him a little, 1 
shall be a greater man than he. I liave ordered a 
copy likewise to Mr. S. 

I hope John continues to be pleased, and to give 
pleasure. If he loves instruction, he has a tutor 
who can give him plentiftilly of what he loves; 
and with his natural abilities his progress must be 
such as you would wish. Yours, W. C. 



TO LORD THURLOW. 

(enclosed to MR. UNWIN.) 

MY LORD, Olney, Bucks, Feb. 25, 1782. 

I MAKE no apology for what I account a duty. 
I should offend against the cordiaUty of our for- 
mer friendship should I send a volimie into the 
world, and forget how much I am bound to pay 
my particular respects to your lordship upon that 
occasion. When we parted, you Uttle thought of 
hearing from me again; and I as little thnt I 
should live to write to you, still less, that I should 
wait on you in the capacity of an author. 

Among the pieces I have the honour to send, 
there is one for which I must entreat your pardon, 
I mean that of which your lordship is the subject. 
The best excuse 1 can make is, that it flowed al- 
most spontaneously from the affectionate remem- 
brance of a connexion that did me so much honour 

As to the rest, their merits, if they have any, 
and their defects, which are probably more than 



218 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 97, 98, 



I am aware of, will neither of them escape your 
notice. But where there is much discernment, 
there is generally much candour; and I commit 
myself into your lordship's hands with the less 
anxiety, being well acquamted with yours. 

If my first visit, after so long an interval, should 
prove neither a troublesome, nor a dull one, but 
especially, if not altogether an unprofitable one, 
omne luli punctum. 

I have the honour to be, though with very dif- 
ferent impressions of some subjects, yet with the 
same sentiments of affection and esteem as ever, 
your lordship's faithfiil, and most obedient, h\un- 
ble servant, W. C. 



TO THE REV. J. NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Feb. 1782. 

I ENCLOSE Johnson's letter upon the subject of 
the Preface, and would send you my reply to it, 
if I had kept a copy. This however was the pur- 
port of it. That Mr. , whom I described as you 

described him to me, had made a similar objection, 
but that being willing to hope, that two or three 
pages of sensible matter, well expressed, mig?it 
possibly go down, though of a religious cast, I 
was resolved to believe him mistaken, and to pay 
no regard to it. That his judgment, however, 
who by his occupation is bound to understand 
what will promote the sale of a book, and what 
will hinder it, seemed to desei-ve more attention. 
That therefore, according to his own offer written 
on a small slip of paper now lost, I should be 
obliged to him if he would state his difficulties to 
you; adding, that I need not infonn him, who is 
so well acquainted with you, that he would find 
you easy to be persuaded to sacrifice, if necessary, 
what you had written, to the interests of the book. 
I find he has had an interview with you upon the 
occasion, and your behaviour has verified my pre- 
diction. What course he determines upon I do 
not know, nor am I at all anxious about it. It is 
impossible for me however to be so insensible of 
your kindness in writing the preface, as not to be 
desirous of defying all contingencies rather than 
entertain a wish to suppress it. It will do me 
honour in the eyes of those whose good opinion is 
indeed an honour, and if it hurts me in the esti- 
mation of others, I can not help it; the fault is 
ncitlicr yours nor mine, but theirs. If a minister's 
is a more splendid character than a poet's, and I 
think nobody that understands their value can 
hesitate in deciding that question, then undoubted- 
ly the advantage of having our names united in 
the same volume is all on my side. 

We thank you for the Faat-sermon. I had not 

read two pages before I exclaimed the 

man has read Expostulation. But though there 



is a strong resemblance between the two pieces in 
point of matter, and sometimes the very same ex- 
pressions are to be met with, yet I soon recollected 
that, on such a theme, a striking coincidence of 
both might happen without a wonder. I doubt 
not that it is the production of an honest man, it 
carries with it an air of sincerity and zeal, that is 
not easily counterfeited. But though I can see 
no reason why kings should not sometimes hear 
of their faults, as well as other men, I think I see 
many good ones why they should not be reproved 
so publicly. It can hardly be done vdth that re-' 
spect which is due to their office, on the part of 
the author, or without encouraging a spirit of un- 
mannerly censure in his readers. His majesty 
too perhaps might answer — ^my own personal feel- 
ings and offences I am ready to confess ; but were 
I to follow your advice, and cashier the profligate 
from my service, where must I seek men of faith, 
and true christian piety, qualified by nature and 
by education to succeed them"? Business must be 
done, men of business alone can do it, and good 
men are rarely found under that description. 
When Nathan reproved David, he did not em- 
ploy a herald, or accompany his charge with the 
sound of the trumpet ; nor can I think the writer 
of this sermon quite justifiable in exposing the 
king's faults in the sight of the people. 

Your answer respecting .Sitna is quite satisfac- 
tory, and gives me much pleasure. I hate alter- 
ing, though I never refuse the task when propriety 
seems to enjoin it; and an alteration in this in- 
stance, if I am not mistaken, would have been sin- 
gularly difficult. Indeed, when a piece has been 
finished two or three years, and an author finds 
occasion to amend, or make an addition to it, it is 
not easy to fall upon the very vein from which he 
drew his ideas in the first instance; but either a 
different turn of thought, or expression, will be- 
tray the patch, and convince a reader of discern- 
ment that it has been cobbled and varnished. 

Our love to you both, and to the young Euphro- 
syne, the old lady of that name being long since 
dead; if she pleases she shall fill her vacant office, 
and be my muse hereafter. 

Yours, my dear sir, W. C 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

March 6, 1783. 
Is peace the nearer because our patriots have 
resolved that it is desirable? Will the victory they 
have gained in the House of Conunons be attended 
with any other 1 Do they expect the same success 
on other occasions, and having once gained a ma- 
jority are they to be the majority for ever? 

These are the questions we agitate by the fireside 
in an evening, without being able to come to any 



Let. 99, 100. 



LETTERS. 



219 



certain conclusion, partly I suppose because the 
subject is in itself uncertain, and partly because we 
are not furnished with the means of understand- 
ing it. I find the politics of times past far more 
intelligible than those of the present. Time has 
thrown hght upon what was obscure, and decided 
what was ambiguous. The characters of great 
men, which are always mysterious while they 
live, are ascertained by the faithful historian, and 
sooner or later receive their wages of fame or in- 
famy, according to their true deserts. How have I 
seen sensible and learned men burn incense to the 
memory of Oliver Cromwell, ascribing to him, as 
the greatest hero in the world, the dignity of the 
British empire during the interregnum. A cen- 
tury passed before tliat idol, which seemed to be 
of gold, was proved to be a wooden one. The 
fallacy however was at length detected, and the 
honour of that detection has fallen to the share 
of a woman. I do not know whether you have 
read Mrs. Macaulay's history of that period. She 
has handled him more roughly than the Scots did 
at the battle of Dunbar. He would have thought 
it Uttle worth his while to have- broken through all 
obligations divine and hmnan, to have wept croco- 
dile tears, and wrapped himself up in the obscu- 
rity of speeches that nobody could miderstand, 
coidd he have foreseen that in the ensuing centu- 
tury a lady's scissars would clip his laurels close, 
and expose his naked villany to the scorn of all 
posterity. This however has been accomplished, 
and so effectually, that I suppose it is not in the 
power of the most artificial management to make 
them grow again. Even the sagacious of man- 
kind are blind when Providence leaves them to be 
deluded; so blind, that a tyrant shall be mistaken 
for a true patriot, true patriots (such were the 
Long Parliament) shall be abhorred as tyrants, 
and almost a whole nation shall dream, that they 
have the full enjoyment of Uberty, for years after 
such a complete knave as Oliver shall have stolen 
it completely from them. I am indebted for all 
this show of historical knowledge to Mr. Bull, 
who has lent me five volumes of the work I men- 
tion. I was willing to display it while I have it; 
in a twelve-month's time I shall remember almost 
nothing of the matter. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, March 7, 1783. 

We have great pleasure in the contemplation of 
your Northern journey, as it promises us a sight 
of you and yours by the way, and are only sorry 
Miss Shuttleworth can not be of the party. A Une 
to ascertain the hour when we may expect you, 
by the next preceding post, will be welcome. 

It is not much for my advantage that the prin- 



ter delays so long to gratify your expectation. It 
is a state of mind that is apt to tire and disconcert 
us ; and there are but few pleasures that make 
us amends for the pain of repeated disappointment. 
I take it for granted you have not received 
the volume, not having received it myself, nor 
indeed heard from Johnson, since he fixed the 
first of the month for its publication. 

What a medley are our public prints, half the 
page filled with the ruin of the country, and the 
other half filled with the vices and pleasures of 
it — here an island taken, and there a new comedy 
— here an empire lost, and there an Italian opera, 
or a Lord's rout on a Sunday ! 

" May it please your lordship ! I am an English- 
man, and must stand or fall with the nation. Re- 
ligion, its true palladium, has been stolen away ; 
and it is crumbling into dust. Sin ruins us, the 
sins of the great especially, and of their sins espe- 
cially the violation of the Sabbath, because it is 
naturally productive of all the rest. If you wish 
well to our anns, and would be glad to see the 
kingdom emerging again jfrom her ruins, pay more 
respect to an ordinance that deserves the deepest ! 

I do not say pardon this short remonstrance ! 

The concern I feel for my country, and the in- 
terest I have in its prosperity, give me a right to 
make it. I am, &c." 

Thus one might write to his lordship, and (I 
suppose) might be as profitably employed in whist- 
ling the tune of an old ballad. 

I have no copy of the preface, nor do I know 
at present how Johnson and Mr. Newton have 
settled it. In the matter of it there was nothing 
offensively peculiar ; but it was thought too pious. 
Yours, my dear friend, W, C* 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, March 14, 1783. 

I CAN only repeat what I said sometime since, 
that the world is grown more foolish and careless 
than it was when I had the honour of knowing it. 
Though your preface was of a serious cast, it was 
yet free from every thing that might, with pro- 
priety, expose it to the charge of Methodism, be- 
ing guUty of no offensive peculiarities, nor contain- 
ing any of those obnoxious doctrines at which the 
world is so apt to be angry, and which we must 
give her leave to be angry at, because we know she 
can not help it. It asserted nothing more than 
every rational creature must admit to be true — 
"that divine and earthly things can no longer 
stand in competition with each other, in the judg- 
ment of any man, than while he continues igno- 



* At this period, the first volume of the writer's poems 
issued from tlie press. 



220 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 101. 



rant of their rospcctive value; and that the mo- 
ment the eyes are opened, the latter are always 
cheerfully relinquished for the sake of the former." 
Now I do most certainly rcmcmher the time when 
such a proposition as this would have been at least 
sui)portablc, and when it would not have spoiled 
the market of any volume, to which it had been 

prefixed, ergo the times are altered for the 

worse. 

I have reason to be very much satisfied with my 
publislier — he marked such lines as did not please 
him, and as often as I could, I paid all possible 
respect to his animadversions. You will accord- 
inrrly find, at least if you recollect how they stood 
in the MS., that several passages are better for 
having undergone Ids critical notice. Indeed I do 
not know where I could have found a bookseller 
who could have pointed out to me my defects with 
more discernment ; and as I find it is a fashion for 
modern bards to publish the names of the literati, 
who have favoured their works with a revisal, 
would myself most willingly have acknowledged 
my obligations to Johnson, and so I told him. I 
am to thank you likewise, and ought to have done 
it in the first place, for having recommended to 
me the suppression of sonic lines, which I am now 
more than ever convinced ^^'ould at least have done 
me no honour. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY T)EAR V\-ILL[AM, 

The modest terms in which you express your- 
self on the subject of lady Austen's commendation 
embolden me to add my suffrage to hers, and to 
confirm it by assm-ing you I think her just and 
well ibundcd in her opinion of you. The compli- 
ment indeed glances at myself; for were you less 
than she accounts you, I ought not to afibrd you 
that place in my esteejn which you have held so 
long. My own sagacity therefore and discern- 
ment are not a little couct^rned upon the occasion, 
for cither yoii resemble the picture, or I have 
strangely mistaken my man, and formed an erro- 
neous j iidgment of his character. With respect to 
vour face and figure indeed, there I leave the ladies 
to determine, as being naturally best qualified to 
decide the point ; but whether you arc perfectly the 
inan of sense, and the gentleman, is a question in 
which I am as much interested as they, and which, 
you being my friend, 1 am of course prepared to 
settle in your favour. The lady (whom, when 
you know her as well, you will love as much as 
we do) is, and has been during the last fortnight, 
a jiart of our family. Before she was perfectly 
restored to health, she returned to Chfton. Soon 
lifter she came back, Mr. Jones had occasion to go 



to London. No sooner was he gone, than the 
Chateau, being left without a garrison, was be- 
sieged as regularly as the night came on. Vil- 
lains were both heard and seen in the garden, and 
at the doors and windows. The kitchen window 
in particular was attempted, from which they took 
a complete pane of glass, exactly opposite to the 
iron by which it was fastened ; but providentially 
the window had been nailed to the woodwork, in 
order to keep it close, and that the air might be 
excluded ; thus they were disappointed, and being 
discovered by the maid, withdrew. The ladies 
being worn out with continual watcliing, and 
repeated alarms, were at last prevailed upon to 
take refuge with us. Men furnished with fire- 
arms were put into the house, and the rascals, 
having intelligence of this circumstance, beat a 
retreat. Mr. Jones returned ; Mrs. Jones and 
Miss Green, her daughter, left us, but Lady Aus- 
ten's spirits having been too much disturbed, to be 
able to repose in a place where she had been so 
much terrified, she was left behind. She remains 
with us till her lodgings at the vicarage can he 
made ready for her reception. I have now sent 
you what has occurred of moment in our history 
since my last. 

I say amen, with all my heart, to your obser- 
vation on religious characters. Men who profess 
themselves adepts in mathematical knowledge, in 
astronomy, or jurisprudence, are generally as well 
qualified as they would appear. The reason may 
be, that they are always liable to detection, should 
they attempt to impose upon mankind, and there- 
fore take care to be what they pretend. In reli- 
gion alone, a profession is often sUghtly taken up, 
and slovenly carried on, because forsooth candor 
and charity require us to hope the best, and to 
judge favourably of our neighbour, and because 
it is easy to deceive the ignorant, who are a great 
majority, upon this subject. Let a man attach 
hinisi'lf to a particular party, contend furiously 
for what are properly called evangelical doctrines, 
and enlist liimsclf under the banner of some po- 
pular preacher, and the business is done. Behold 
a Christian! a Saint! a Phosnix! — In the mean 
time perhap.s his heart, and his temper, and even 
his conduct, are unsanctiiied; possibly less exem- 
plary than those of some avowed infidels. No 
matter — he can talk — he has the Shibboleth of the 
true church — the Bible in his pocket, and a 
head well stored with notions. But the quiet, 
huinl)lc, modest, and peaceable person, who is in 
his practice what the other is only in his profes- 
sion, who hates a noise, and therefore makes 
none, who knowing the snares that are in the 
world, keeps himself as much out of it as he can, 
and iiever enters it, but when duty calls, and even 
then with fear and trembling — is the Christian 



Let. 102, 103. 



LETTERS. 



221 



that will always stand highest in the estunation 
of those, who bring all characters to the test of 
true wisdom, and judge of the tree by its fruit. 

You are desirous of visiting the prisoners ; you 
wish to administer to their necessities, and to give 
them instruction. This task you will undertake, 
though you expect to encounter many things in 
the performance of it, that will give you pain. 
Now this 1 can understand — you will not listen 
to the sensibilities that distress yourself, but to 
the distresses of others. Therefore, when I meet 
with one of the specious praters above-mentioned, 
1 will send him to Stock, that by your diffidence 
he may be taught a lesson of modesty; by your 
generosity, a little feeling for others; and by your 
general conduct, in short, to chatter less, and to 
do more. 

Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DE.A.R FKiKND, March 18, 1782. 

Nothing has given me so much pleasure, since 
the publication of my volume, as your favourable 
opinion of it. It may possibly meet with accept- 
ance from hundreds, whose commendation would 
afford me no other satisfaction than what I should 
find in the hope that it might do them good. I 
have some neighbours in this place, who say they 
like it — doubtless I had rather they should than 
that they should not — but I know them to be per- 
sons of no more taste in poetry, than skill in the 
mathematics ; their applause therefore is a sound 
that has no music in it for me. But my vanity 
was not so entirely quiescent when I read your 
friendly account of the manner it had affected 
i/ou. It was tickled, and pleased, and told me in 
a pretty loud whisper, that others perhaps of 
whose taste and judgment I had a high opinion, 
would approve it too. As a giver of good coun- 
sels, I wish to please all — as an author, I am per- 
fectly indifferent to the judgment of all, except 
the few who are indeed judicious. The circum- 
stance however in your letter which pleased me 
most was, that you wrote in high spirits, and 
though you said much, suppressed more, lest you 
should hurt my delicacy — my deUcacy is obliged 
to yi3U — but you observe it is not so squeamish, 
but that after it has feasted upon praise expressed, 
it can find a comfortable dessert in the contem- 
plation of praise implied. I now feel as if I should 
be glad to begin another volume, but from the will 
to the power is a step too wide for me to take at 
at present, and the season of the year brings with 
it so many avocations into the garden, where 
I am ray own jTac totum, that I have little or no 
leisure for the quill. I should do myself much 



wrong, were I to omit mentioning the great com- 
placency with which 1 read your narrative of Mrs. 
Unwin's smiles and tears; persons of much sen- 
sibihty are always persons of taste, and a taste for 
poetry depends indeed upon that very article more 
than upon any other. If she had Aristotle by 
heart, I should not esteem her judgment so highly, 
were she defective in point of feeling, as I do, and 
must esteem it, knowuig her to have such feelings 
as Aristotle could not communicate, and as half 
the readers in the world are destitute of Tliis it 
is that makes me set so high a price upon your 
mother's opinion. She is a critic by nature, and 
not by rule, and has a perception of what is good 
or bad in composition, that I never knew deceive 
her; insomuch, that when two sorts of expression 
have pleaded equally for the precedence, in my 
own esteem, and I have referred, as in such cases 
I always did, the decision of the point to her, I 
never knew her at a loss for a just one. 

Whether I shall receive any answer from his 
Chancellorship or not, is at present in ambiguo, 
and will probably continue in the same state of 
ambiguity much longer. He is so busy a man, 
and at this tune, if the papers may be credited, so 
particularly busy, that I am forced to mortify my- 
self with the thought, that both my book and my 
letter may be thro^vn into a corner as too insignifi- 
cant for a statesman's notice, and never found till 
his executor finds them. This affair however 
is neither at my libitum nor his. I have sent liim 
the truth. He that put it into the heart of a cer- 
tain eastern monarch, to amuse himself one sleep- 
less night with listening to the records of his king- 
dom, is able to give birth to such another occasion, 
and inspire his lordship with a curiosity to know 
what he has received from a friend he once loved 
and valued. If an answer comes, however, you 
shall not long be a stranger to the contents of it. 

I have read your letter to their worships, and 
much approve of it. May it have the effect it 
ought ! If not, still you have acted a humane and 
becoming part, and the poor aching toes and fin- 
gers of the prisoners will not appear in judgment 
against you. I have made a slight alteration in 
the last sentence, which perhaps you will not dis- 
approve. 

Yours ever, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.. 
Mao-c\i 24, 1782. 
Your letter gave me great pleasure, both as a 
testimony of your approbation, and of your re- 
gard. I wrote in hopes of pleasing you, and such 
as you; and though I must confess that, at the 
same time, I cast a side-long glance at the good 



222 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 104, 105. 



liking of the world at large, I believe I can say 
it was more for the sake of their advantage and 
instruction than their praise. They are children; 
if wc give tlieni physic, we must sweeten the rim 
of the cup with hojiey — if my book is so far ho- 
noured as to be made the vehicle of true know- 
ledge to any that are ignorant, I shall rejoice ; and 
do already rejoice that it has procured me a proof 
of your esteem. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UN WIN. 

MV DEAR FRIEND, April 1, 1783. 

I COULD not have found a better trumpeter. 
Your zeal to serve the interest of my volume, to- 
gether with your extensive acquaintance, quaUfy 
you perfectly for that most useful office. Me- 
thinks I see you with the long tube at your mouth, 
proclaiming to your numerous connexions my 
poetical merits, and at proper intervals levelling it 
at Olney, and pouring into my ear the welcome 
sound of their approbation. I need not encourage 
you to proceed, your breath will never fail in such 
a cause; and thus encouraged, I myself perhaps 
may proceed also, and when the versifying fit re- 
turns, produce another volume. Alas! we shall 
never receive such commendations from him on 
tlie woolsack, as your good friend has lavished 
upon us. Whence I learn, that however impor- 
tant I may be in my own eyes, I am very insig- 
nificant in his. To make me amends however 
for this mortification, Mr. Newton tells me, that 
my book is likely to run, spread, and prosper; that 
the grave can not help smiling, and the gay are 
struck with the truth of it; and that it is likely 
to find its way into his Majesty's hands, being put 
into a proper course for that purpose. Now if the 
King should fall in love with my Muse, and with 
you for her sake, such an event would make us 
ample amends for the Chancellor's indifference 
and you might be the first divine that ever reached 
a mitre from the shoulders of a poet. But (I be 
lieve) we must be content, 1 with my gains, if I 
gain any thing, and you with the pleasare of 
knowing that I am a gainer. 

We laughed heartily at your answer to little 
John's question; and yet I think you might have 
given him a direct answer — " There are various 
Kortij of cleverness, my dear — 1 do not know that 
mine lies in the poetical way, but I can do ten 
tiuips more towards the entertainment of company 
ill tlie way of conversation than our friend at 
(3!ney. He can rhyme, and I can rattle. If he 
had my talent, or I had his, we should be too 
charming, and the world would almost adore us." 
Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLI-AM, April 27, 1782. 

A PART of Lord Harrington's new-raised corps . 
have taken up their quarters at Olney, since you 
left us. They have the regimental music with 
them. The men have been drawn up this morn- 
ing upon the Market-hill, and a concert such as 
we have not heard these many years, has been 
performed at no great distance from our window. 
Your mother and I both thrust our heads into the 
coldest east-wind that ever blew in April, that we 
might hear them to greater advantage. The band ■ 
acquitted themselves with taste and propriety, not 
blairing, like trumpeters at a fair, but, producing 
gentle and elegant symphony, such as charmed 
our ears, and convinced us that no length of time 
can wear out a taste for harmony ; and that though 
plays, balls, and masquerades have lost all their 
power to please us, and we should find them not 
only insipid but insupportable, yet sweet music is 
sure to find a corresponding faculty in the soul, a 
sensibility that lives to the last, which even reli- 
gion itself does not extinguish. 

When we objected to your coming for a single 
night, it was only in the way of argument, and in 
hopes to prevail on you to contrive a longer abode 
with us. But rather than not see you at all, we 
should be glad of you though but for an hour. 
If the paths should be clean enough, and we are 
able to walk (for you know we can not ride), we 
will endeavour to meet you in Weston-park. But 
I mention no particular hour, that I may not lay 
you under a supposed obligation to be punctual, 
which might be difficult at the end of so long a 
journey. Only if the weather be favourable, you 
shall find us there in the evening. It is winter in 
the south, perhaps therefore it may be spring at 
least, if not summer, in the north. For I have 
read that it is warmest in Greenland when it is 
coldest here. Be that as it may, we may hope at 
the latter end of such an April that the first change 
of wind will improve the season. 

The curate's simile Latinized 

Sore adversa gerit stimulum, sed tendit et alas : 
Pungit, api sijnilis, sed, velut ista, fugit. 

What a dignity there is in the Roman language! 
and what an idea it gives us of the good sense, and 
masculine mind of the people that spoke it ! The 
same thought which clothed in English seems 
childish, and even foolish, assumes a difllerent air 
in Latin, and makes at least as good an epigram 
as some of Martial's. 

I remeniher your making an observation, when 
here, on the subject of parenthesis, to which I ac- 
ceded without limitation ; but a httle attention will 
convince us both, that they are not to be univer- 
sally condemned. When they abound, and when 



Let. 106. 



LETTERS. 



223 



they are long, they both embarrass the sense, and 
are a proof that the writer's head is cloudy, that he 
has not properly arranged his matter, or is not 
well skilled in the graces of expression. But as 
parenthesis is ranked by grammarians among the 
figures of rhetoric, we may suppose they had a 
reason for conferring that honour upon it. Ac- 
cordingly we shall find that in the use of some 
of our finest writers, as well as in the hands of the 
ancient poets and orators, it has a peculiar ele- 
gance, and imparts a beauty which the period 
would want without it. 

'Hoc nemus, hunc,' inquit, ' frondoso vertice collem 
(Quis deus incertum est) habitat deus.' Vir. ^n. 8. 

In this instance, the first that occurred, it is 
graceful. I have not time to seek for more, nor 
room to insert them. But your own observation I 
believe will confirm my opinion. 

Yours ever, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, May 21, 1782. 

Rather ashamed of having been at all dejected 
by the censure of the Critical Reviewers, who cer- 
tainly could not read without prejudice a book re- 
plete with opinions and doctrines to which they 
can not subscribe, I have at present no little occa- 
sion to keep a strict guard upon my vanity, lest it 
should be too much flattered by the following 
eulogium. I send it you for the reasons I gave 
when I imparted to you some other anecdotes of a 
similar kind, while we were together. Our inter- 
ests in the success of this same volume are so 
closely united, that you miist share with me in the 
praise or blame that attends it; and sympathizing 
with me imder the burthen of injurious treatment, 
have a right to enjoy with me the cordials I now 
and then receive, as I happen to meet with more 
favourable and candid judges. 

A merchant, a friend of ours, (you will soon 
guess him) sent my Poems to one of the first phi- 
losophers, one of the most eminent Uterary charac- 
ters, as well as one of the most important in the 
political world, that the present age can boast of 
Now perhaps your conjuring faculties are puzzled, 
and you begin to ask ' who, where, and what is 
he 7 speak out, for 1 am all impatience.' 1 will not 
say a word more, the letter in which he returned 
bis thanks for the present shall speak for him.* 

We may now treat the critics as the archbishop 
of Toledo treated Gil Bias, when he found fault 
with one of his sermons. — His grace gave him a 
kick, and said, ' Begonefor a jackanapes, and lur- 



* Here Cowper transcribed tlie letter written from Passy, 
by the American ambaisador Franklin, in praise of his book. 



nish yourself vrith a better taste, if you know 
where to find it.' 

We are glad that you are safe at home again. 
Could we see at one glance of the eye what is pass- 
ing every day upon all the roads in the kingdom, 
how many are terrified and hurt, how many plun- 
dered and abused, we should indeed find reason 
enough to be thankful for journeys performed in 
safety, and for deliverance from dangers we are 
not perhaps even permitted to see. When in some 
of the high southern latitudes and in a dark tem- 
pestuous night, a flash of lightning discovered to 
Captain Cook a vessel, which glanced along close 
by his side, and which, but for the lightning he 
must have run foul of, both the danger, and the 
transient light that showed it, were undoubtedly 
designed to convey to him this wholesome instruc- 
tion, that a particular Providence attended him, 
and that he was not only preserved from evils, 
of which he had notice, but from many more of 
which he had no information, or even the least sus- 
picion. What unUkely contingencies may never- 
theless take place ! How improbable that two ships 
should dash against each other, in the midst of the 
vast Pacific Ocean, and that steering contrary 
courses, from parts of the world so immensely dis- 
tant from each other, they should yet move so 
exactly in a Hne as to clash, fill, and go to the bot- 
tom, in a sea where all the ships in the world might 
be so dispersed as that none should see another ! 
Yet this must have happened but for the remarka- 
ble interference, which he has recorded. The same 
Providence indeed might as easily have conducted 
them so vsdde of each other, that they should never 
have met at all, but then this lesson would have 
been lost ; at least, the heroic voyager would have 
encompassed the globe without having had occa- 
sion to relate an incident that so naturally sug- 
gests it. 

I am no more deUghted wdth the season than 
you are. The absence of the sun, which has 
graced the spring with much less of his presence 
than he vouchsafed to the winter, has a very un- 
comfortable effect upon my frame. I feel an in- 
vincible aversion to employment, which I am yet 
constrained to fly to as my only remedy against 
something worse. If I do nothing, I am dejected; 
if I do any thing, I am weary ; and that weariness 
is best described by the word lassitude, which of 
all weariness in the world is the most oppressive. 
But enough of myself and the weather. 

The blow we have struck in the West Indies 
will, I suppose, be decisive, at least for the present 
year, and so far as that part of om: possessions is 
concerned in the present conflict. But the news- 
writers, and their correspondents, disgust me and 
make me sick. One victory, after such a long se- 
ries of adverse occurrences, has filled them with 
self-conceit, and impertinent boasting ; and while 



224 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 107, lOR.. 



Rodney is almost accounted a Methodist for as- 
cribing his success to Providence, men who have 
renounced all dependence upon such a friend, 
without whose assistance nothing can be done, 
threaten to drive the French out of the sea, laugh 
at the Spaniards, sneer at the Dutch, and are to 
carry the world before them. Our enemies are 
apt to lirag, and we deride them for it; but we can 
sing as loud as they can, in the same key, and no 
doubt wherever our papers go, shall be derided in 
our turn. An Englishman's true glory should be, 
to do his business well, and say little about it ; 
but he disgraces himself when he pufls his prow- 
ess, as if he had finished his task, when he has 
but just begun it. Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UN WIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, June 12, 1782. 

Evert extraordinary occurrence in our lives 
affords us an opportunity to learn, if we will, some- 
thing more of our own hearts and tempers, than 
we were before aware of It is easy to promise 
ourselves beforehand, that our conduct shall be 
wise, or moderate, or resolute, on any given occa- 
sion. But when that occasion occurs, we do not 
always find it easy to make good the promise : 
such a difference there is between theory and prac- 
tice. Perhaps this is no new remark ; but it is not 
a whit the worse for being old, if it be true. 

Before I had published, I said to myself — you 
and I, Mr. Cowper, will not concern ourselves 
much about what the critics may say of our book. 
But having once sent my wits for a venture, I 
soon became anxious about the issue, and found 
that I could not be satisfied with a warm place 
in my own good graces, unless my friends were 
pleased with me as much as I pleased myself 
Meeting with their approbation, I began to feel 
the workings of ambition. It is well, said I, that 
my friends are pleased, but friends are sometimes 
partial, and mine, I have reason to think, are not 
altogether free from bias. Methinks I should like 
to hear a stranger or two speak well of me. I was 
presently gratified by the approbation of the Lon- 
don Magazine, and the Gentleman's, particularly 
by that of the former, and by the plaudit of Dr. 
Franklin. By the way, magazines are pubUca- 
tions we have but little respect for, till we ourselves 
are chronicled in them, and then they assume an 
importance in our esteem which before we could 
not allow them. But the Monthly Review, the 
most formidable of all my judges, is still behind. 
What will that critical Rhadamanthus say, when 
my shi\rring genius shall appear before him? 
Still he keeps me in hot water, and I must wait 
another month for his award. Alas ! when I wish 
for a favourable sentence from that quarter (to 



confess a weakness that I should not confess to all), 
I feel myself not a little influenced by a tender re- 
gard to my reputation here, eyen among my neigh- 
bours at Olney. Here are watch-makers, who 
themselves are wits, and who at present perhaps 
think me one. Here is a carpenter and a baker, 
and not to mention others, here is your idol Mr. 
, whose smile is -fame. All these read the 



Monthly Review, and all these will set me down 
for a dunce, if those terrible critics should show 
them the example. But oh ! wherever else I am 
accounted dull, dear Mr. Griffith, let me pass for 
a genius at Olney. 

We are sorry for little William's illness. It is 
however the privilege of infancy to recover almost 
inmiediately what it has lost by sickness. We are 

sorry too for Mr. 's dangerous condition. 

But he that is well prepared for the great journey 
can not enter on it too soon for himself, though hiss 
friends will weep at his departure. 

Yours, W. C, 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIK 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Juhj 16, 1782. 

Though some people pretend to be clever in the 
way of prophetical forecast, and to have a peculiar 
talent of sagacity, by which they can divine the 
meaning of a providential dispensation, while its 
consequences are yet in embryo — I do not. There 
is at this time to be found I suppose in the cabi- 
net, and in both houses, a greater assemblage of 
able men, both as speakers and counsellors, than 
ever were contemporary in the same land. A man 
not accustomed to trace the worldngs of Provi- 
dence, as recorded in Scripture, and that has given 
no attention to this particular subject, while em- 
ployed in the study of profane history, would as- 
sert boldly, that it is a token for good, that much 
may be expected from them, and that the country, 
though heavily afilicted, is not to be despaired of, 
distinguished as she is by so many characters of 
the highest class. Thus he would say, and I do 
not deny, that the event might justify his skill in 
prognostics. God works by means, and in a case 
of great national perplexity and distress, wisdom 
and poHtical ability seem to be the only natural 
means of deliverance. But a mind more religiously 
inclined, and perhaps a little tinctured with me- 
lancholy, might, vnth equal probability of success, 
hazard a conjecture directly opposite — Alas! what 
is the wisdom of man, especially when he trusts 
in it as the only God of his confidence! — When I 
consider the general contempt that is poured upon 
all things sacred, the profusion, the dissipation, 
the knavish cunning of some, the rapacity of 
others, and the impenitence of all ; I am rather in- 
cUned to fear that God, who honours himself by 



Let. 109. 



LETTERS 



225 



bringing hurnan glory to shame, and by disap- 
pointing the expectations of those whose trust is 
in creatures, has signalized the present day as a 
day of much human sufiiciency and strength, has 
brought together from all quarters of the land the 
most illustrious men to be found in it, only that he 
may prove the vanity of idols, and that when a 
great empire is falling, and he has pronounced a 
sentence of ruin against it, the inhabitants, be 
tliey weak or strong, wise or foolish, must fall with 
it, I am rather confirmed in this persuasion by 
observing that these luminaries of the state had 
no sooner fixed themselves in the political heaven, 
than the. fall of the brightest of them shook all the 
rest. The arch of their power was no sooner 
struck than the key-stone slipped out of its place ; 
those that were closest in connexion with it fol- 
lowed, and the whole building, new as it is, seems 
to be already a ruin. If a man should hold this 
language, who could convict him of absurdity? 
The marquis of Rockingham is minister — all the 
world rejoices, anticipating success in war and a 
glorious peace. — The marquis of Rockingham is 
dead — all the world is afflicted, and relapses into 
its former despondence. What does this prove, 
but that the marquis was their Almighty, and 
that now he is gone, they know no other'? But 
let us v/ait a little, they will find another — Per- 
haps the duke of Portland, or perhaps the unpopu- 
lar , whom they now represent as a devil, 

may obtain that honour. Thus God is forgot ; 
and when he is, his judgments are generally his 
remembrancers. 

How shall I comfort you upon the subject of 
your present distress 1 Pardon me that I find my- 
self obhged to smile at it, because who but your- 
self would be distressed upon such an occasion 1 
You have behaved politely, and like a gentleman; 
you have hospitably offered your house to a stran- 
ger, who could not, in your neighbourhood at least, 
have been comfortably accommodated any where 
else. He, by neither refusing nor accepting an 
offer that did him too much honour, has disgraced 
himself, btit not you. I think for the future you 
nmst be cautious of laying yourself open to a stran- 
ger, and never again expose j'ourself to incivihties 
from an archdeacon you are not acquainted with. 

Though I did not mention it, I felt with you 

what you suffered by the loss of Miss . 

I was only silent because I could minister no con- 
solation to you on such a subject, but what I 
knew your mind to be already stored with. In- 
deed, the application of comfort in such cases is a 
nice business, and perhaps when best managed 
might as well be let alone. 1 remember reading 
many years ago a long treatise on the subject of 
consolation, written in French ; the author's name 
I forgot, but I wrote these words in the margin — 
Special consolation ! at least for a Frenchman, 



who is a creature the most easily comforted of any 
in the world ! 

We are as happy in lady Austen, and she in us, 
as ever — having a lively imagination, and being 
passionately desirous of consolidating all into one 
family (for she has taken her leave of London), she 
has just sprung a project which serves at least to 
amuse us, and make us laugh- -it is to hire Mr. 
Small's house, on the top of Clifton-hill, which is 
large, commodious, and handsome, will hold us 
conveniently, and any friends who may occasion- 
ally farour us with a visit — the house is furnished, 
but, if it can be hired without the furniture, will 
let for a trifle — your sentiments, if you please, upon 
this demarche ! 

I send you my last frank — our best love attend 
you individually, andall together. I give you joy 
of a happy change in the season, and myself also. 
I have filled four sides in less time than two would 
have cost me a week ago — such is the effect of 
sunshine upon such a butterfly as I am. 

Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY -DEAR FRIEND, ' Aug. 3, 1782. 

Entertaining some hope that Mr. Newton's 
next letter would furnish me with the means of 
satisfying your inquiry on the subject of Dr. John- 
son's opinion, I have till now delayed my answer 
to your last ; but the information is not yet come, 
Mr. Newton having intermitted a week more than 
usual, since his last writing. When I receive it, 
favourable or not, it shall be communicated to you ; 
but I am not over sanguine in my expectations 
from that quarter. Very learned and very critical 
heads are hard to please. He may perhaps treat 
me with lenity for the sake of the subject and de- 
sign, but the composition I think will hardly es- 
cape his censure. Though all doctors may not 
be of the same mind, there is one doctor at least, 
whom I have lately discovered, my professed ad- 
mirer. He too, like Johnson, was with difficulty 
persuaded to read, having an aversion to all poet- 
ry, except the Night Thoughts, which on a cer- 
tain occasion, when being confined on board a 
ship he had no other employment, he got by 
heart. He was however prevailed upon, and 
read me several times over ; so that if my volume 
had sailed with him, instead of Dr. Young's, 1 
perhaps might have occupied that shelf in his 
memory which he then allotted to the Doctor. 

It is a sort of paradox, but it is true j we are 
never more in danger than when we think our- 
selves most secure, nor in reality more secure than 
when we seem to be most in danger. Both sides 
of tjiis apparent contradiction were lately verified 
in my experience — Passing from the green-house 



22G 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. no. 



to the barn, I saw three kittens (for we have so 
many in our retinue) looking with fixed attention 
on something, which lay on the threshold of a 
door nailetl up. I took but little notice of them at 
fir.st, but a loud hiss engaged me to attend more 
closely, when behold — a ^iper I the largest that I 
remenjber to have seen, rearing itself, darting its 
forked tongue, and ejaculating the aforesaid hiss 
at the nose of a kitten almost in contact with his 
lips. I ran into the hall for a hoe with a long 
handle, with which I intended to assail him, and 
returning in a few seconds missed him; -he was 
gone, and I feared had escaped me. Still how- 
ever the kitten sat watching immoveably upon the 
same spot. I concluded therefore that, shding 
between the door and the threshold, he had found 
his way out of the garden ijito the yard. — I went 
round inmiediately, and there found him in close 
conversation with the old cat, whose curiosity be- 
ing excited by so novel an appearance, inclined her 
to pat his head repeatedly with her fore foot, with 
her claws however sheathed, and not in anger, 
but in the way of philosophic inquiry and exami- 
nation. To prevent her falling a victim to so lau- 
dable an exercise of her talents, I interposed a 
moment with the hoe, and performed upon hmi 
an act of decapitation, which though not imme- 
diately mortal, proved so in the end. Had he slid 
into the passages, where it is dark, or had he, 
when in the yard, met with no interruption from 
the cat, and secreted himself in any of the out- 
houses, it is hardly possible but that some of the 
family must have been bitten ; he might have 
been trodden upon without being perceived, and 
have slipped away before the sufferer could have 
distinguished what foe had wounded liim. Three 
years ago we discovered one in the same place, 
which the barber slew with a trowel. 

Our proposed removal to Mr. Small's was, as 
you suppose, a jest, or rather a joco-serious mat- 
ter. We never looked upon it as entirely feasible, 
yet we saw in it something so like practicability, 
that we did not esteem it altogether unworthy of 
our attention. It was one of those projects which 
people of lively imaginations .play with, and ad- 
mire for a few days, and then break in pieces. 
Lady Austen returned on Thursday from Lon- 
don, where she spent the last fortnight, and whi- 
ther she was called by an unexpected opportunity 
to dispose of the remainder of her lease. She has 
therefore no longer any connexion with the great 
city, and no house but at Olncy. Her abode is to 
be at the vicarage, where she has hired as much 
room as she wants, which she mil embellish with 
her own furniture, and which she will occupy as 
soon as the minister's wife has produced another 
child, which is expected to make its entry in Oc- 
tober. 
Mr. Bull, a dissenting minister of Newport, a 



learned, ingenious, good-natured, pious friend of 
ours, who sometimes visits us, and whom we visit- 
ed last week, has put into my hands three vol- 
umes of French poetry, composed by Madame 
Guion — a quietist say you, and a fanatic, I will 

have nothing to do with her 'Tis very well, 

you are welcome to have nothing to do with her, 
but in the mean time her verse is the only French 
verse I ever read that I found agreeable ; there is 
a neatness in it equal to that which we applaud 
with so much reason in the compositions of Prior. 
I have translated several of them, and shall pro- 
ceed in my translations, till I have filled a Lillipu- 
tian paper-book I happen to have by me, which 
when filled, I shall present to Mr. Bull. He is 
her passionate admirer, rode twenty miles to see 
her picture in the house of a stranger, which stran- 
ger politely insisted on his acceptance of it, and it 
now hangs over his chimney. It is a striking por- 
trait, too characteristic not to be a strong resem- 
blance, and, were it encompassed with a glory, in- 
stead of being dressed m a nun's hood, might pass 
for the face of an angel. Yours, W. C. 



TO LADY AUSTEN. 

To watch the storms and liear the sky 
Give all our almanacks the lie ; 
To shake with cold, and see the plains 
In autumn drown'd with wLitry rains ; 
'Tis thus I spend my moments here, 
And wish myself a Dutch mynheer; 
I then should have no need of wit ; 
For lumpish Hollander unfit ! 
Nor should I then repine at mud, 
Or meadows delug'd with a flood ; 
But in a bog live weU content, 
And find it just my element ; 
Should be a clod, and not a man, 
Nor wish in vain for Sister Ann, 
With charitable aid to drag 
My mind out of its proper quag ; 
Should have the geniusof a boor, 
And no ambition to liave more. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

You see my beginning — I do not know but in 
time I may proceed even to the printing of half- 
penny ballads — Excuse the coarseness of my pa- 
per — I wasted such a quantity before I could ac- 
compUsh any thing legible, that I could not afford 
finer. I intend to employ an ingenious mechanic 
of the town to make me a longer case ; for you 
may observe that my lines turn up their tails like 
Dutch mastiffs, so difficult do I find it to make the 
two halves exactly coincide with each other. 

We wait with impatience for the departure of 
this unseasonable flood. We think of you, and 
talk of you, but we can do no more, till the waters 
subside. I do not think our correspondence 
should drop because we are within a mile of each 



Let. Ill, 113, 113. 



LETTERS. 



227 



other. It is but an imaginary approximation, the perfectly at liberty to deal with them as you please. 

floo'l living in reality as ciiectaally pai-ted us, as ^uc/Iore tantum anonymo imprimantur; and 

when printed, send me a copy. 

I congratulate you on the discharge of your duty 
and your conscience, by the pains you have taken 
for the relief of the prisoners.— You proceeded wise- 
ly, yet courageously, and deserved better success. 
Your labours however will be remembered else- 
where, when you shall be forgotten here; and if 
the poor folks at Chelmsford should never receive 
the benefit of them, you will yourself receive it in 
heaven. It is pity that men of fortune should be 
determined to acts of beneficence sometimes by 
popular whim, or prejudice, and sometimes by 
motives still more unworthy. The liberal sub- 
scription raised in behalf of the widows of the sea- 
men lost in the Royal George was an instance of 
the former. At least a plain, short, and sensible 
letter in the newspaper convinced me at the time, 
that it was an unnecessary and injudicious collec- 
tion: and the difficulty you found in efl^ectuating 
your benevolent intentions on this occasion, con- 
strains me to think that had it been an affair of 
more notoriet)' than merely to furnish a few poor 
fellows wdth a little fuel to preserve their extremi- 
ties from the frost, you would have succeeded bet- 
ter. Men really pious dehght in doing good by 
stealth. But nothing less than an ostentatious 
display of bounty will satisfy mankind in general. 
I feel myself disposed to furnish you with an op- 
portunity to shine in secret. We do what we 
can. But that can is little. You have rich friends, 
are eloquent on all occasions, and know how to 
be pathetic on a proper one. The winter will be 
severely felt at Olney by many, whose sobriety, 
industry, and honesty, recommend them to chari- 
table notice: and we think we could tell such per- 
sons as Mr. , or Mr. — , half a dozen 



if the British Channel rolled between us. 

Yours, my dear sister, with Mrs. Unwin's best 
love. 

Aug. 12,. 1782. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL. 

OcU 27, 1783. 
Mon aimable et tres cher Ami, 

It is not in the power of chaises or chariots to 
carry you where my affections vrill not follow you; 
if I heard-that you were gone to finish your days 
in the moon, I should not love you the less; but 
should contemplate the place of your abode, as 
often as it appeared in the heavens, and say — 
Farewell, my friend, for ever! Lost, but not for- 
gotten! Live happy in thy lantern, and smoke 
the remainder of thy pipes in peace! Thou art 
rid of earth, at least of all its cares, and so far can 
I rejoice in thy removal ; and as to the cares that 
are to be found in the moon, I aju resolved to sup- 
pose them lighter than those below — heavier they 
can hardly be. 

Madame Guion is finished, but not quite tran- 
scribed. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Nov. 4, 1782. 

You are too modest; though your last consisted 
of three sides only, I am certainly a letter in your 
debt. It is possible that this present writing may 
prove as short. Yet, short as it may be, it will be 
a letter, and make me creditor, and you my debtor. 
A letter indeed ought not to be estimated by the 
length of it, but by the contents, and how can the 
contents of any letter be more agreeable than your 
lastl 

You tell me that John Gilpin made you laugh 
tears, and that the ladies at court are delighted 
with my poems. Much good may they do them ! 
May they become as wise as the writer wishes 
them, and they will be much happier than he ! I 
know there is in the book that wisdom which 
Cometh from above, because it was from above 
that I received it. May they receive it too ! For 
whether they drink it out of the cistern, or whe- 
ther it falls upon them immediately from the 



tales of distress, that would find their way into 
hearts as feeling as theirs. You will do as you 
see good; and we in the mean time shall remain 
convinced, that you will do your best. Lady Aus- 
ten will no doubt do something ; for she has great 
sensibility and compassion. 

Yours, my dear Unwin, W. C. 



TO THE Rev. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, NoV. 18, 1782. 

On the part of the poor, and on our part, be 

pleased to make acknowledgments, such as the 

clouds, as it did on me, it is all one. It is the j occasion calls for, to our beneficent friend Mr. 

water of life, which whosoever drinketh shall | . I call him ours, because having esperi- 

thirst no more. As. to the famous horseman enced his kindness to myself in a former instance, 
above-mentioned, he and Ms feats are an inex- ! and in the present his disinterested readiness to 
haustible source of merriment. At least we find ' succour the distressed, my ambition will be satis- 
him so, and seldom meet withoiit refreshing our- ' fied with nothing less. He may depend upon the 
selves with the recollection of them. You are strictest secrecy ; no creature shall hear him men- 



2'28 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



'Let. 114. 



tiom'd, cither now or hereafter, as the person from 
whom we have received this bounty. But when I 
speak of him, or hear him spoken' of by others, 
which .sometimes happens, I shall not forget what 
is due to so rare a character. 1 wish, and your 
mother wishes it too, that he could sometimes take 

us in his way to ; he will find us happy to 

receive a person whom we must needs account it 
an honour to know. We shall exercise our best 
discretion in the disposal of the money; but in 
this town, where the Gospel has been preached so 
many years, where the people have been favoured 
so long with laborious and conscientious minis- 
ters, it is not an easy thing to find those who 
make no profession of religion at all, and are yet 
proper objects of charily. The profane, are so 
profane, so drurdien, dissolute, and in every re- 
spect worthless, tliat to make them partakers of 
his bounty would be to abuse it. We promise 
however that none shall touch it but such as are 
miserably poor, yet at the same time industrious 
and honest, two characters frequently united here, 
where the most watchful and unremitting labour 
will hardly procure them bread. We make none 
but the ciicapest laces, and the price of them is 
fallen almost to nothing. Thanks are due to your- 
self likewise, and are hereby accordingly rendered, 
for waiving your claim in behalf of your own pa- 
rishioners. You are always with them, and they 
ure always, at least some of them, the better for 
your residence among them. Olney is a popu- 
lous place, inhabited chiefly by the half-starved 
and the ragged of the earth, and it is not possible 
for our small party and small ability to extend their 
ojjerations so far as to be much felt among such 
numbers. Accept therefore your share of their 
gratitude, and be convinced that when they pray 
for a blessing upon those who relieved their wants, 
He that answers that prayer, and when he an- 
swers, will remember his servant at Stock. 

I little thought when I was writing the history 
of John Gilpin, that he would appear in print — I 
intended to laugh, and to make two or three others 
laugli, of whom you were one. But now all tlie 
world laughs, at lea.st if they have the same relish 
for a tale ridiculous in itself, and quaintly told, as 
we have — Well — they do not always laugh so in- 
nocently, and at so small an expense — for in a 
world like this, abounding With subjects for sa- 
tire, and with satirical wits to mark them, a laugh 
that hurts nobody has at l(>ast the grace of no- 
velty to reconnnend it. Swift's darling motto was, 
Vive la bagaU'llc — a good wish for a philosopher 
of his oomplexion, the greater part of whose wis- 
dom, whenccsoever it came, most certainly came 
not from abo\e. La bagatelle has aio enemy in 
me, though it has neither so warm a friend, nor 
wo able a one, as it had in him. If I trifle, and 
nierelv trifle, it \.i bcc.iuse 1 am reduced to it In 



necessity — a melancholy that nothing so eflectu- 
ally disperses, engages me sometimes in the ardu- 
ous task of being merry by force. And, strange 
as it may seem, the most' ludicrous lines 1 ever 
wrote have been written in the saddest mood, and 
but for that saddest mood, perhaps had never 
been written at all. 

I hear from Mrs. Newton, that some great per- 
sons have spoken with great approbation of a cer- 
tain book — Who they are, and what they have 
said, I am to be told in a future letter. Tlie 
Monthly Reviewers in the mean time have satis- 
fied me well enough. 

Yours, my dear WiUiam, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MV DEAR Wirj.I.iM, 

Doctor Beattie is a respectable character. I 
account him a man of sense, a philosopher, a !5(;ho- 
lar, a person of distinguished genius, and a good 
writer. I believe him too a Christian: with a 
profound reverence for the Scripture, with great 
zeal and ability to enforce the belief of it (both 
which he exerts with the candour and good man- 
ners of a gentleman ;) he seems well entitled to 
that allowance ; and to deny it him, would impeach 
one's own right to the appellation. With all these 
good tilings to recommend liim, there can be no 
dearth of sufiicient reasons to read his writings. 
You_ favoured me some years since with one of his 
volumes ; by which I was both pleased and in- 
structed : and I beg that you will send me the new 
one, when you can conveniently spare it, or rather 
brin^ it yourself, while the swallows are yet upon 
the wing ; for the summer is going down apace. 

You tell me you have been asked, if I am intent 
upon another volume 1 I reply — not at i)resent, 
not being convinced that I have met with sufficient 
encouragement. I account myself Jiappy in hav- 
ing pleased a few, but am not rich enough to de- 
spise the many. I do not know what sort of mar- 
ket my commodity has found, but if a slack one, 
I nmst beware how I make a second attempt. My 
bookseller will not be willing to incur a certain 
loss : and I can as httle afibrd it. Notwithstand- 
ing what I -have said, I write, and am even now 
writing for the press. I told you tliat I had trans- 
hited several of the poems of Madame Guion. I 
told you too, or 1 am mistaken, that IMr. Bull de- 
signed to print them. That gentleman is gone to 
the sea-side with Mrs. Wilberlbrce, and will be 
absent six weeks. My intention is to surprise him 
at his return with the addition of as much m(;re 
translation as I have already given him. This, 
however, is still less likely to be- a popular work 
than my former. Men, that have no religion, 
would despise it ; and men, that have no religious 



Let. 115, 116, 117. 



LETTERS. 



229 



experience, would not understand it. But the 
strain of simple and unaflected piety in the origi- 
nal is sweet beyond expression. She sings like an 
angel, and for that very reason has found but few 
admirers. Other things I write too, as you will 
see , on the other side, but these merely for my 
amusement. W. C 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, Jan. 19, 1783. 

Not to retaliate, but* for want of opportunity, 
I have delayed writing. From a scene of most 
uninterrupted retirement, we have passed at once 
into a state of constant engagement ; not that our 
society is much multiplied. The addition of an 
individual has made all this diflerence. Lady 
A"usten and we pass our days alternately at each 
other's chateau. In the morning I walk with one 
■or other of the ladies, and in the afternoon wdnd 
thread. Thus did Hercules and Samson, and thus 
do I ; and were both those heroes living, I should 
not fear to challenge them to a trial of skUl in that 
business, or doubt to beat them both. As to kill- 
ing lions, and other amusements of that kind, with 
which they Were so delighted, I should be tlieir 
humble servant, and beg to be excused. 

Having ne frank, I can not send you Mr. 's 

two letters as I intended. We corresponded as 
long as the occasion required, and then ceased. 
Charmed with his good sense, politeness, and libe- 
rahty to the poor, I was indeed ambitious of con- 
tinuing a correspondence with him, and told him 
so. Perhaps I had done more prudently had I 
never proposed it. But warm hearts are not fa- 
mous for wisdom, and mine was too warm to be very 
considerate on such an occasion. I have not heard 
from him since, and have long given up all expec- 
tation of it. I know he is too busy a man to have 
leisure for me, and ought to have recollected it 
sooner. He found time to do much good, and to 
employ us as his agents in doing it, and that might 
have satisfied me. Though laid under the strict- 
est injunctions of secrecy, both by him, and by you 
on his behalf, I consider myself as under no obli- 
gation to conceal from you the remittances he made. 
Only, in my turn, I beg leave to request secrecy 
on your part, because, intimate as you are with 
him, and highly as hs values you, I can not yet 
be sure that the communication would please him, 
his delicacies on this subject being as singular as 
his benevolence. He sent forty pounds, twenty 
at a time. Olncy has not had such a friend this 
many a day ; nor has there been an instance at 
any time of a few poor families so effectually re- 
lieved, or so completely encouraged to the pursuit 
of that hone.st industry by which, their debts be- 
ing paid, and the parents and children comfortably 



clothed, they are now enabled to maintain them- 
selves. Their labour was almost in vain before ; 
but now it answers ; it earns them bread, and all 
their other wants are plentifully supplied. 

I wish, that by Mr. 's assistance, your 

purpose in behalf of the prisoners may be effectu- 
ated. A i>cn so formidal)le as his might do much 
good, if properly directed. The dread of a bold 
censure is ten times more moving than tlie most 
eloquent persuasion. They that can not feel for 
others, are the persons of all the world who feel 
most sensibly for themselves. 

Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIKND, Feb. 8, 1783. 

When I contemplate the nations of the earth, 
and their conduct towards each other, through the 
medium of a scriptural light, mj"^ opinions of them 
are exactly like your own. Whether they do good 
or do evil, I see them acting under the permission 
or direction of that Providence who governs the 
earth, whose operations are as irresistible as they 
ate silent and unsuspected. So far we are per- 
fectly agreed ; and howsoever we may differ upon 
inferior parts of the subject, it is, as you say, an 
affair of no great consequence. For instance, you 
think the peace a better than we deserve, and in a 
certain sense I agree with you : as a sinful nation 
we deserve no peace at all, and have reason enough 
to be thankful that the voice of war is at any rate 
put to silence. 

Mr. S 's last child is dead; it lived a 

little while in a world of which it knew nothing, 
and has gone to another, in which it has already 
become wiser than the wisest it has left behind. 
The earth is a grain of sand, but the interests of 
man are commensurate with the heavens. 

Mrs. Unwin thanks Mrs. Newton for her kind 
letter, and for executing her commissions. We 
truly love you both, and think of you often. 

W. G. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Feb. 13 and 20, 1783. 

In writing to you I never want a subject. ^ Self 
is always at hand, and self with its concerns is al- 
ways interesting to a friend. 

You may think, perhaps, that having commen- 
ced poet by profession, I am always writing verses. 
Not so — I have written nothing, at least finished 
nothing, since I pubhshed — except a certain face- 
tious history of John Gilpin, which Mr. Unwin 
would send to the Public Advertiser. Perhaps 
you might read it without suspecting the author. 



230 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 118, 119, 120, 



My book procures me favours, which my mo 
desty will not permit me to specify, except one 
which, modest as I am, I can not suppress — a very 
handsome letter from Dr. Franklin at Passy. — 
These fruits it has brought me. 

I have been refreshing myself with a walk in 
the garden, where I find that January (who ac- 
cording to Chaucer was the husband of May) be- 
ing dead, February has married the widow. 

Yours. &c. W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

Olney, Feb. 20, 1783. 
Suspecting that I should not have hinted at 
Dr. Franklin's encomium under any other influ- 
ence than that of vanity, I was several times on 
the point of burning my letter for that very rea- 
son. But not having time to write another by 
the same post, and believing that you would have 
the grace to pardon a little self-complacency in an 
author on so trying an occasion, I let it pass. One 
sin naturally leads to another, and a greater; ^nd 
thus it happens now, for I have no way to gratify 
your curiosity, but by transcribing the letter in 
question. It is addressed, by the way, not to me, 
but to an acquaintance of mine, who had trans- 
mitted the volume to him vrithout mv knowledge. 



Sir, Passy, May 8, 1782. 

I received the letter you did me the honour of 
writing to me, and am much obliged by your kind 
present of a book. The relish for reading of 
poetry had long since left me, but there is some- 
thing so new in the manner, so easy, and yet so 
correct in the language, so clear in the expression, 
yet concise, and so just in the sentiments, that I 
have read the whole with great pleasure, and 
some of the pieces more than once. I beg you to 
accept my thankful acknowledgments, and t^igrre- 
sent my respects to the author. ' 

Your most obedient humble servant, 

B. FRANKLIN. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

Great revolutions happen in this A*nt's nest of 
ours. One Emmet of illustrious character and 
great nbilitics pushes out another; parties are 
formed, they range themselves in formidable op- 
posilioii, they threaten each other's nun. they 
cross over and are mingled together, and like the 
coruscatiorio of the IN'^orthern Aurora amuse the 



spectator, at the same time that by some they arc 
supposed to be forerunners of a general dissolu- 
tion. 

There are political earthquakes as well as na- 
tural ones, the former less shocking to the eye, but 
not always less fatal in their influence than the 
latter. The image which Nebuchadnezzar saw 
in his dream was made up of heterogeneous and 
incompatible materials, and accordingly broken. 
Whatever is so formed must expect a like catas- 
trophe. 

I have an etching of the late Chancellor hang- 
ing over the parlour chiJnney. 1 often contem- 
plate it, and call to mind the day when I was 
intimate with the original. It is very like him, 
but he is disguised by his hat, which, though 
fashionable, is awkward* by his great wig, the tie 
of which is hardly discernible in profile; and by 
his band and gown, which give him an appear- 
ance clumsily sacerdotal. Our friendship is dead' 
and buried, yours is the only surviving one of all 
with which I was once honoured. 

Adieu, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, April 5, 1783. 

When one has a letter to write, there is nothing 
more useful than to make a beginning. In the 
first place, because unless it be begun, there is no 
good reason to hope it will ever be ended ; and se- 
condly, because the beginning is half the business ; 
it being much more difficult to put the pen in mo- 
tion at first, than to continue the progress of it, 
when onc^ moved. 

Mrs. C 's illness, likely to prove mor- 
tal, and seizing her at such a time, has excited 
much compassion in my breast, and in Mrs. Un- 
win's, both for her and her daughter. To have 
parted with a child she loves so much, intending 
soon to follow her; to find herself arrested before 
she could set out, and at so great a distance from 
her most valued relations, her daughter's life too 
threatened by a disorder not often curable, are cir- 
cumstances truly affecting. She has indeed much 
natural fortitude, and to make her condition still 
more tolerable, a good Christian hope for her sup- 
port. But so it is, that the distressesof those who 
least need our pity excite it most; the amiable- 
ness of the character engages our sympathy, and 
we mourn for persons for whom perhaps we might 
more reasonably rejoice. There is still however a 
possibility that she may recover ; an event vie must 
wish for, though for her to depart would be far 
better. Thus we would always withhold from the 
skies those who alone can reach them ; at least till 
we are ready to bear them company. 



Let. 121, 122, 



LETTERS. 



231 



Present our love, if you please, to Miss C . 

I saw in the Gentleman's Magazine for last month 
an account of a physician who has disc■o^'ered a 
new method of treating consumptive cases, which 
has succeeded wonderfully in the trial. He finds 
the seat of the distemper m the stomach, and cures 
it principally by emetics. The old method of en- 
countering the disorder has proved so unequal to 
the task, that I should be nmch inchned to any 
new practice, that comes well recommended. He 
is spoken of as a sensible and judicious man, but 
his name I have forgot. 

Our love to all under your roof, and in particu- 
lar to Miss Catlett, if she is with you. 

Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE Rev. JOHN NEWTON. 

May 5, 1783. 
You may suppose that I did not hear Mr, 



preach, but I heard of him. How different is that 
plainness of speech, which a spiritual theme re- 
quires, from that vulgar dialect which this gentle- 
man has mistaken for it ! Affectation of every sort is 
odious, especially in a minister, and more especial- 
ly an affectation that betrays him into expressions 
fit only for the mouths of the illiterate. Truth 
indeed needs no ornament, neither does a beauti- 
ful person; but to clothe it therefore in rags, when 
a decent habit was at hand, would be esteemed 
preposterous and absurd. The best proportioned 
figure may be made oflensive by beggary and filth ; 
and even truths, which came down from Heaven, 
though they can not forego their nature, may be 
disguised and disgraced by unsuitable language. 
It is strange that a pupil of yours should blunder 
thus. You may be consoled however by reflect- 
ing, that he could not have erred so grossly, if he 
had not totally and wilfully departed both from 
your instruction and example. Were I to describe 
your style in two words, I should call it plain and 
neat, simplicem niunditiis, and I do not know 
how I could give it juster praise, or pay it a greater 
compliment. He that speaks to be understood by 
a congregation of rustics, cind yet in terms that 
would not offend academical ears, has found the 
happy medium. This is certainly practicable to 
men of taste and judgment, and the practice of a 
few proves it. Hactenus de Concionando. 
We are truly glad to hear that Miss C 



is better, and heartily wish you more promising 
accounts from Scotland. Debemur morti nos nos- 
traque. We all acknowledge the debt, but are 
seldom pleased when those we love are required 
to pay it. The demand wOl find you prepared 
for it. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 

16 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, May 12, 1783. 

A LETTER written from such a place as this is 
a creation ; and creation is a work for which mere 
man is very indifferently quaUfied. Ex nihilo ni- 
hil Jit, is a maxim that applies itself in every case 
where deity is not concerned. With this view of 
the matter, I should charge myself with extreme 
folly for pretending to work without materials, did 
I not know, that although nothing could be the 
result, even that nothing will be welcome. If I 
can tell you no news, I can tell you at least that I 
esteem you highly; that my friendship with you 
and yours is the only balm of my Ufe ; a comfort,, 
sufficient to reconcile me to an existence destitute 
of every other. This is not the language of to- 
day, only the effect of a transient cloud suddenly 
brought over me, and suddenly to be removed, but 
punctually expressive of my habitual frame of 
mind, such as it has been these ten years. 

In the Review of last month, I met with an ac- 
count of a sermon preached by Mr. Paley, at the 
consecration of his friend, Bishop Law. The 
critic admires and extols the preacher, and devoutly 
prays the lord of the harvest to send forth more such 
labourers into his vineyard. I rather differ from 
him in opinion, not being able to conjecture in 
what respect the vineyard will be benefited by such 
a measure. He is certainly ingenious, and has 
stretched his ingenuity to the uttermost in order to 
exhibitthe church established, consisti]:ig of bishops, 
priests, and deacons, in the most favourable point 
of view. I lay it dovim for a rule, that when much 
ingenuity is necessary to gain an argument credit, 
that argument is unsound at bottom. So is his, 
and so are all the. petty devices by which he seeks 
to enforce it. He says first, ' that the appoint- 
ment of various orders in the church is attended with 
this good consequence, that each class of people is 
supplied with a clergy of then own level and descrip- 
tion, with whom theymay live and associate on terms 
of equality.' But in order to effect this good pur- 
pose, there ought to be at least three parsons in 
every parish, one for the gentry, one for the traders 
and mechanics, and one for the lowest of the vul- 
gar. Neither is it easy to find many parishes, 
where the laity at large have any society with their 
minister at all. This therefore is fanciful, and a 
mere invention. In the next place he says it gives 
a dignity to the ministry itself, and the clergy share 
in the respect paid to their superiors. Much good, 
may such participation do them! They them- 
selves know how httle it amomits to. The dig- 
nity a parson derives from the \z.wn sleeves and 
square cap of his diocesan will never endanger his 
humility. 



232 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 123, 124, 125, 



Pope says truly- 



Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow ; 
The rest is all but leather or prunello. 

Again—' Rich and splendid situations in the 
church have been justly regarded as prizes, held 
out to invite persons of good hopes, and ingenuous 
attainments.' Agreed. But the prize held out 
in the Scripture is of a very different kind ; and 
our ecclesiastical baits are too often snapped by 
the worthless, and persons of no attainments at 
all. They are indeed incentives to avarice and am- 
bition, but not to those acquirements by which 
only the ministerial function can be adorned — 
zeal for the salvation of men, humility, and self- 
denial. Mr. Paley and I therefore can not agree. 
Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

May 26, 1783. 
I FEEL for my uncle, and do not wonder that his 
loss afflicts him. A connexion that has subsisted 
so many years could not be rent asunder without 
great pain to the survivor. I hope however and 
doubt not but when he has had a little more time 
for recollection, he will find that consolation in his 
own family, which is not the lot of every father to 
be blessed with. It seldom happens that married 
persons live together so long, or so happily ; but 
this, which one feels oneself ready to suggest as 
matter of alleviation, is the very circumstance 
that aggravates his distress ; therefore he misses 
her the more, and feels that he can but ill spare 
her. It is however a necessary tax which all who 
live long must pay for their longevity, to lose many 
whom they would be glad to detain (perhaps those 
in whom all their happiness is centered), and to 
see them step into the grave before them. In one 
respect at least this is a merciful appointment : 
when life has lost that to which it owed its princi- 
pal relish, we may ourselves the more cheerfully 
resign it. I beg you would present him with my 
most affectionate remembrance, and tell him, if 
you think fit, how much I wish that the evening 
of his long day may be serene and happy. 

W. C. 



TO THE REV. J. NEWTON. 

May 31, 1783. 
Wf, rather rejoice than mourn with you on the 

occasion of Mrs. C 's death. In the case 

of believers, death has lost his sting, not only with 
respect to Lhose he takes away, but with respect to 
aurvivors also. Nature indeed will always suggest 



some causes of sorrow, when an amiable and 
Christian friend departs ; but the Scripture, so 
many more, and so much more miportant reasons 
to rejoice, that on such occasions, perhaps more 
remarkably than on any other, sorrow is turned 
into joy. The law of our land is affronted if we • 
say the king dies, and insists on it that he only de- 
mises. This, which is a fiction, where a monarch 
only is in questian, in the case of a Christian is 
reality and truth. He only lays aside a body, 
which it is his privilege to be encumbered with no 
longer ; and instead of dying, in that moment he 
begins to live. But this the world does not un- 
derstand, therefore the kings of it must go on de- 
mising to the end of the chajiter.* W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UN WIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM. JuTlC 8, 1783. 

Our severest winter, commonly called the spring, 
is now over, and I find myself seated in my favour- 
ite recess, the green-house. In such a situation, 
so silent, so shady, where no human foot is heard, 
and where only my myrtles, presume to peep in at 
the window, you may suppose I have no interrup- 
tion to complain of, and that my thoughts are per- 
fectly at my command. But the beauties of the 
spot are themselves an interruption, my attention 
being called upon by those very myrtles, by a dou- 
ble row of grass pinks j ust beginning to blossom, 
and by a bed of beans already in bloom ; and you 
are to consider it, if you please, as no small proof 
of my regard, that though you have so many pow- 
erful rivals, I disengage myself from them all, and 
devote this hour entirely to you. 

You are not acquainted with the Rev. Mr. Bull, 
of Newport, perhaps it is as well for you that you 
are not. You would regret still more than you do, 
that there are so many miles interposed between 
us. He spends part of the day with us to-mor- 
row. A dissenter, but a hberal one: a man of 
letters and of genius ; master of a fine imagination, 
or rather not master of it ; an imagination which, 
when he finds himself in the company he loves, 
and can confide in, runs away with him into such 
fields of speculation, as amuse and enliven every 
other imagination that has the happiness to be of 
the party ! At other times he has a tender and 
dehcate sort of melancholy in his disposition, not 
less agreeable in its way. No men are better qual- 
ified for companions in such a world as this, than 
men of such a temperament. Every scene of life 
has two sides, a dark and a bright one, and the 
mind that has an equal nuxture of melancholy and 



• The Task appears to have been begun between the wri. 
ting of this letter and that which immediately follows. 



Let. 126. 



LETTERS. 



233 



vivacity is the best of all qualified for the contem- 
plation of either. He can be lively without levity, 
and pensive without dejection. Such a man is 
Mr. Bull. But— he smokes tobacco— notliing is 
perfect 

Nihil est ab omni 

Pai'te beatiuii. 

On the other side I sent you a sometliing, a 
song if you please, composed last Thursday — 
the incident happened the day before.* 

Yours, W. C: 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, June 13, 1783. 

I THANK you for your Dutch communications. 
The suffrage of such respectable men must have 
given you much pleasure, a pleasure only to be ex- 
ceeded by the consciousness you had before of hav- 
ing published truth, and of having served a good 
master by doing so. 

I have always regretted that 5'^our ecclesiastical- 
history went no further ; I never saw a work that 
I thought more likely to serve the cause of truth, 
nor history applied to so good a purpose. The 
facts incontestable, the grand observations upon 
them all irrefragable, and the style, in my judg- 
ment, incomparably better than that of Robertson 
or Gibbon. 1 would give you my reasons for think- 
ing so, if I had not a very urgent one for declining 
it. You have no ear for such music, whoever 
may be the performer. What you added, but never 
printed, is quite equal to what has appeared, 
which I think might have encouraged you to pro- 
ceed, though you missed that freedom in writing 
which you found before. While you were at 
Olney this was at leasts possible ; in a state of re- 
tirement you had leisure, without which I suppose 
Paul himself could not have written his Epistles. 
But those days are fled, and every hope of a contin- 
uation is fled with them. ! 

The day of judgment is spoken of not only as a 
surprise, but a snare — a snare upon all the in- 
habitants of the earth. A diffiBrence indeed wall 
obtain in favour of the godly, which is, that though 
a snare, a sudden, in some sense j,n unexpected, 
and in every sense an awful event, yet it will find 
them prepared to meet it. But the day being thus 
characterised, a wide field is consequently open to ' 
conjecture ; some will look for it at one period, and 
some at another; we shall most of us prove at last 
to have been mistaken, and if any should prove to 
have guessed aright, they will reap no advantage, ' 
the felicity of their conjecture being incapable of. 



* Here followed his song of the Rose. 



proof till the day itself shall prove it. My own sen- 
timents upon the subject appear to me perfectly 
scriptural, though I have no doubt that they difier 
totally from those of all who have ever thought 
about it; being however so singular, and of no im- 
portance to the happiness of mankind, and being 
moreover difficult to swallow, Justin proportion as 
they are peculiar, I keep them to myself 

I am, and always have been, a great observer 
of natural appearances, but I think not a super- 
stitious one. The fallibility of those speculations 
which lead men of fanciful minds to interpret 
Scripture hy the contingencies of the day, is evident 
from this consideration, that what the God of the 
Scriptures has seen fit to conceal, he will not as 
the God of nature publish. He is one and the 
same in both capacities, and consistent with him- 
self; and his purpose, if he designs a secret, im- 
penetrable, in whatever way we attempt to open 
it. It is impossible however for an observer of na- 
tural phenomena not to be struck with the singu- 
larity of the present season. The fogs I mentioned 
in my last still continue, though till yesterday the 
earth was as dry as intense heat could make it. 
The sun continues to rise and set vffithout his rays, 
and hardly shines at noon, even in a cloudless sky. 
At eleven last night the moon was a dull red, she 
was nearly at her highest elevation, and had the 
colour of heated brick. She would naturally, I 
know, have such an appearance looking through 
a misty atmosphere; but that such an atmosphere 
should obtain for so long a time, and in a country 
where it has not happened in my remembrance 
even in the wmter, is rather remarkable. We 
have had more thunder storms than have consisted 
well with the peace of the fearful maidens in Ol- 
ney, though not so many as have happened in 
places at no great distance, nor so violent. Yes- 
terday morning, however, at seven o'clock, two fire- 
balls burst either in the steeple or close to it. Wil- 
liam Andrews saw them meet at that point, and 
immediately after saw such a smoke issue from the 
apertures in the steeple as soon rendered it invisi- 
ble : the noise of the explosion surpassed all the 
noises I ever heard — you would have thought that 
a thousand sledge-hammers were battering great 
stones to powder, all in the same instant. The 
weather is still as hot, and the air as full of va- 
pour, as if there had been neither rain nor thunder 
all the sununer. 

There was once a periodical paper published, 
called Mist's Journal : a name well adapted to the 
sheet before you. Misty however as I am, I do 
not mean to be mystical, but to be understood, likie 
an almanack-maker, according to the letter. As 
a poet, nevertheless, I claim, if any wonderful event 
should follow, a right to apply all and every such 
post-prognostic, to the purposes of the tragic muse. 
Yours, W. C. 



234 



COWPER^S WORKS. 



Let. 127, 138, 129. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, June 17, 1783. 

Your letter reached Mr. S while Mr. 

was with him ; whether it vwought any change in 
his opinion of that gentleman, as a preacher, I 
know not, but for my own part I give you full 
credit for the soundness and rectitude of yours. No 
man was ever scolded out of his sins. The heart, 
corrupt as it is, and because it is so, grows angry 
if it be not treated with some management and 
good manners, and scolds again. A surly mastiff 
will bear perhaps to be stroked, though he will 
growl even under that operation, but if you touch 
liun roughly, he will bite. There is no grace that 
the spirit of self can counterfeit with more success 
than a religious zeal. A man thinks he is fighting 
for Christ, and he is fighting for his own notions. 
He thinks that he is skilfully searching the hearts 
of others, when he is only gratifying the malignity 
of his own, and charitably supposes liis hearers 
destitute of all grace, that he may shine the more 
in his own eyes by comparison. W^en he has 
performed this notable task, he wonders that they 
are not converted: ' he has given it them soundly, 
and if they do not tremble, and confess that God 
is in him of a truth, he gives them up as reprobate, 
incorrigible, and lost for ever.' But a man that 
loves me, if he sees mc in an error, will pity me, 
and endeavour calmly to convince me of it, and 
persuade me to forsake it. If he has great and 
good news to tell me, he will not do it angrily, and 
in much heat and discomposure of spirit. It is not 
therefore easy to conceive on what ground a minis- 
ter can justify a conduct which only proves that 
he does not understand his errand. The absurdity 
of it would certainly strike him, if he were not 
himself deluded. 

A people will always love a minister, if a minis- 
ter seems to love his people. The old maxim, Si- 
mile agit in simile, is in no case more exactly veri- 
fied: therefore you were beloved at Olney, and 
if you preached to the Chickesawes, and Chach- 
taws, would be equally beloved by them. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, June 19, 1783. 

The translation of your letters into Dutch was 
news that pleased me much. 1 intended plain 
prose, but a rhyme obtruded itself, and I became 
poetical when I least expected it. When you 
wrote those letters you did not dream that you 
were designed for an apostle to the Dutch. Yet 
so it proves, and such among many others are the 
advantages we derive from the art of printing: an 
^art in which- indisputably man was instructed by 



the same great teacher who taught him to em- 
broider for the service of the sanctuary, and which 
amounts almost to as great a blessing as the gift 
of tongues. 

The summer is passing away, and hitherto has 
hardly been either seen or felt. Perpetual clouds 
intercept the influence of the sun, and for the most 
part there is an autumnal coldness in the weather, 
though we are almost upon the eve of the longest 
day. 

We are well, and alwaj^s mindful of you; be 
mindful of us, and assured that we love you. 

Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, July 27, 1783. 

You can not have more pleasure in receiving a 
letter from me, than I should find in writing it, 
were it not almost impossible in such a place to 
find a subject. 

I live in a world abounding with incidents, upon 
which many grave, and perhaps some profitable 
observations might be made; but those incidents 
never reacliing my unfortunate ears, both the en- 
tertaining narrative and the reflection it might 
suggest are to me annihilated and lost. I look 
back to the past week, and say, what did it pro- 
duce 1 I ask the same question of the week pre- 
ceding, and dul}^ receive the same answer from 
both — nothing ! — A situation like this, in which I 
am as unknown to the world, as I am ignorant 
of all that passes in it, in which I have nothing to 
do but to think, would exactly, suit rae, were my 
subjects of meditation as agreeable as my leisure is 
uninterrupted. My passion for retirement is not 
at all abated, after so many years spent in the 
most sequestered state, but rather increased. A 
circumstance I should esteem \fronderful to a de- 
gree not to be accounted for, considering the con- 
diticm of my mind, did I not know, that we think 
as we are made to think,' and of course approve and 
prefer, as Providence, who appoints the bounds 
of our habitation, chooses for us. Thus am I both 
free and a prisoner at the same time. The world 
is before me; I am not shut up in the Bastile; 
there are no moats about my castle, no locks upon 
my gates, of which I have not the key — but an 
invisible, uncontrollable agency, a local attach- 
ment, an inclination more forcible than I ever felt, 
even to the place of my birth, serves me for prison 
walls, and for bounds which I can not pass. In 
former years I have known sorrow, and before I 
had ever tasted of spiritual trouble. The cflfcct 
was an abhorrence of the scene in which I had 
suffered so much, and a weariness of those objects 
which I had so long looked at with an eye of des- 
pondency and dejection. But it is otherwise with 



Let. 130, 131. 



LETTERS. 



235 



me now. The same cause subsisting, and in a bi net of perfumes'? It is at this moment fronted 
much more powerful degree, fails to produce its | with carnations and balsams, with mignionette and 
natural effect. The very stones in the garden- ; roses, with jessamine and woodbine, and wants 
walls are my intimate acquaintance. I should | nothing but your pipe to make it truly Arabian; 
miss almost the minutest object, and be disagreea- a wilderness of sweets ! The sofa is ended but 
bly affected by its removal, and am persuaded that i not finished, a paradox which your natural acu- 



were it possible 1 could leave this incommodious 
nook for a twelvemontli, I should return to it again 
with rapture, and be transported with the sight 
of objects which to all the world beside would be 

• at least indiflerent; some of them perhaps, such as 
the ragged thatch and thd tottering walls of the 
neighbouring cottages, disgusting. But so it is, 
and it is so, because here is to be my abode, and 

•because such is the appointment oi Him that placed 
me in it — 

Iste terrarum mihi proeter omnes 
Angulus ridet. 

It is the place of all the world I love the most, not 
for any happiness it affords me, but because here 
I can be miserable with most convenience to my- 
self, and with the least disturbance to others. 

You wonder, and (I dare say) unfeignedly, be- 
cause you do not thmk yourself entitled to such 
praise, that I prefer your style, as an historian, to 
that of the two most renowned writers of history 
the present day has seen. That you may not sus- 
pect me of having said more than my real opinion 
will warrant, I will tell you why. In your style 
I see no afiectation. In every line of theirs I see 
nothing else. They disgust me always, Robertson 
with his pomp and his strut, and Gibbon with his 
finical and French manners. You are as correct 
as they. You express yourself with as much pre- 
cision. Your words are ranged with as much 
propriety, but you do not set your periods to a 
tune. They discover a perpetual desire to exhibit 
themselves to advantage, whereas your subject en- 
grosses you. They sing, and you say; which, as 
history is a thing to be said, and not sung, is, in 
my judgment, very much to your advantage. A 
writer that despises their tricks, and is yet neither 
inelegant nor inharmonious, proves himself, by 
that single circmnstance, a man of superior judg- 
ment and ability to them both You have my 
reasons. I honour a manly character, in which 
good sense, and a desire of doing good, are the 
predominant features — but affectation is an emetic. 

W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL. 

August 3, 1783. 
Your seaside situation, your beautiful prospects, 
your fine rides, and the sight of the palaces which 
you have seen, we have not envied you ; but are 
glad that you have enjoyed them. Why should 
we envy any man 1 Is not our green-house a ca- 



men, sharpened by habits of logical attention, will 
enable you to reconcile in a moment. Do not im- 
agine, however, that 1 lounge over it — on the con- 
trary, I find it severe exercise to mould and fashion 
if to my mind !* 

I was always an admirer of thunder-storms, even 
before 1 knew whose voice I heard in them ; but 
especially an admirer of thunder rolling over the 
great waters. There is something singularly ma- 
jestic in the sound of it at sea, where the eye and 
the ear have uninterrupted opportunity of obser- 
vation, and the concavity above being made spa- 
cious reflects it with more advantage. I have con- 
sequently envied you your situation, and the en- 
joyment of those refreshing breezes that belong to 
it. We have indeed been regaled with some of 
those bursts of ethereal music. — The peals have 
been as loud, by the report of a gentleman who 
lived many years in the West Indies, as were ever 
heard in those islands, and the flashes as splendid. 
But when the thunder preaches, an horizon bound- 
ed by the ocean is the only sounding-board. 

I have had but little leisure, strange as it may 
seem, and that little I devoted for a month after 
your departure to Madame Guion. I have made 
fair copies of all the pieces I have produced on this 
last occasion, and will put them into your hands 
when we meet. They are yours, to sers'c as you 
please; you may take and leave, as you like, for 
my purpose is already served; they have amused 
me, and I have no further demand upon them. 
The lines upon friendship, however, wliich were 
not sufficiently of a piece with the others, will not 
now be wanted. I have some other little tilings, 
which I will communicate when time shall serve ; 
but I can not now transcribe them. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, August 4, 1783. 

I FEEL myself sensibly obliged by the interest 
you take in the success of my productions. Your 
feelings upon the subject are such as I should 
have myself, had I an opportunity of calling John- 
son aside to make the enquiry you propose. But 
I am pretty well prepared for the worst, and so 
long as I have the opinion of a few capable judges 
in my favour, and am thereby convinced that I 
have neither disgraced myself lior my subject, shall 
not feel myself disposed to any extreme anxiety 



The prosecution of ihe Task seems to have been deferred 
till towards tlie end of October. 



23G 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 133. 



about tlie sale. To aim with success at the spirit- 
ual good of mankind, arid to become popular by 
writing on scrii)tural subjects, were an unreasona- 
ble ambilioii, even for a poet to entertain in days 
like these. Verse may have many charms, but 
has none powerful enough to conquer the aversion 
of a dissipated age to such instruction. Ask the 
question therefore boldly, and be not. mortified 
even though he should shake his head and drop 
his chin ; for it is no more than we have reason to 
expect. We will lay the fault upon the vice of 
the times, and we will acquit the poet. 

I am glad you were pleased with my Latin ode, 
and indeed with my English dirge as much as I 
was myself The tune laid me under a disadvan- 
tage, obliging me to write in Alexandrines ; which 
I suppose would suit no ear but a French one ; 
neither did I intend any thing more than that the 
subject and the words should be sufficiently ac- 
commodated to the music. The ballad is a spe- 
cies of poetry I believe peculiar to this country, 
equally adapted to the drollest and the most tragi- 
cal subjects. Sunplicity and ease are its proper 
characteristics. Our forefathers excelled in it ; 
but we moderns have lost the art. It is observed, 
that we have few good English odes. But to 
make amends, we have many excellent ballads, 
not inferior perhaps in true poetical merits to some 
of the very best odes that the Greek or Latin lan- 
guages have to boast of It is a sort of composi- 
tion I was ever fond of, and if graver matters had 
not called me another way, should have addicted 
myself to it more than to any other. I inherit a 
taste for it from my father, who succeeded well in 
it himself, and who lived at a time when the best 
pieces in that way were produced. What can be 
prettier than Gay's ballad, or rather Swift's, Arbuth- 
not's. Pope's, and Gay's, in the What do ye call 
it — " 'Twaswhen the seas were roaringT' I have 
been well informed that they all contributed, and 
that the most celebrated association of clever fel- 
lows this country ever saw, did not think it be- 
neath them to unite their strength and abilities in 
the composition of a song. The success however 
answered their wishes. The ballads that Bourne 
has translated, beautiful in themselves, are still 
more beautiful in his version of them, infinitely 
surpassing in my judgment all that Ovid or Ti- 
bullus have left behind them. They arc quite as 
elegant, and far more touching and pathetic than 
the tcndcrest strokes of either. 

So much for ballads, and ballad writers. — " A 
worthy subject," you will say, " for a man whose 
head might be filled with better things'." and it is 
filled with better tilings, but to so ill a purpose, 
that I tlirust into it all manner of topics that may 
prove more amusing; as for Instance I have two 
goldfinches, which in the summer occupy the 
green-house. A few days since, being employed 



in cleaning out their cages, I placed that which I 
had in hand upon the table, while the other hung 
against the wall : the windows and the doors stood 
wide open. I went to fill the fountain at the pump, 
and on my return was not a little surprised to find 
a goldfinch sitting on the top of the cage I had 
been cleaning, and singing to and kissing the gold- 
finch within. I approached him, and he disco- 
vered no fear; still nearer, and he discovered none. 
I advanced my hand towards him, and he took no 
notice of it. I seized him, and supposed I had 
caught a new bird, but casting my eye upon the 
other cage perceived my mistake. Its inhabitant, 
during my absence, had contrived to find an open- 
ing, where the wire had been a little bent, and 
made no other use of the escape it afforded him, 
than to salute his friend, and to converse with 
him more intimately than he had done before. I 
returned him to liis proper mansion, but in vain. 
In less than a minute lie had thrust his little per- 
son through the aperture again, and again perched 
upon his neighbour's cage, kissing him as at the 
first, and singing, as if transported with the fortu- 
nate adventure. I could not but respect such 
friendship, as for the sake of its gratification had 
twice declined an opportunity to be free, and con- 
senting to their union, resolved that for the future 
one cage should hold them both. I am glad of such 
incidents. For at a pinch, and when I need en- 
tertainment, the versification of them serves to di- 
vert me. 

I transcribe for you a piece of Madam Guion, 
not as the best, but as being shorter than many, 
and as good as most of them. 

Yours ever, .W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Sept. 7, 1783. 

So long a silence needs an apology. I have been 
hindered by a three-weeks visit from our Hoxton 
friends, and by a cold and feverish complaint, 
which are but just removed. 

The French poetess is certainly chargeable with 
the fault you mention, though I thought it not so 
glaring in the piece I sent you. I have endeavoured 
indeed, in all the translations I have made, to cure 
her of that evil, either by the suppression of pas- 
sages exceptionable upon that account, or by a 
more ^ober and respectful manner of expression. 
Still however she will be found to have conversed 
familiarly with God, but I hope not fulsomely, 
nor so as to give reasonable disgust to a religious 
reader. That God should deal familiarly with 
man, or which is the same thing, that he should 
permit man to deal flimiharly with him, seems 
not very difficult to conceive, or presumptuous to 
suppose, wlien some things are _taken into consi- 
deration. Wo to the sinner that shall dare to take 



Let. 133, 134 



LETTERS. 



237 



a liberty with him tliat is not warranted by his 
word, or to which he himself has not encouraged 
_ him. When he assumed man's nature, he revealed 
hiniself as the friend of man, as the brother of 
every soul that loves him. He conversed freely 
with man while he was on edrth, and as freely 
with him after his resurrection. 1 doubt not there- 
fore that it is possible to enjoy an access to him 
even now imincumbered with ceremonious awe, 
easy, delightful, and without constraint. This 
however can only be the lot of those who make it 
the business of their lives to please him, and to 
cultivate coirmiunion with him. And then I pre- 
sume there can be no danger of offence, because 
such a habit of the soul is of liis own creation, and 
near as we come, we come no nearer to him than 
he is .pleased to draw us. If we address him afe 
children, it is because he tells us he is our father. 
If we unbosom ourselves to him as to a friend, it 
is because he calls us friends; and if we speak to 
him in the language of love, it is because he first 
used it, thereby teaoliing us that it is the language 
he delights to hear from his people. But I con- 
fess that through the weakness, the folly, and cor- 
ruption of human nature, this privilege, hke all 
other Christian privileges, is liable to abuse. There 
' is a mixture of evil in every thing we do, indul- 
gence encourages ns to encroach, and while we 
exercise the rights of children, we become childish. 
Here I think is the point in which my authoress 
failed, and here it is that I have particularly guard- 
ed my translation, not afraid of representing her 
as dealing with God familiarly, but foohshly, irre- 
verently, and without due attention to his majesty, 
of which she is somewhat guilty. A wonderful 
fault for such a woman to fall into, who spent her 
hfe in the contemplation of his glory, who seems 
to have been always impressed with a sense of it, 
and sometimes quite absorbed by the views she 
had of it. W. C 



TO THE REV. J. NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Sept. 8, 1783. 

Mrs. Unwin would have answered your kind 
note from Bedford, had not a pain in her side pre 
vented her. I, who am her secretary upon such 
occasions, should certainly have answered it for 
her, but was hindered by illness, having been my 
self seized with a fever immediately after your de 
parture. The accoimt of your recovery gave us 
great pleasure, and I am persuaded that you will 
feel yourself repaid by the information that I give 
you of niine. The reveries your head was filled 
with, while your disorder was most prevalent, 
though they were but reveries, and the ofTsprino- 
of a heated imagination, afforded you yet a com- 



fortable evidence of the predominant bias of your 
heart and mind- to the best subjects. I had none 
such — indeed I was in no degree deUrious, nor has 
any thing less than a fever really dangerous ever 
made me so. In this respect, if in no other, I 
may be said to have a strong head; and perhaps 
for the same reason that wine would never make 
me drunk, an ordinary degree of fever has no 
effect upon my understanding. The epidemic be- 
gins to be more mortal, as the autumn comes on, 
and in Bedfordshire it is reported, how truly I can 
not say, to be nearly as fatal as the plague. I 
heard lately of a clerk in a public office, whose 
chief employment it was for many years to admi- 
nister oaths, who being light-headed in a fever, of 
which he died, spent the last week of his life in 
crying day and night — " So help you, God — kiss 
the book — give me a shilling." What a wretch in 
comparison with you ! 

Mr. S has been ill almost ever since you 

left us; and last Saturday, as on many foregoing 
Saturdays, was obliged to clap on a blister by way 
of preparation for liis Sunday labours. He can 
not draw breath upon any other termsi If holy 
orders were always conferred upon such condi- 
tions, I question but even bishopricks themselves 
Would want an occupant. But he is easy and 
cheerful. 

I beg you will mention me kindly to Mr. Ba- 
con, and make Irim sensible that if I did not write 
the paragraph he wished for, it was not owing to 
any want of respect for the desire he expressed, 
but to mere inabihty. If in a state of mind that 
almost disqualifies me for society, I could possibly 
wish to form a new connexion, I should wish to 
know him; but I never shall, and things being as 
they are, I do not regret it. You are my old 
friend, therefore I do not spare you; having known 
you in better days, I make you pay for any plea- 
sure I might then afford you, by a communication 
of my present pains. But I have no claims of this 
sort upon Mr. Bacon. 

Be pleased to remember us both, with much 
affection, to Mrs. Newton, and to her and your 

Eliza; to Miss C likewise, if she is with 

you. Poor Eliza droops and languishes, but in 
the land to which she is going, she will hold up 
her head and droop no more. A sickness that 
leads the way to everlasting life is better than the 
health of an antediluvian. Accept our united 
love My dear friend, 

Sincerely yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Sept. 23, 1783. 

We are glad that having been attacked by a 



238 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 135. 



fever, which lias often proved fatal, and almost 
always leaves the sufferer debilitated to the last 
degree, you lind yourself so soon restored to health, 
and your strength recovered. Your health and 
strength arc useful to others, and in that view im- 
portant in his account who dispenses both, and 
by your means a more precious gift than either. 
For my own part, though liiave not been laid up, 
I have never been perfectly well since "you left us. 
A smart fever, which lasted indeed but a few 
hours, succeeded by lassitude and want of spirits, 
that seemed still to indicate a feverish habit, has 
made for some time, and still niakes me very unfit 
for my favourite occupations, writing and reading 

so that even a letter, and even a letter to you, 

is not without its burthen. 

John has had the epidemic, and has it 

still, but grows better. When he was first seized 
with it, he gave notice that he should die, but in this 
only instance of prophetic exertion he seems to 
have been mistaken; he has however been very 
near it. I should have told you, that poor John has 
been very ready to depart, and much comforted 
through hie whole illness. He, you know, though 
a silent, has been a very steady professor. He 
indeed fights battles, and gains victories, but malves 
no noise. Europe is not astonished at his feats, 
foreign academics do not seek him for a member ; 
he will never discover the art of flying, or send a 
globe of tafl'eta up to heaven. But he will go 
thither himself 

Since you went we dined with Mr. . I 

had sent him notice of our visit a week before, 
which like a contemplative, studious man, as he is, 
ne put in his pocket and forgot. When we arrived, 
the parlour windows were shut, and the house had 
the appearance of being uninhabited. After wait- 
ing some time, however, the maid opened the door, 
and the master presented himself It is hardly 
worth while to observe so repeatedly that his gar- 
den seems a spot contrived only for the growth of 
melancholy, but being always aflected by it in the 
same way, I can not help it. He showed me a 
nook, in which he had placed a bench, and where 
he said he found it very refreshing to smoke his 
pipe and meditate. Here he sits, with his back 
aiTainst one brick wall, and his nose against ano- 
ther, which must you know be very refreshing, and 
greatly assist meditation. He rejoices the more 
in this niche, because it is an acciuisition made at 
some expense, and with no small labour ; several 
loads of earth were removed in order to make it, 
which loads of earth, had I the management of i 
them, I should carry thitlier again, and fill up a 
place more fit in appearance to be a repository for 
the dead than the living. I would on no account 
put any man out of conceit with his innocent en- 
joyments, and therefore never tell him my thoughts 
upon this subject, but he is not seldom low sju- 



rited, and I can not but suspect that his situation 
helps to malie him so. 

I shall be obliged to you for Hawkesworth's 
Voyages when it can be sent conveniently. The 
long evenings are beginning, and nothing short- 
ens them so- eifectually as reading aloud. 

Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY "DEAR WILLIAM, Sept. 29, 1783. 

We are sorry that you and your household par- 
take so largely of the ill efi'ects of this unhealthy 
season. You are happy however in having hith- 
erto escaped the epidemic fever, which has pre- 
vailed much m this part of the kingdom, an.d car- 
ried many off. Your mother and I are well. Af- 
ter more than a fortnight's indisposition, whicli 
slight appellation is quite adequate to the descrip- 
tion of all I suffered , I am at length restored by 
a grain or two of emetic tartar. It is a tax I 
generally pay in autumn. By this time, I hope, 
a purer ether than we have seen for months, and 
these brighter suns than the summer had to boast, 
liave cheered your spirits, and made your existence 
more comfortable. We are rational. But we are 
animal too, and therefore subject to the influences 
of the weather. The cattle in the fields show evi- 
dent symptoms of lassitude and disgust in an un- 
pleasant season ; and wc, their lords and masters, 
are consti-ained to sympathize with them : the only 
difference between us is, that they know not the 
cause of their dejection, and we do, but for our 
humiliation, are equally at a loss to cure it. Up- 
on this account I have sometimes wished myself a 
philosopher. How happy, in comparison with 
myself, does the sagacious investigator of nature 
seem, whose fancy is ever employed in the inven- 
tion of hypotheses, and his reason in the support 
of them ! While he is accounting for the origin 
of the winds, he has no leisure to attend to their 
influence upon himself— and while he considers 
what the sun is made of, forgets that he has not 
shone for a month. One project indeed supplants 
another. The vortices of Descartes gave way to 
the gravitation of Newton, and this again is 
threatened by the electrical fluid of a modern. One 
generation blows bubbles, and the next breaks 
them. But in the mean time your philosopher is 
a happy man. He escapes a thousand inquietudes 
to wliich the indolent are subject, and finds his 
occupation, -whether it be the pursuit of a butter- 
fly, or a demonstration, the wholesomest exercise in 
the world.. As he proceeds he applauds himself. 
His discoveries, though eventfully perhaps they 
prove but dreams, are to him realities. The world 
gaze at him, as he does at new phenomena in the 
heavens, and perhaps understands liim as little. 



Let. 136. 



LETTERS. 



239 



But this does not prevent their praises, nor at all 
distiirb him in the enjoyment of that self-compla- 
cence, to which his imaginary success entitles 
him. He wears his honours while he hves, and 
if another strips them oft" when he has been dead 
a century, it is no great matter; he can then 
make shift without them. 

I have said a great deal upon this subject, and 
know not what it all amounts to. I did. not intend 
a syllable of it when I began. But currente ca- 
larno, I stumbled upon it. My end is to amuse 
myself and you. The former of these two points 
is secured. I shall be happy if I. do not miss the 
latter. 

By the way, what is your opinion of these- air- 
balloons 1 I am quite charmed with the discovery. 
Is it not possible (do you suppose) to convey such 
a quantity of inflammable air in the stomach and 
abdomen^ that the philosopher, no longer gravita- 
ting to a centre, shall ascend by his own compara- 
tive levity, and never stop till he has reached the 
medium exactly in equilibrio with himself? May 
Ke not by the help of a pasteboard rudder, at- 
tached to his posteriors, steer himself in that purer 
element with ease, and again by a slow and grad- 
ual discharge of his aerial contents, recover his 
former tendency to the earth, and descend without 
the smallest danger or inconvenience'? These 
things are worth inquiry ; and (I dare say) they 
will be inquired after as they deserve : The pennce 
non homini datee are likely to be less regretted 
than they were ; and perhaps a flight of academi 
cians and a covey of fine ladies may be no micom 
moil spectacle in the next generation. A letter 
which appeared in the pubhc prints last weel 
convinces me that the learned are not without 
hopes of some such improvement upon this dis 
covery. The author is a sensible and ingenious 
man, and under a reasonable apprehension that 
the ignorant may feel themselves incKned to laugh 
upon a subject that aflfects himself with the utmost 
seriousness, with much good manners and man- 
agement bespeaks their patience, suggesting ma- 
ny good consequences that may result from a 
course of experiments upon tliis machine, and 
amongst others, that it may be of use in ascertain- 
ing the shape of continents and islands, and the 
face of wide-extended and far distant countries ; 
an end not to be hoped for, unless by these means 
of extraordinary elevation the hmnan prospect 
may be immensely enlarged, and the philosopher, 
exalted to the skies, attain a view of the whole 
hemisphere at once. But whether he is to ascend 
by the mere inflation of his person, as hinted 
above, or whether in a sort of bandbox, supported 
upon balloons, is not yet apparent, nor (I suppose) 
even in his own idea perfectly decided. 

Yours, my dear William, W. C. 



• TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, ■ , ■ • October 6, 1783. 

It is indeed a melancholy consideration, that 
the Gospel, whose direct tendency is to promote 
the happiness of mankind in the present life as 
well as the liie to come, and which so eflectually 
answers the design of its author, whenever it is 
well understood and sincerely believed, should, 
through the ignorance, the bigotry, the supersti- 
tion of its professors, and the ambition of popes, 
and princes, the tools of popes, have produced in- 
cidentally so much mischief; only furnishing the 
world with a plausible excuse to worry each other, 
while they sanctified the worse cause with the 
specious pretext of zeal for the fiirthera'ncp of the 
best. 

Angels descend from Heaven to pubhsh peace 
between man and his Maker-^the Prince of Peace 
himself comes to confirm and establish it, and 
war, hatred, and desolation are the consequence. 
Thousands quarrel about the interpretation of a 
book which none of them understand. He that is 
slain dies firmly persuaded that the crown of mar- 
tyrdom expects him; and he that slew him is 
equally convinced that he has done God service. 
In reality they are both mistaken, and equally un- 
entitled to the honour they arrogate to them- 
selves. If a multitude of bhnd men should set out 
for a certain city, and dispute about the right 
road till a battle ensued between them, the proba- 
ble effect would be that none of them would ever 
reach it; and such a fray, preposterous and shock- 
ing in the extreme, would exhibit a picture in 
some degree resemblmg the original of which we 
have been speaking. And why is not the world 
thus occupied at present! even because they have 
exchanged a zeal, that was no better, than mad- 
ness, for an indifterence equally pitiable and ab- 
surd. The holy sepulchre has lost its importance 
in the eyes of nations called Christians, not be- 
cause the light of true wisdom has delivered them 
from a superstitious attachment to the spot, but 
because he that was buried in it is no longer re- 
garded by them as the Saviour of the world. The 
exercise of reason, enlightened by philosoph}^ has 
cured them indeed of the misery of an abused un- 
derstanding, but together with the delusion they 
have lost the substance, and for the sake of the hes 
that were grafted upon it have quarreled with the 
truth itself. Here then we see the ne phis ultra of 
himian wisdom, at last in affairs of religion. It 
enlightens the mind with respect to nonessentials 
but with respect, to that in which the essence of 
Christianity consists, leaves it perfectly in the 
dark. It can discover many errors that in differ- 
ent ages have disgraced the faith; but it is only 



240 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 137. 



to make way for the admission of one more fotal 
than them all, which represents that faith itself 
as a delusion. Why those evils have been per- 
mitted- shall be known hereafter. One thing in 
the mean time is certain, that the folly and frenzy 
of the professed disciples of the Gospel have been 
more dangerous to its interests, than all the avow- 
ed hostihties of its adversaries; and perhaps for 
this cause these mischiefs might be suflered to 
prevail for a season, that its divine original and 
nature might be the more illustrated, when it 
should appear that it was able to stand its ground 
for ages against that most formidable of all at- 
tacks, the indiscretion of its friends. The out- 
rages that have followed tliis perversion of the 
truth have proved indeed a stumbling-block to in- 
dividuals; the wise of this world, with all their 
wisdom, have not been able to distinguish be- 
tween the blessing, and the abuse of it. Voltaire 
was offended, and Gibbon has turned his back; 
but the flock of Christ is still nourished,- and still 
increases, notwithstanding the unbehef of a phi- 
losopher is able to convert bread into a stone, and 
a fish into a serpent. 

I am much obliged to you for the vo3^ages, 
which I received, and began to read last night. 
My imagination is so captivated upon these occa- 
sions, that 1 seem to partake with the navigators 
in all the dangers they encountered. I lose my 
anchor ; my mainsail is rent into shreds ; I kill a 
shark, and by signs converse with a Patagonian, 
and all this without moving from the fireside. 
The principal fruits of these circuits, that have 
been made around the globe, seem likely to be the 
amusement of those that staid at home. Discove- 
ries have been made, but such discoveries as will 
hardly satisfy the expense of such undertakings. 
We brought away an Indian, and having de- 
bauched him, we sent him home again to commu- 
nicate the infection to his country — fine sport, to 
be sure, but such as will not defray the cost. Na- 
tions that live upon bread-fruit, and have no 
mines to make them worthy of our acquaintance, 
will be but little A'isited for the future. So much 
the better for them! their poverty is indeed their 
mercy. 

Your.?, my dear friend, W. C, 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Octobcr, 1783. 

I AM much obhgcd to you for your American 
anecdotes, and feel the obligation perhaps more 
sensibly, the labour of transcribing being in parti- 
cular that to which I myself have the greatest 
aversion. The Loyahsts are much to be pitied; 
driven from all the comforts that depend upon and 
are intimately connected with a residence in their 



native land, and sent to cultivate a distant one, 
without the means of doing it ; abandoned, too, 
through a deplorable necessity, by the govern- 
ment to which they have sacrificed all ; they ex- 
hibit a spectacle of distress, which one can not 
view even at this distance without participating in 
what they feel. Why could not some of our use- 
less wastes and forests have been allotted to their 
support 1 To have built them houses indeed, and 
to have furnished them with implements, of hus- 
bandry, would have put us to no small expense; 
but I suppose the increase of population, and the 
improvement of the soil, would soon have been 
felt as a national advantage, and have indemnified 
the state, if not enriched it. We are bountiful to 
foreigners, and neglect those of our own house- 
hold. I remember that compassionating the mise- 
ries of the Portuguese, at the time of the Lisbon 
earthquake, we sent them a ship load of tools to 
clear away the rubbish with, and to assist them 
in rebuilding the city. I remember too, it was 
reported at the time, that the court of Portugal 
accepted our wheelbarrows and spades wdth a 
very ill grace, and treated our bounty with con- 
tempt. An act like tliis in behalf of our brethren, 
carried only a little further, might possibly have 
redeemed theiu from ruin, have resulted in emo- 
lument to ourselves, have been received with joy, 
and repaid with gratitude. Such are my specu- 
lations upon the subject, who not being a politi- 
cian by profession, and very seldom giving my 
attention for a moment to such a matter, may not 
be aware of difficixlties and objections, which they 
of the cabinet can discern with half an eye. Per- 
haps to have taken under our protection a race 
of men proscribed by the Congress might be 
thought dangerous to the interests we hope to 
have hereafter in their high and mighty regards 
and afiections. It is ever the way of those who 
rule. the earth, to leave out of their reckoning Him 
who rules the universe. They forget that the 
poor have a friend more powerful to avenge, than 
they can be to oppress, and that treachery and 
perfidy must therefore prove bad policy in the 
end. The Americans themselves ' appear to me 
to be in a situation little less pitiable than that 
of the deserted Loyalists. Their fears; of arbitrary 
imposition -were certainly well founded, A strug- 
gle therefore might be necessary, in order to pre- 
vent it, and this end might surely have been an- 
swered without a renunciation of dependence. 
But the passions of a whole people, once put in 
motion, are not soon quieted. Contest begets 
aversion, a little success inspires more ambitious 
hopes, and thus a slight quarrel terminates at last 
in a breach never to be healed, and perhaps in the 
ruin of both parties. It does not seem likely that 
a countiy so distinguished by ' the Creator with 
every thing that can make it desirable, should be 



Let. 138, 139. 



LETTERS. 



241 



•given up to desolation for ever; and they may 
possibly have reason on their side, who suppose 
that in time it will have the pre-eminence over all 
others; but the day of such prosperity seems far 
distant — Omnipotence indeed can hasten it, and 
it may dawn when it is least expected. But we 
. govern ourselves in all our reasonings by present 
appearances. Persons at least no better informed 
than myself are constrained to do so. 

I intended to have taken another subject when 
I began, and I wish I had. No man living is 
less qualified to settle nations than I am; but 
when I write to you, I talk, that is, I write as 
fast as my pen can run, and on this occasion it 
ran away with me. I acknowledge myself in 
your debt for your last favour, but can not pay yx)u 
■ now, unless you will accept .as payment, what I 
know you value more than all I can say beside, 
the most unfeigned assurances of my aflectiou for 
you and yours. 

Yours, &c. W. C, 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. . 

Oct. 20, 1783. 

I SHOULD not have been thus long silent, had I 
known with certainty where a letter of mine might 
find you. Your summer excursions however are 
now at an end, and addressing a line ta you in 
the centre of the busy scene in which you spend 
your winter, I am pretty sure of my mark. 

I see the winter approaching without much con- 
-cern, though a passionate lover of fine weather 
and the pleasant scenes of summer; but the long 
evenings have their comforts too, and there is 
hardly to be found upon the earth, I suppose, so 
snug a creature as an Englishman by his fireside 
in the winter.- I mean however an Englishman 
that lives in the country, for in London it is not 
very easy to avoid intrusion. I have two ladies 
to read to, sometimes more, but never less — at pre- 
sent we are circumnavigating the globe, and I find 
the old story with which I amused myself some 
years since, through the great feUcity of a memory 
not very retentive, almost new. I am however 
sadly at a loss for Cook's voyage, can you send it 1 
I shall be glad of Foster's too. These together 
will make the winter pass merrily, and you will 
much ol)lige me W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, Nov. 10, 1783. 

I HAVE lost and wasted almost all my writincf 
time, in making an alteration in the verses I either 
enclo-se or subjoin, for I know not which will be 



the case at present.* If prose comes readily, I shall 
transcribe them on another sheet, otherwise, on this. 
You will understand, before you have read many 
of them, that they are not for the press. I lay 
you under no other injunctions. The unkind be- 
haviour of our acquaintance, though it is possible 
that in some instances it may not much affect our 
happiness, nor engage many of our thoughts, will 
sometimes obtrude itself upon us with a degree of 
importunity not easily resisted; and'theji perhaps, 
though almost insensible of it before, we feel more 
than the occasion will justify. In such a moment 
it was that I conceived this poem, and gave loose 
to a degree of resentment, which perhaps I ought 
not to have indulged, but which in a cooler hour 
I can not altogether condemn. My former inti- 
macy with the two characters was such, that I 
could not but feel myself provoked by the neglect 
with which they both treated me on a late occa- 
sion. So much by way of preface. 

You ought not tcfhave supposed that if you had 
visited us last summer, the pleasure of the inter- 
view would have been all your own. By such an 
imagination you wrong both yourself and us. Do 
you suppose we do not love you 1 You can not 
suspect your niother of coldness; and as to me, 
assure yourself I have no friend in the world with 
whom I communicate without the least reserve, 
yourself excepted. Take heart then, and when 
you find a favourable opportunity to come, assure 
yourself of such a welcome from us both as you 
have a right to look for. But I have observed in 
your two last letters somewhat of a dejection and 
melancholy, that I am afraid you do not sufficient- 
ly strive against. I suspect you of being too seden- 
tary. " You can not walk." Why you can not 
is best known to yourself I am sure your legs 
are lon^ enough, and your person does not overload 
them. But I beseech you ride, and ride often. I 
think I. have heard you say, 3'ou can not even do 
that without an object. Is not health an object 1 
Is not a new prospect, which in most countries is 
gained at the end. of every mile, an object 1 As- 
sure yourself that easy chairs are no friends to 
cheerfulness, and that a long winter spent by the 
fireside is a prelude to an unhealthy spring. Every 
thing I see in the fields is to me an object, and I 
can look at the same rivulet, or at a handsome 
tree, every day of my life, with new pleasure. 
This indeed is partly the effect of a natural taste 
for niral beauty, and partly the effect of habit; 
for I never in all my hfe have let slip the opportu- 
nity of breathing fresh air, and of conversing with 
nature, when 1 could fairly catch it. I earnestly 
recommend a cultivation of the same taste to 5-0U, 
suspecting that you have neglected it, and suffer 
for doing so. 



* Versea from a poem entitled Valediction. Vide Poems, 



242 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



LST. 140, 141. 



Last Saturday sc'nnight, the moment I had 
composed mj'self in my bed, 3'our mother too hav- 
ing just got into liers, we were alarmed by a cry 
of iire on the staircase. I immediately arose, and 
saw sheets of flame above the roof of Mr; Palmer's 
house, our opposite ivighbour. The mischief 
however was not so near to him as it seemed to 
be, having begun at a butcher's yard, at a httle 
distance. We made all haste down stairs, and 
soon threw open the street door, for the reception 
of as much lumber,, of all sorts, as our house would 
hold, brought into it by several who thought it 
necessary to move their furniture. In two hours' 
time we had so much that we could hold no moye, 
even the uninhabited part of our building being, 
filled. Not that we ourselves were entirely secure — 
an adjoining thatch, on which fell showers of 
sparks, being rather a dangerous neighbour. Pro- 
videntially however the night was perfectly calm, 
and we escaped. By four in the morning it was 
extinguished, having consumed many out-build- 
ings, but no dwelling-house. Your mother suffered 
a little in her health, from the fatigue and bustle 
of the night, but soon recovered. As for me, it 
hurt me not. The slightest wind would have 
carried the fire to the very extremity of the town, 
there being miiltitudes of thatched buildings and 
fagot-piles so near to each other, that they must 
have proved infallible conductors. 

The balloons prosper; I congratulate you upon 
it. Thanks to Montgolfier, we shall fly at last. 
Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILtlAM, NoV. 24, 1783. 

An evening unexpectedly retired, and which 
your mother and I spend without company (an 
occurrence far from frequent,) affords me a fa- 
vourable opportunity to write by to-morrow's post, 
which else I could not have found. You are very 
good to consider my literary necessities with so 
much attention, and I feel proportionably grateful. 
Blair's Lectures (though I suppose they must' 
make a part of my private studies, nOt . being ad 
captum fozminarum) will be perfectly welcome. 
You say you felt my verses; I assure you that in 
this you follow my example, for I felt them first. 
A man's lordship is nothing to me, any further 
than in connexion with qualities that entitle him 
to my respect. If he thinks himself privileged by 
it to treat me with neglect, I am his humble ser- 
vant, and shall never be, at a loss to render him an 
equivalent. I will not however belie my know- 
ledge of mankind so much, as to seem surprised 
at a treatment which I had abundant reason to 
expect. To these men with whom I was once 
intimate, and for many years, I am no longer ne- 



cessary, no longer convenient, or in any respee^* 
an object. They think of me as of the man in the 
moon, and whether I have a lantern, or a dog and ' 
fagot, or whether I have neither of those desirable 
accommodations, is to them a matter of perfect 
indifference : upon that point we are agreed, our 
indifference is mutual, and were I to publish again, 
wliich is not impossible, I should give them a 
pi'oof of it. 

L'Estrange's Josepiiue has lately furnished us 
with evening lectures. But the historian is so 
tediously circumstantial, and the translator so in- 
supportably coarse and vulgar, that we are all 
three weary of him. How would Tacitus have 
shone upon such a subject, great master as he was 
of the art of description, concise without obscurity, 
and affecting without being poetical. But so it was . 
ordered, and for wise reasons, no doubt, that the 
greatest calamities any people ever suffered, and 
an accomplishment of one of the most signal pro- 
phecies in the Scripture, should be recorded J)y 
one of the worst writers. The man was a tem- 
porizer too, and courted the favour of his Roman 
masters at the expense of his own creed, or else 
an infidel and absolutely disbelieved it. You will 
think me very difficult to please ; I quarrel with 
Josephus for the want of elegance, and with some 
of our modern historians for having too much. 
With him for running right forward like a ga- 
zette, without stopping to make a single observa- 
tion by the way; and with them,, for pretending 
to delineate characters that existed two thousand 
years ago, and to discover the rnotives by which 
they were influenced, with the same precision as 
if they had been their contemporaries. — Simplicity 
Is become a very rare quality in a writer. In the 
decline of great kingdoms, and where refinement 
in all the arts is carried to an excess, I suppose it 
is always rare. The latter Roman writers are 
remarkable for false ornament, they were yet no 
doubt admired by the readers of their own day ; 
and with respect to the authors of the present era, 
the .most popular among them appear to me equal- 
ly censurable on the same account. Swift and 
Addison were simple. 

Your mother wants room for a postscript, so 
my lecture must conclude abruptly. 

Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DE.'iR FRIEND, 

It is hard upon us striplings who have uncles 
still hving (N. B. I myself have an uncle still 
alive) that those venerable gentlemen should stand 
in our way, even when the ladies arc in question; 
that I, for instance, should find in one page of 
your letter a hope that Miss Shuttleworth would 



Let. 142. 



LETTERS, 



243 



be of your party, and be told in the next that she 
is engaged to your uncle. Well we may perhaps 
never be uncles, but we may reasonably hope that 
the time is coming, when others as young as we 
are now, shall envy us the privileges of old. age, 
and see us engross that share in the attention of 
the ladies to which their yOuth must aspire in vain. 
Make our compliments if you please to your sis- 
ter Eliza, and tell her that we are both mortLfied 
at having missed the pleasure of seeing her. 

Balloons are so much the mode, that even in 
this country we have attempted a balloon. You 
may possibly remember that at a place called Wes- 
ton, a little more than a mile from Olney, there 
lives a family, whose name is Throckmorton. 
The present possessor of the estate is a young 
man whom I remember a boy. He has a wife, 
who is young, genteel, and handsome. They are 
Papists, but much more amiable than many Pro- 
testants. W^ never had any intercourse, with the 
family, .though ever since we lived here we have 
enjoyed tlie range of their pleasure grounds, hav- 
ing been favoured with a key, which admits us 
into all. When, this man succeeded to the estate, 
on the death of his elder brother, and came to set- 
tle at Weston, I sent him a comphmentary card,( 
requesting the continuance of that privilege, hav- 
ing till then enjoyed it by favour of his mother, 
who on that occasion went to 'finish her days at 
Bath. You may conckide that he granted it, and 
for about two years nothing more passed between 
us. . A fortnight ago, I received an invitation in 
the civilest terms,, in which he told me that the 
ne;-;t day he should ■ attempt to -fill a balloon, and 
if it would be any pleasure to me to be present, 
should be happy to see me. Your mother and I 
went. The whole c^jntry were there, but the 
balloon could not be filled. The endeavour was, 
I believe, very philosophically made, but such a 



key of it in a manner that made it impossible not 
to accept it, and said she would send us one. A 
few days afterwards in the cool of the evening we 
walked that way again. We saw them going to- 
ward the house, and exchanged bows and curtsies 
at a distance, but did not join them. In a few 
minutes when we had'passed the house, and had 
almost reached the gate that opens out of the park 
into the adjoining field, I heard the iron.gate be- 
longing to the court-yard ring, and saw Mr. T. 
advancing hastily towards us, we made equal haste 
to, meet, he presented to us the key, which 1 told 
him I esteemed a singular favour, and after a few 
such- speeches as are made on such occasions, we 
parted. This happened about a week ago. I con- 
cluded nothing less than that all this civility and 
attention was designed, on their part, as a prelude 
to a nearer acquaintance ; but here at present the 
matter rests. I should like exceedingly to be on 
an easy footing there, to give ajnorning call now 
and then, and to receive one, but nothing more. 
For- though he is one of the most agreeable men I 
ever saw, I could not wish to visit him in any other 
way ; neither our house, furniture, servants, or in- 
come, being such as qualify us to make entertain- 
^ments, neither would Ion any account be introduced 
to the neighbouring gentry. Mr. T. is altogether a 
man of fashion, and respectable on every account. 
I have told you a long story. Farewell. We 
number the days as they pass, and are glad that we 
shall see you and your sister sooii. 

Youi-s, &c. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, Jan. 3, 1784. 

Your silence began to be distressing both to 
your mother and me, and had I not received a let- 



process depends for its success upon such niceties! ter from you last night, I should have written by 
as make it very precarious. Our reception was | this -post to. inquire ' after your health. How can 
however flattering to a great degree, insomuch that ^ it be, that y6u, who are not stationary like me, but 
more notice seemed to be taken of us, than we often change your situation, and mix with a va- 



could possibly have expected, indeed >rather more 
than of any of his other guests. They even 
seemed anxious to recommend themselves to our 
regards. We drank chocolate, and were asked 
to dine, but were engaged. A day or two after- 
wards, Mrs. Unwin and I walked that way, and 
were overtaken ma shower. I found a tree that 
I thought would shelter us both, a large elm, in a 
grove that fronts the mansion. Mrs. T. observed 
us, and running towards us in the rain insisted on 
our- walking in. He was gone out. We sat 
chatting with her till the weather cleared up, and 
then at her instance took a walk with her in the 
garden. The garden is almost their only walk, 
and is certainly their only retreat in which they 
are not hable to interruption. She offered us a 



riety of company, should suppose me furnished 
with such abundant materials, and yourself desti- 
tute 1 I assure you faithfully, that I do not find 
the soil of Olney prolific in the growth of such 
articles as make letter-writing a desirable employ- 
ment. No place contributes less to the catalogue 
of incidents, or is more scantily supplied with an- 
ecdotes worth notice. 
We have 

One parson, one poet, one bellman, one crier, 
And the poor poet is our only 'squire. 

Guess then if I have not more reason to expect two 
letters from you, than you one from me. The 
principal occurrence, and that which affects me 
most at present, came to pass this moment. The 



244 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 143, 



stair-foot door,. being swelled by the thaw, would 
do any thing better than it would open. An at- 
tempt to force it upon that office has been attended 
with such a horrible dissolution of its parts, that 
we were immediately obliged to introduce a chirur- 
gcon, commonly called a carpenter, whose ajjpli- 
cations we have some hope will cure it of a locked 
jaw, and heal its numerous fractures. His medi- 
cines aje powerful chalybeates, and a certain 
glutinous salve, which he tells me is made of the 
tails and ears of animals. The consequences how- 
ever are rather unfavourable to my present employ- 
ment, which does not well brook noise, bustle, and 
interruption. 

This being the case, I shall not perhaps be either 
so perspicuous, or so diffuse, on the subjectofwliich 
you desire my sentiments, as I should be, but I 
will do ray best. Know then that I have learnt 
long since of Abbe Raynal, to hate all monopo- 
lies, as injurious, howsoever managed, to the in- 
terests of commerce at large ; consequently the char- 
ter in question would not at any rate be a favour- 
ite of mine. This however is of itself I confess 
no sufficient reason to justify the resumption of it. 
But such reasons I think are not wanting. A 
grant of that kind, it is well known, is always 
forfeited by the nonperformance of the conditions. 
And why not equally forfeited, if those conditions 
are exceeded, if the design of it be perverted, and 
its ojjeration extended to objects which were never 
in the contemplation of the donor 1 This appears 
to me to be no misrepresentation of their case, 
■whose charter is supposed to be in danger. It con- 
stitutes them a trading company, and gives them 
an exclusive right to traffic in the East Indies. But 
it does no more. It invests them with no sove- 
reignty ; it does not convey them the royal prerog- 
ative of maldng war and peace, which tlie king 
can not alienate if he would. But this preroga- 
tive they have exercised, and, forgetting the terms 
of their institution, have possessed themselves of 
an immense territory, which they ha've ruled with 
a rod of iron, to which it is impossible they should 
even have a right, unless such a one as it is a dis- 
grace to plead — the right of conquest. The poten- 
tates of this country they dash in pieces like a pot- 
ter's vessel, as often as they please, making the 
happiness of thirty millions of mankind a consid 



curse, and a bitter one, must follow the neglect of 
it. But suppose this were done, can they be le- 
gally deprived of their chaiiter 1 In truth I think 
so. If the abuse and perversion of a charter can 
amount to a defeasance of it, never were they so 
grossly palpable as in this instance; never was 
charter so justly forfeited. Neither am I at all 
afraid that such a measure should be drawn into 
a precedent, unless it could be alleged as a suffi- 
cient reason for not hanging a rogue, that perhaps 
magistracy might grow wanton in the exercise of 
such a power, and now and then hang up an hon- 
est man for its amusement. When the governors 
of the bank shall have deserved the same severity, 
I hope they will meet with it. In the mean time 
I do not think them a whit more in jeopardy be- 
cause a corporation of plunderers have been brought 
to justice. 

We are well, and love you all. I never wrote 
in such a hurry, nor in such disturbance. Pardon 
the effects, and believe me yours affectionately, 

w. c. 



TO THET rev. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Jan. 18, 1784. 

I TGO have taken leave of the old year, and 
parted with it just when you did, but with very 
diflcrent sentiments and feeUngs upon the occasion. 
I looked back upon all the passages and occur- 
rences upon it, as a traveller looks back upon a 
wilderness, through which he has passed with 
weariness and sorrow of heart, reaping no other 
fruit of his labour than the poor consolation that, 
dreary as the desert was, he has left it all behind 
Mm. The traveller would find even this comfort 
considerably lessened, if, as soon as he had passed 
one wilderness, another of equal length, and equally 
desolate, should expect him. In this particular, 
his experience and mine would exactly tally. I 
should rejoice indeed that the old year is over and 
gone, if I had not every reason to prophesy a new 
one similar to it. 

I am glad you have found so much hidden trea- 
sure; and Mrs. Unwin desires me to tell you that 
you did her no more than justice, in believing that 
eration subordinate to that of their own emolu- 'she would rejoice in it. It is not easy to surmise 
mcnt, oppressing them as often as it may serve a the reason, why the reverend doctor, your prede- 
lucrative purpose, and in no instance, that I havejccssor, concealed it. Being a subject of a free 
ever heard, consulting their interest or advantage, j government, and I suppose full of the divinity most 
That government therefore is bound to interfere, ; in ftishion, he could not fear lest his great riches 
and to unking these tyrants, is to me self-evident. ' should expose him to persecution. Nor can I sup- 
And if having subjugated so much of this miscra- 'pose that he held it any disgrace for a dignitary 
ble world, it is therefore necessary that wc must of the church to be wealthy, at a time when 
keep possession of it, it appears to me a duty so churchmen in general spare no pains to become 
binding on the legislature to resume it from the 'so. But the wisdom of some men has a droll sort 
hands of those usurpers, that I should think a j of knavishness in it, much like that of the magpie, 



Let. 144. 



LETTERS. 



245 



who hides what he finds with a deal of contrivance, 
merely for the pleasure of doing it. 

Yours, W. C. . 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, Jan. 23, 1784. 

When I first resolved to write an answer to 
your last, this evening, I had no thought of any 
thing more sublime than prose. But before I be- 
gan, it occurred to me that perhaps you would 
not be displeased with an attempt to give a poetical 
translation of the lines you sent me. They are so 
beautiful, that I felt the temptation irresistible. At 
least, as the French say, it was plus forte que 
moi; and I accordingly complied. By this means 
I have lost an hour; and whether I shall be able 
to fill my sheets before supper, is as yet doubtful. 
But I will do my best. 

For your remarks, I think them perfectly just. 
You have no reason to distrust your taste, or to 
submit the trial of it- to me. You understand the 
use and the force of language as well as any man. 
You have quick feelings, and you are fond of 
poetry. How is it possible then that you should 
not be a judge of iti I venture to hazard only one 
alteration, which, as it appears to me, would 
amount to a little improvement. The seventh 
and eighth lines I think I should like better thus: — 

Aspirante levi zepliyi'oet ledeunte serena 
Anni temperie, frecimdo e cespite surgunt. 

My reason is, that the word cum, is repeated too 
soon. At least my ear does not like it ; and when 
it can be done without injury tothe sense, there 
seems to be an elegance in diversifying the ex- 
pression, as much as possible, upon similar occa- 
sions. It discovers a connnand of phrase, and 
gives a more masterly air to the piece. ~ If extincta 
.stood unconnected with^eZts, I should prefer your 
word micant to the doctor's vigent. But the latter 
seems to stand more in direct opposition to that 
of extinction,, which is effected by a shaft or arrow. 
In the day-time the stars may be said to die, and 
in the night to recover, their strength. Perhaps 
the doctor had in his eye that noble line of Gray — 
Hyperion's 'march they spy, and glittering shafts 
of war! But it is a beautiful composition. It is 
tender, touching and elegant. It is not easy to 
do justice in English, as for example.* 

Many thanks for the books, which, being most 
admirably packed, came safe. They will furnish 
Tjs with many a winter evening's amusement. We 
are glad that you intend to be the carrier back. 

We rejoice too that your cousin has remembered 
you in her wUl. The money she left to those who 



*See the note subjoined to the next letter. 



attended her hearse would have been ' better be- 
stowed upon you; and by this time pcrliaps she 
thinks so. Alas! what an inquiry docs that thought 
suggest, and how impossible to make it to any pur- 
jrose? What are the employments of the departed 
spirit ■? and where docs it subsist 1 Has it any cog- 
nizance of earthly things'? Is it transported to an 
immeasurable distance; or is it still, though im- 
perceptible to us, conversant with the same scene, 
and interested in what passes here 1 How little we 
know of a state to which we are all destined; and 
how does the obscurity, that hangs over that un- 
discovered country, increase the anxiety we some- 
times feel as we are journeying towards it ! It is 
sufficient however for such as you, and a few more 
of my acquaintance, to know that in your separate 
state you will be happy. Provision is made for 
your reception, and you vvill have no cause to re- 
gret aught that you have left behiird. 

1 have written to Mr. . My letter.went 

this morning. Plow I love and honour that man ! 
For many reasons I dare not tell him how nmch. 
But I hate the frigidity of the style, in which I anl. 
forced to address him. That line of Horace — • 
' Dii iibi clivitias dederunt artemque fruendi" — 
was never so applicable to the- poet's friend, as to 

Mr. . My bosom burns to immortalize him. 

But prudence says "Forbear!" and; though -a 
poet, I pay respect to her injunctions. 

1 sincerely give you joy of the good you have 
unconsciously done by your example and conversa- 
tion. That you seem to yourself not to deserve 
the acknowledgment your friend makes of it,"is a 
proof that you do.' Grace is blind to its own 
beauty, whereas such virtues as men may reach 
without it, are remarkable self-admirers. May 
you make such impressions upon many of youi 
order ! I know none that need them more. 

You do not want our praises of your conduct 

towards Mr. —. It is well for him however, 

and stiU better for • yourself, that you are capable 
.of such a part. It was. said of some good man, 
(my memory does not serve me with his name,) 
'■ do him an ill turn and you make hun your friend 
for ever." But it is Christianity only that forms 
such friends. I wish his father may be duly af- 
fected by .this instance and proof of your supe- 
riority to those ideas of you which he has so un- 
reasonably harboured. He is not in my favour 
now, nor will be upon any other terms. 

I laughed at the comments you make on your 
own feelings, when the subject of them, was a 
newspaper eulogium. But it was a laugh of plea- 
sure and approbation: such indeed is the heart, 
and so is it made up. There are few that can do 
good, and keep their own secret, none, perhaps 
without a struggle. Yourself, and your friend 
, are 'no very common instances of the for- 



titude that is necessary in such a conflict. In for- 



246 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Lkt. 145, 146, 



nier days I lia\c felt iny heart beat, and every 
vein throb, uiion such an occasion. To publish 
my own deed was wrong. I knew it to be so. 
But to conceal it seemed like a voluntary injury 
to myself. Sometimes I could, and sometimes I 
could not succeed. My occasions for such conflicts 
indeed were not very numerous. 

Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Jan. 25, 1784. 

This contention about East Indian patronage 
seems not unlikely to avenge upon us, by its con- 
sequences, the mischiefs we have done there. The 
matter in dispute is too precious to be relinquished 
by cither party; and each is jealous of the influ- 
ence the other would derive from the possession 
of it. In a country whose politics have so long 
rolled upon the wheels of corruption, an affair of 
such value must prove a weight in either scale 
absolutely destructive of the very idea of a balance. 
Every man has liis sentiments upon this subject, 
and I have mine. Were I constituted umpire of 
this strife, with full powers to decide it, I would 
tie a talent of lead about the neck of this patron- 
age, and plunge it into the depths of the sea. To 
speak less figuratively, I would abandon all territo- 
rial interest in a country to which we can have no 
right, and which we can not govern with any se- 
curity to the happiness of the inhabitants, or with- 
out the danger of incurring either perpetual broils, 
or the mo.st insupportable tyranny at home. That 
sort of tyranny, I mean, which flatters and tanta- 
lizes the subject with a showof freedom, and- in 
reality, allows him nothing more ; bribing to the 
right apd left, rich enough to afford the purchase 
of a thousand consciences, and consequently strong 
enough, if it happen to meet with an incorruptible 
one, to render all the efforts of that man, or of 
twenty such men, if they could be found, romantic, 
and of no effect. I am the king's mo.st loyal sub- 
ject, and most obedient humble servant. But by 
his majesty's leave I must acknowledge I am not 
altogether convinced of the rectitude even of his 
own measures, or the simplicity of his views ; and 
if I were satisfied that ho himself is to be trusted, 
H is nevertheless palpable, that he can not answer 
for his successors. At the same time he is my 
king, and I reverence him as such. I account his 
prerogative sacred, and shall never wish prosperity 
to a party that invades it, and that under the pre- 
tence of patriotism would anniliilate all the conse- 
quence of a character essential to the very being 
of the constitution. For these reasons I am sorry 
that we have any dominion in the East — that we 
have any such emoluments to contend about. 
Their immense value will probably prolong the 



dispute, and such struggles having been already 
made in the conduct of it, as have shaken our very 
foundations, it seems not unreasonable to suppose 
that still greater efforts, and more fatal, are behind;' 
and after all, the decision in favour of either side' 
may be ruinous to the whole. In the mean time, 
that the company themselves are but indifferently 
qualified for the kingship, is most deplorably evi- 
dent: What shall I say therefore'? I distrust the 
court, r suspect the. patriots, I put the company 
entirely aside, as having forfeited all claim to con- 
fidence in such a business, and see no remedy of 
course, but in the annihilation, if that could be ac- 
complished, of the very existence of our authority 
in the East Indies. 



The late Doctor Jortin 
Had the good fortune 
To write these verses 
Upon tombs and hearses : 
Which I being jinglish. 
Have done into English.* 

Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, February, 1784. 

I am glad that you have finished a work, of 
which I well remember the beginning, and which 
I was sorry you thought it expedient to discon- 
tinue. Your reason for not proceeding was however 
such as I was obliged to acquiesce in, being sug- 
gested by a jealousy you felt, " lest your spirit 
should be betrayed into acrimony,- in writing upon 
such a subject." I doubt not you have sufficiently 
guarded that point, and indeed at the time, I could 
not discover that you had failed in it. I have bu- 
sied mysdlf this morning in contriving a Greek 
title, and in seeking a motto. The motto you 
mention is certainly apposite. But I think it an 
objection that it has been so much in use ; almost 
every writer that has claimed a liberty to think for 
himself -upon whatever subject, having chosfen it. 
I therefore send you one, which I never saw in 
that shape yet, and which appears to me equally 
apt and proper. The Greek word, ^nr/xoc, which 
signifies literally a shackle, may figuratively serve 
to express those chains which bigotry and preju- 
dice cast upon the mind. It seems, therefore, to 
speak Uke a lawyer, no misnoriier of your book tO 
call it. 



' For the verses enlitled " In brevitatem vitfe spalii homini- 
bus concessi," together with Cowper's translation of them, 
vide Poems. 



Let. 147. 



LETTERS. 



347 



The following pleases me most of all the mottos 
I have thought of. But with respect both to that 
and the title you will use your pleasure. 

Querelis * 
Haud justis assurgis, ct irrita jurgia jactas. 
^n. X. 94. 

From the little I have seen, and the much I 
have heard of the manager of the Review you 
mention, I can not feel even the smallest push of a 
desire to serve him in the capacity of poet. Indeed 
I dislike him so much, that, had I a drawer full of 
pieces fit for his purpose, I hardly think I should 
contribute to his collection. It is possible too that 
I may hve to be once more a publisher my self; in 
wjiich case I should be glad to find myself in pos- 
session of any such original pieces, as might de- 
cently make their appearance in a volume of my 
own. At present however I have nothing that 
would be of use to him, nor have I many oppor- 
tunities of composing. Sunday being the only 
day in the week which we spend alone. 

I ain at this moment pinched for time, but was 
desirous of proving to you, with what alacrity my 
Greek and Latin memory are always ready to obey 
you, and therefore by the first post have to the best 
of my ability compUed with your request. 
BeUeve me, my dear friend, 

Affectionately yours, W". C 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MT DEAR FRIEND, ' Feb. 10, 1784. 

The morning is my writing time, and in the 
morning I have no spirits. So much the worse for 
my correspondents. Sleep, that refreshes my bo- 
dy, seems to cripple me in every other respect. As 
the evening approaches, I grow more alert, and 
when I am retiring to bed, am more fit for mental 
occupation than at any other time. So it fares 
with us whom they call nervous. -By a strange 
inversion of the animal economy, we are ready to 
sleep when we have most need to be awake, and 
go to bed just when we might sit up to some pur- 
pose. The watch is irregularly wound up, it goes 
in the night when it is not wanted, and in the day 
stands still. In many respects we have the advan- 
tage of our forefathers the Picts. We sleep in a 
whole skin, and are not obliged to submit to the 
painful operation of puncturing ourselves from head 
to foot, in order that we may be decently dressed, 
and fit to appear abroad. But on the other hand, 
we have reason enough to envy them their tone of 
nerves, and that flow of spirits which effectually se- 
cured them from all uncomfortable impressions of 
a gloomy atmosphere, and from every shade of me- 
lancholy from every other cause. They under- 
stood, I suppose, the use of vulnerary herbs, hav- 
17 



ing frequent occasion for some skill in surgery ; 
but physicians, I presume, they had none, having 
no need of any. Is it possible, that a creature like 
myself can be descended from such progenitors, in 
whom there appears not a single trace of family 
resemblance 1 What an alteration have a few ages 
made 1 They, without clothing, would defy the 
severest season; and I, with all'the accommoda- 
tions that art has since invented, am hardly secure 
even in the mildest. If the wind blows upon me 
when my pores are open, I catch cold. A cough 
is the ^consequence. I suppose if such a disorder 
could have seized a Pict, his friends would have 
concluded that a bone had stuck in his throat, and 
that he was in some danger of choking. They 
would perhaps have addressed themselves to the 
cure of his cough by thrusting their fingers into ' 
his gullet, which would only have exasperated the 
I case. . But they would never have thought of ad- 
ministering laudanum, my only remedy. For this 
difference, however, that has obtained between me ' 
and my ancestors, I am indebted to the luxurious 
practices, and enfeebling self-indulgence, of a long 
line of grandsires, who from generation to genera- 
tion have been employed in deteriorating the breed, 
till at last the collected effects of all their follies 
have centred in my puny self A man indeed, but 
not in the image of those that went before me. A 
man, who sigh and groan, who wear out life in 
dejection and oppression of spirits, and who never 
think of the Aborigines of the country to which I 
belong, without wishing that I had been born 
among them. The evil is without a remedy, un- 
less the ages that are passed could be reca!lled, my 
whole pedigree be permitted to live again, and be- 
ing properly admonished to beware of enervating 
sloth and refinement, would preserve their hardi- 
ness of nature unimpaired, and transmit the desira- 
ble quality to their posterity. I once saw Adam 
in a dream. We sometimes say of a picture, that 
we doubt not its likeness to the original, though 
we never saw him ; a judgment we have some rea- 
son to form, when the face is strongly character- 
ed, and the features full of expression. So I think 
of my visionary Adam, and for a similar reason. 
His figure was awkward indeed in the extreme. 
It was evident that he had never been taught by a 
Frenchman to hold his head erect, or to turn out 
his toes ; to dispose gracefully of his arms,- or to 
simper without a meaning. But if Mr. Bacon was 
called upon to produce a statue of Hercules, he 
need not wish for a juster pattern. He stood like 
a rock ; the size of his limbs, the prominence of 
his muscles, and the height of his stature, all con- 
spired to bespeak him a creature whose strength 
had suffered no diminution ; and who, being the 
first of his race, did not come into the world un- 
der a necessity of sustaining a load of infirmities, 
derived to him from the intemperance of others. 



248 



COWPER*S WORKS. 



Let. 148, 149, 150, 



He was as much stouter than a Pict, as I suppose 
a Pict to have been than I. Upon my hypothesis, 
tlicveforc, there has been a gradual declension, in 
point of bodily vigour, from Adam down to me : 
at least if my dream were a just representation of 
that crentleman, and desen'e the credit I can not 
help giving it, such must have been the case. 

Vours, my dear friend, W. C. 



[TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.] 

February 23, 1784. 
" 1 CONGRATULATE you on the thaw — I suppose 
it is an universal blessing, and probably felt all 
over Europe. I myself am the better for it, who 
wanted nothing that might make the frost supporta- 
ble; what reason therefore have they to rejoice, 
who, being in want of all things, were exposed to 
its utmost rigour 1 — The ice in my ink, however, 
is not yet dissolved. It was long before the frost 
seized it, but at last it prevailed. The Sofa has 
consequently received little or no addition since. 
It consists at present of four books and part of a 
fifth ; when the sLxth is finished, the work is ac- 
complished ; but if I may judge by my present ina- 
bility, that period k at- a considerable distance." 

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, February, 1784. 

I GIVE you joy of a thaw, that has put an end 
to a frost of nine weeks' continuance with very lit- 
tle interruption; the longest that has happened 
since the 'year 1739. May I presume that you feel 
yourself indebte'd to me for intelligence, which per- 
haps no ether of your correspondents will vouch- 
safe to communicate, though they are as well ap- 
prised of it, and as much convinced of the truth 
of it, as myself? It is, I suppose, every where 
felt as a blessing, but nowhere more sensibly than 
at Olney ; though even at Olney the severity of it 
has been alleviated in behalf of many. The same 
benefactor, who befriended them last year, has vsdth 
equal liberality administered a supply to their ne- 
cessities in the present. Like the subterraneous 
flue that warms my myrtles, he does good, and is 
unseen. His injunctions of secrecy are as rigor- 
ous as ever, and must, therefore, be observed with 
the same attention. He, however, is a happy man, 
whose philanthropy is not like mine, an impotent 
principle, spending itself in fruitless wishes. At 
the same time, I confess it is a consolation, and I 
feel it an honour, to be employed as the conductor 
and to be trusted as the dispenser, of another man's 
bounty. Some have been saved from perisliing, 
and all, that could partake of it, from the most 
pitiable distress. 

I will not apologize for my politics, or suspect 
them of error, merely because they are taken up 



firom the newspapers. I take it for granted, that 
those reporters of the wisdom of our representa- 
tives are tolerably correct and faithful. Were they 
not, and ifere they guilty of frequent and gross 
misrepresentation, assuredly they would be chas- 
tised by the rod of parliamentary criticism. Could 
I be present at the debates, I should indeed have a 
better opinion of my documents. But if the House 
of Commons be the best school of British politics, 
which I think an undeniable assertion, then he that 
reads what passes there has opportunities of infor- 
mation, inferior only to theirs who hear for them- 
selves, and can be present upon the spot. Thus 
qualified I take courage ; and when a certain reve- 
rend neighbour of ours curls his nose at me, and 
holds my opinions cheap, merely because he has 
passed through London, I am not altogether con- 
vinced that he has reason on his side. I do not 
know that the air, of the metropolis has a power 
to brighten the intellects, or that to sleep a night 
in the great city is a necessary cause of wasdom. 
He tells me that Mr. Fox is a rascal, and that 
Lord North is a villain, that every creature exe- 
crates them both, and that I ought to do so too. 
But I beg to be excused. Villain and rascal are 
appellations, which we, who do not converse with 
great men, are rather sparing in the use of I caii 
conceive them both to be most entirely persuaded 
of the rectitude of their conduct ; and the rather, 
because I feel myself much incUned to believe that, 
being so, they are not mistaken. I can not think 
that secret influence is a bugbear, a phantom con- 
jured up to serve a purpose ; the mere sh ibboleth 
of a. party: and being, and having always been, 
somewhat of an enthusiast on the subject of British 
liberty, I - am not able to withhold my reverence 
and good wishes from the man, whoever he be, that 
exerts himself in a constitutional way to oppose it. 

Caraccioli upon the subject of self-acquaintance 
was never, I believe, translated. I have sometimes 
thought that the Theological Miscellany might be 
glad of a chapter of it monthly. It is a work 
which I much admire. You, who are master of 
their plan, can tell me whether such a contribu- 
tion would be welcome. If you think it would, I 
woidd be punctual in my remittances ; and a la- 
bour of that sort would suit me better in my pre- 
sent state of mind than original composition on 
religious subjects. 

Remember us as those that love you, and are 
never unmindful of you. 

Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Feb. 29, 1784. 

We are glad that you have such a Lord Petre 
in your neighbourhood. He must be a man of a 



Let. 151, 152. 



LETTERS. 



249 



liberal turn, to employ a heretic in such a service. 
I wish you a further acquamtance with him, not 
doubting that the more he knows you he will find 
you the more agreeable. You despair of becoming 
a prebendary for want of certain rhythmical ta- 
lents, which you suppose me possessed of But 
what think you of a cardinal's hat 1 Perhaps his 
lordship may have interest at Rome, and that great- 
er honour may await you. Seriously, however, I 
respect his character, and should not be sorry if 
there were many such Papists in the land. 

Mr. — has given free scope to his generosi- 
ty, and contributed as largely to the relief of 01- 
ney, as he did last year. Soon after I had given 
you notice of his first remittance, we received a se- 
cond to the same amount, accompanied indeed with 
an intimation that we were to consider it as an an- 
ticipated supply, which, but for the uncommon se- 
verity of the present winter, he should have re- 
served for the next. The inference is, that next 
winter we are to expect nothing. But the man 
and his beneficent turn of mind considered, there 
is some reason to hope that, logical as the inference 
seems, it may yet be disappointed. 

Adverting to your letter again, I perceive that 
you wish for my opinion of your answer to his 
lordship. Had I forgot to tell you that I approve 
of it, 1 know you Well enough to be aware of the 
interpretation you would have put upon my silence. 
I am glad, therefore, that I happened to cast my 
eye upon your appeal to my opinion, before it was 
too late. A modest man, however able, has always 
some reason to distrust himself upon extraordinary 
occasions. Nothing so apt to betray us into ab- 
stirdity, as too great a dread of it ; and the appli- 
cation of more strength than enough is sometimes 
as fatal as too Kttle ; but you have escaped very 
well. For my own part, when 1 write to a stran- 
ger, I feel myself deprived of half my intellects. 
I suspect that I shall write nonsense, and 1 do so. 
I tremble at the thought of an inaccuracy, and be- 
come absolutely ungrammatical. I feel myself 
sweat. I have recourse to the knife and-the pounce. 
I correct half a dozen blunders, which in a com- 
mon case 1 should not have committed, and have 
no sooner despatched what I have written, than I 
recollect how much better I could have made it ; 
how easily and genteelly I could have relaxed the 
stiffness of the phrase, and have cured the insuf- 
ferable awkwardness of the whole, had they struck 
me a little earlier. Thus we stand in awe of we 
know not what, and miscarry through mere desire 
to excel. 

I read Johnson's Prefaces every night, except 
when the newspaper calls me off. At a time like 
the present, what author can stand in competition 
with a newspaper 1 or who, that has a spark «f 
patriotism, does not point all his attention to the 
present crisis 1 W. C. 



I am so disgusted with , for allowing him- 
self to be silent, when so loudly called upon to 
write to you, that I do not choose to express my 
feelings. Wo to the man whom kindness can not 
soften ! 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MT DEAR FRIEND, March 8, 1784. 

1 THANK you for the two first numbers of the 
Theological Miscellany. I have not read them re- 
gularly through, but sufficiently to observe that 
they are much indebted to Omicron. An essay, 
signed Parvulus, pleased me likewise ; and I shall 
be glad if a neighbour of ours, to whom I have 
lent them, should be able to apply to his own use 
the lesson it inculcates. On further consideration, 
I have seen reason to forego my purpose of trans- 
lating Caraccioli. Though 1 think no boolc more 
calculated to teach the art of pious meditation, or 
to enforce a conviction of the vanity of all pursuits, 
that have not the soul's interests for their object, I 
can yet see a flaw in his manner of instructing, 
that in a country so enlightened as ours would es- 
cape nobody's notice. Not enjoying the advanta- 
ges of evangelical ordinances, and Christian com- 
munion, he falls into a mistake natural in his situa- 
tion ; ascribing always the pleasures he found in a 
holy Ufe to his own industrious perseverance in a 
contemplative course, and not to the immediate 
agency of the great Comforter of his people ; and 
directing the eye of his readers to a spiritual prin- 
ciple within, which he supposes to subsist in the 
soul of every man, as the source of all divine en- 
joyment, and to Christ, as he would gladly have 
done, had he fallen under Christian teachers. Al- 
lowing for these defects, he is a charming writer, 
and by those who know how to make such allow- 
ances, may be read with great dehght and improve- 
ment. But with these defects in his manner, 
though (I believe) no man ever had a heart more 
devoted to God, he does not seem dressed vsnith suf- 
ficient exactness to be fit for the public eye, where 
man is known to be nothing, and Jesus all in all. 
He must, therefore, be dismissed as an unsuccess- 
ful candidate for a place in this Miscellany, and 
will be less mortified at being rejected in the first 
instance, than if he had met with a refusal from 
the publisher. I can only therefore repeat what 
I said before, that when I find a proper subject, 
and myself at Uberty to pursue it, I will endeavour 
to contribute my quota. W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

Olney, March 11, 1784. 
I RETURN you many thanks for your apology, 



250 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 153, 154, 



which I have read with great pleasure.* You 
know of old that your style always pleases me 
and having in a former letter given you the rea- 
sons for which I like it, I spare you now the pain 
of a repetition. The spirit too, in which you 
write, pleases me as much, But I perceive that 
in some cases it is possible to be severe, and at 
the same time perfectly good-tempered; in all 
cases I suppose where we suffer by an injurious 
and unreasonable attack, and can justify our con- 
duct by a plain and simple narrative. On such 
occasions, truth itself seems a satire, because by 
imphcation at least it convicts our adversaries of 
the want of charity and candour. For this rea- 
son perhaps you will find that you have made 
many angry, though you are not so; and it is 
possible that they may be the more angry upon 
that very account. To assert, and to prove, that 
all enlightened minister of the gospel may, with- 
out any violation of his conscience and even upon 
the ground of prudence and propriety, continue 
in the establishment; and to do this with the 
most absolute composure, must be very provoking 
to the dignity of some dissenting doctors; and to 
nettle them still the more, you in a manner im- 
pose upon them the necessity of being silent, by 
declaring that you will be so yourself. Upon the 
whole however I have no doubt that your a,pology 
will do good. If it should irritate some, who have 
more zeal than knowledge, and more of bigotry 
than of either, it may serve to enlarge the views 
of others, and to convince them, that there may be 
grace, truth, and efficacy, in the ministry of a 
church of which they are not members. I wish it 
success, and all that attention to which, both from 
the nature of the subject, and the manner in 
which you have treated it, it is so well entitled. 

The patronage of the East Indies will be a 
dangerous weapon in whatever hands. I have no 
prospect of deliverance for this country, but the 
sarae that I have of a possibility that we may one 
day be disencumbered of our ruinous possessions 
in the East. • 

Our good neighbours, who have so successfully 
knocked away our Western crutch from under 
us, seem to design us the same favour on the op- 
posite side ; in which case we shall be .poor, but I 
think we shall stand a better chance to be free; 
and I had rather drink water-grucl for breakfast, 
and be no man's slave, than wear a chain, and 
drink tea as usual. 

I have just room to add, that we love you as 
usual, and are your very aflectionate William and 
Mary. W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, March 19, 1784. 

I WISH it were in my power to give you any 
account of the Marquis Caraccioli. Some years 
since I saw a short history of him in the Review, 
of wliich I recollect no particulars, except that he 
was (and for aught I know may be still) an officer 
in the Prussian service. I have two volumes of 
his works, lent me by Lady Austen. One is 
upon the subject of self-acquaintance, and the 
other treats of the art of conversing with the same 
gentleman; had I pursued my purpose of trans- 
lating him, my design was to have furnished my- 
self, if possible, with some authentic account of 
him, which I suppose may be procured at any 
bookseller's who deals in foreign pubUcations. 
But for the reasons given in my last I have laid 
aside the design. There is something in his style 
that touches me exceedingly, and which I do not 
know how to describe. I should call it pathetic, 
if it were occasional only, and never occurred but 
when his subject happened to be particularly, af- 
fecting. But it is universal; he has not a sen- 
tence that is not marked with it. Perhaps there- 
fore I may describe it better by saying, that his' 
whole work has an air of pious and tender melan- 
choly, which to me at least is extremely agreeable. 
This property of it, which depends perhaps alto- 
gether upon the arrangement of his words, and 
the modulation of his sentences, it would be very 
difficult to preserve i;i a translation. I do not 
know that our language is capable of being so 
managed, and rather suspect that it is not, and 
that it is peculiar to the French, because it is not 
unfrequent among their writers, and I never saw 
any thing similar to it in our own-. 

My evenings are devoted to books. I read 
aloud for the entertainment of the party, thus 
making amends by a vociferation of two hours for 
my silence at other times. We are in good health, 
and waiting as patiently as we can for the end of 
this second winter. 

Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



* The book alluded to is entitled "Apologia. Four Let- 
ters to a Minister of an Independent Church. By fi Minister 
ol' the Church of England." 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, March '2d, 1784. 

It being his majesty's pleasure that I should 
yet have another opportunity to write before he 
dissolves the parliament, I avail myself of it with 
all possible alacrity. I thank you for your last, 
which was the less welcome for coming, like an 
extraordinary gazette, at a time when it was not 
expected. 

As when the sea is uncommonly agitated, the 
water finds it way into creeks and holes of rocks, 



Let. 155. 



LETTERS. 



251 



which in its calmer state it never reaches, in like 
manner- the effect of these turbulent times is felt 
even at OrchardsiJe, where in general we live as 
undisturbed by the political element, as shrimps 
or cockles that have been accidentally deposited in 
some hollow beyond the water mark, by the usual 
dashing of the waves. We were sitting yester- 
daj' alter dinner, the two ladies and myself, very 
composedly, and without the least apprehension 
of any such intrusion in our snug parlour, one 
lady knitting, the other netting, and the gentle- 
mfin winding worsted, when to our unspeakable 
surprise a mob appeared before the window; a 
smart rap was heard at the door, the boys halloo'd 

and the maid announced Mr G . Puss* vifas 

unfortunately let out of her box, so that the can- 
didate, with all his good friends at his heels, was 
refused admittance at the grand entry, and refer- 
red to the back door, as the only possible way of 
approach. 

Candidates are creatures not very susceptible 
of affronts, and would rather I suppose chmb in 
at a window, than be absolutely excluded. In a 
minute, the yard, the kitchen, and the parlour 

were filled. Mr.- G advancing toward me 

shook me by the hand with a degree of cordiality 
that was extremely seducing. As soon as he and 
as many as could find chairs were seated, he. be- 
gan to open the intent of his visit. I told him I 
had no vote, for which he readily gave me credit. 
I assured him I had no influence, which he was 
npt equally inchned to beUeve, and the less, no 

doubt, because Mr. A , addressing himself to 

me at that moment, informed me that I had a 
great deal. Supposing that I could not be pos- 
sessed of such a treasure without knowing it, 1 
ventured to confirm my first assertion, by saying 
that if I had any I was utterly at a loss to ima- 
gine where it could be, or wherein it consisted. 
Thus ended the conference. Mr. — — squeezed 
me by the hand again, kissed the ladies, and with- 
drew. He kissed hkewise the maid in the kitchen, 
and seemed, upon the whole, a most loving, kiss- 
ing, kind-hearted gentleman. He is very young, 
genteel, and handsome. He has a pair of very 
good eyes in his head, which not being sufficient 
as it should seem for the many nice and difficult 
purposes of a senator, he has a tliird also, which 
he wore suspended by a ribband from his button- 
hole. The boys halloo'd, the dogs barked. Puss 
scampered, the hero, with his long train of obse- 
quious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves 
very merry with the adventure, and in a short 
time settled into our former tranquUhty, never 
probably to be thus iilterrupted more. I thought 
myself however happy in being able to affirm 
trvdy that I had not that influence for which he 



sued'; andfor which, had I been possessed of it, 
with my present views of the dispute between 
the Crown and the Commons, I must have re- 
fused him, for he is on the side of the former. It 
is comfortable to be of no consequence in a 
world where one can not exercise any without 
disobliging somebody. The town however seems 
to be much at Ms service, and if he be equally 
successful throughout the county, he will un- 
doubtedly gain his election. Mr. A perhaps 

was a httle mortified, because it was evident that 
I owed the honour of this visit to his misrepre- 
sentation of my importance. But had he thought 
proper to assure Mr. G. that I had three heads, I 
should not I suppose have been bound to produce 
them. 

Mr. S , who you say was so much admired 

in your pulpit, would be equally admired in his 
own, at least by all capable judges, were he not 
so apt to be angry with his congregation. This 
hurts him, and had he the understanding and elo- 
quence of Paid Inmself, would still hurt Mm. He 
seldom, hardly ever indeed, preaches a gentle, 
well-tempered sermon, but I hear it highly com- 
mended; but warmth of temper, indulged to a 
degree that may be called scolding, defeats the 
end of preaching. It is a misapplication of Ms 
powers, wMch it also cripples, and teases away 
his hearers. But he is a good man, and may per- 
haps outgrow it. 

Yours: W. C. 



His tame hare. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

April, 1783., 
People that are but httle acquainted with the 
terrors of divine wrath, are not much afraid of 
trifling with their Maker. But for my own part 
I would sooner take Empedocle's leap, and fling 
myself into Mount jEtna, than I would do it in 
the slightest instance, were I in circumstances to 
make an election. In the Scripture we find a 
broad and clear exhibition of mercy, it is display- 
ed in every page. Wrath is in comparison but 
slightly touched upon, because it is not so much 
a discovery of wrath as of forgiveness. But had 
the displeasure of God been the principal subject 
of the book, and had it circumstantially set forth 
that measure of it oidy which may be endured 
even in this hfe, the Christian world perhaps 
would have been less comfortable; but I beheve 
presumptuous meddlers with the Gospel would 
have been less frequently met with. — The word 
is a flaming sword ; and he that touches it with 
unhallowed fingers, thinlcing to make a tool of it, 
will find that he has burnt them. 

What havoc in Calabria ! every house is built 
upon the sand, whose inhabitants have no God 



252 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 156. 



or oiJy a false one. Solid and fliiid are such in 
respect to each other: but with reference to the 
divine power they are equally fixed, or equally 
unstable. The inhabitants of a rock shall sink, 
while a cockboat shall save a man alive in the 
midst of the fathomless ocean. The Pope grants 
dispensations for folly and madness during the 
carnival. But it seems they are as oflensive to 
him, whose vicegerent he pretends himself, at that 
season as at any other. Were 1 a Calabrian, I 
wcfuld not give my papa at Rome one farthing for 
his amplest indulgence, for this time forth for 
ever. There is a w^ord that makes this world 
tremble; and the Pope can not countermand it. 
A fig for such a conjuror! Pharaoh's conjuror 
had twice his ability. 

Believe me, my dear friend, 

Afifectionately yours, W. C. 



the dark upon that article, I should very readily 
adopt their hypothesis for want of better inlbrma- 
tion. I should suppose, for instance, that man 
made his first effort in speech in the way of an in- 
terjection, and that ah, or oh, being uttered with 
wonderful gesticulation, and variety of attitude, 
must have lefl his powers of expression quite ex- 
hausted: that in a course of time he would in- 
vent names for many things, but first for the ob- 
jects of his daily wants. An apple would conse- 
quently be called an apple, and perhaps not many 
years would elapse before the appellation would 
receive -the sanction of general use. In this case, 
and upon this supposition, seeing one in the hand 
of another man, he would exclaim with a rnost 
moving pathos, " Oh apple!" — well and good — oh 
apple ! is a very affecting speech, but in the mean 
time it profits him nothing. The man that holds 
it, eats it, and he goes away with oh apple in his ■ 
mouth, and with nothing better. Reflecting on 
his disappointment, and that perhaps it arose from 
his not being more expUcit, he contrives a term to 
denote his idea of transfer or gratuitous commu- 
nication, and the next occasion that offers of a 
similar kind, performs his part accordingly. His 
speech now stands thus, " Oh give apple!" The 
apple-holder perceives liimself called upon to part 
with his fruit, and, having satisfied his own hiui- 
ger, is perhaps not unwilling to do so. But un- 
fortunately there is still room for a mistake, and, 
a third person being present, he gives the apple 
to him. Again disappointed, and again perceiving 
that his language has not all the precision that is 
requisite, the orator retires to his study, and there, 
after much deep thinking, conceives that .the in- 
sertion of a pronoun, whose office shall be to sig- 
nify that he not only wants the apple to be given, 
but given to himself, will remedy all defects, he 
uses it the next opportunity, and succeeds to a 
wonder, obtains the apple, and by his success such 
credit to his invention, that pronouns continue 
to be in great repute ever after. 

Now as my two syllablemongers, Beattie and 
Blair, both agree that language was originally in- 
spired, and that the great variety of languages we 
find upon earth at present took its rise from the 
confusion of tongues at Babel, I am not perfectly 
convinced that there is any just occasion to invent 
this very ingenious solution of a difficulty, which 
Scripture has solved already. My opinion how- 
ever is, if I may presume to have an opinion of my 
own so diflerent from theirs who are so much 
wiser than myself, that if man had been his own 
teacher, and had acquired his words and his 
phrases only as necessity or convenience had 
I take it for granted that these good men are ! prompted, his progress must have been considcra- 
philosophically correct (for they are l)oth agreed bly slower than it was, and in Homer's days the 
upon the subject) in their account of tlie origin production of such a poem as the Iliad impossible, 
of language; and if the Scripture had left us in; On the contrary, I doubt not Adam on the very 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, April 5, 1784. 

I THANKED you in my last for Johnson; I now 
thank you, with more emphasis, for Beattie, the 
most agreeable and amiable writer I ever met 
with; the only author I have seen whose critical 
and philosophical researches are diversified and 
embellished by a poetical imagination, that makes 
even the driest subject, and the leanest, a feast 
for an epicure in books. He is so much at his 
ease too, that his own character appears in every 
page, and which is very rare, we see not only the 
writer, but the man: and that man so gentle, so 
well-tempered, so happy m his religion, and so 
humane in his philosophy, that it is necessary to 
love him, if one has any sense of what is lovely. 
If you have not his poem called the Minstrel, and 
can not borrow it, I must beg yoii to buy it for 
me; for though I can not afford to deal largely in 
so expensive a commodity as books, I must aflbrd 
to purchase at least the poetical works of Beattie. 
I have read six of Blair's Lectures, and what do 
I say of Blair 7 That he Ls a sensible man, master 
of his subject, and excepting here and there a 
Scotticism, a good writer, so far at least as per- 
spicuity of expression, and method, contribute to 
make one. But oh the sterility of that man's 
fancy! if indeed he has any such faculty belong- 
ing to him. Perhaps philosophers, or men de- 
signed for such, are sometimes born without one; 
or perhaps it withers for want of exercise. How- 
ever that may be. Dr. Blair has such a brain. as 
Shakspeare somewhere describes — "dry as the re- 
mainder biscuit after a voyage 



Let. 157, 158. 



LETTERS. 



253 



day of his creation was able to express himself in 
terms both forcible and elegant, and that he was 
at no loss for sublime diction, and logical combi- 
nation, when he wanted to praise his Maker. 

Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



not worthy of Virgil's, notice, because obvious to 
the notice of all. But here I differ from him ; 
not being able to conceive that wind and rain can 
be improper iji the description of a tempest, or 
how wind and rain could jjossibly be more poeti- 
cally described. Virgil is indeed . remarkable for 
finishing his periods well, and never comes to a stop 
but with the utmost consummate dignity of num- 
bers and expression ; and in the instance in ques- 
tion I think his skill in this respect is remarkably 
displayed. The line is perfectly majectic in its 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, April 25, 1784. 

I WISH I had both burning words, and bright 
thoughts. But I have at present neither. My 'march. As to the wind, it is such only as the 
head" is not itself Having had an unpleasant word ingeminant could describe, and the words 
night, and a melancholy day, and having already \ densksimus imber give one an idea of a shower 
written a long letter, 1 do not find myself in point indeed, but of such a shower as is not very com- 
of spirits at all qualified either to burnor shine, nion, and such a one as only Virgil could have 
The post sets out early on Tuesday. The morn- ] done justice to by a single epithet. Far therefore 
ing is the only time of exercise with me. In or- from agreeing with the Doctor in his stricture, I 
der therefore to keep it open for that purpose, and do not think the iEneid contains a nobler line, or 
to comply with your desire of an immediate an- a description more niagnificently finished. 

- has singled you 



We are glad that Dr. C- 
out upon this occasion. Your performance we 
doubt not will justify his choice : fear not — you 



swer, I give you as much as I can spare of the 
present evening. 

Since I despatched my last, Blair has crept a 
little furtlier into my favour. As his subjects im- ! have a heart that can feel upon charitable occa- 
prove, he improves with them; but upon the whole ' sions, and therefore will not fail you upon this. 
I account him a dry writer, useful no doubt as an , The burning words will come fast enough, when 
instructor, but as little entertaining as with so the sensibility is such as yours. 



much knowledge it is possible to be. His language 
is (except Swift's) the least figurative I remember 
to have seen, and the few figures found in it are not 
always happily employed. I take him to be a 
critic very little animated by what he reads, who 
rather reasons about the beauties of an author, 
than really tastes them ; and who finds that a pas- 
sage is praiseworthy, not because it charms him 



Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 



April 26, 1784. 
We are glad that your book runs. It will not 
indeed satisfy those whom nothing could satisfy 
but because it 'is accommodated to the laws of. but your accession to their party ; but the hberal 
criticism in that case made and provided. 1 have j .,^1 ^^j y^u do well, and it is in the opinion of 
a Uttle complied with your desire of marginal an-j guch men only that you can feel yourself inter- 



riotations, and should have dwelt in them more 
largely, had I read the books to myself; but being 
reader to the ladies, I have not always time to set 
^ tie my own opinion of a doubtful expression, much 
less to suggest an emendation. I have not cen- 
sured a particular observation in the book, though 
when I met with it, it displeased me. I this mo- 
ment recollect it, and may as well therefore note 
it here. He is commending, and' deservedly, that 
most noble description of a thunder storm in the 
first Georgic, which ends with 

Ingeminant austri et densissimus imber. 
Being in haste, I do not refer to the volume for his 
very words, but my memory will serve me with the 
matter. When poets describe, he says, they should 
always select such circumstances of the subject as 
are least obvious, and therefore most striking. He 
therefore admires the effects of the thunderbolt 
splitting mountains, and filling a nation with as- 
tonishment, but quarrels with the closing member 
of the period, as containing particulars of a storm 



ested. 

I have lately been employed in reading Beattie 
and Blair's Lectures. The latter I have not yet 
finished. I find the former the most agreeable of 
the two, indeed the most entertaining writer upon 
dry subjects that I ever met with. His imagina- 
tion is highly poetical, his language easy and ele- 
gant, and his manner so famihar, that we seem to 
be conversing with an old friend, upon terms of 
the most sociable intercourse, while we read him. 
Blair is, on the contrary, rather stiff, not that his 
style is pedantic, but his air is formal. He is a 
sensible man, and understands his subjects, but 
too conscious that he is addressing the public, and 
too soUcitous about his success, to indulge himself 
for a moment in that play of fancy which makes 
the other so agreeable. In Blair we find a scholar, 
in Beattie both a scholar and an amiable man ; in- 
deed so amiable, that I have wished for his ac- 
quaintance ever since I read his book- Having 
never in my life perused a page of Aristotle I am 



254 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 159. 



glad to have had an opportunity of learning more 
than (I suppose) he would have taught me, from 
the writings of two modern critics. I felt myself 
too a little disposed to compliment my own acumen 
upon the occasion. For though the art of writing 
and composmg was never much my study, I did 
not find that they had any great news to tell me. 
They have assisted me in putting my observations 
into some method, but have not suggested many, 
of which I was not by some means or other pre- 
viously apprised. In fact, critics did not origin- 
ally beget authors. But authors made critics. 
Common sense dictated to writers the necessity 
of method, connexion, and thoughts congruous tO 
the nature of their subject ; genius prompted them 
with embelhshments, and then came the critics. 
Observing the good effects of an attention to these 
items, they enacted laws for the observance of them 
in time to come, and, having drawn their rules for 
good writing from what was actually well written, 
boasted themselves the inventors of an art which 
yet the authors of the day had already exempli- 
fied. They are however useful in their way, giv- 
ing us at one view a map of the boundaries which 
propriety sets to fancy ; and serving as judges to 
whom the public may at once appeal, when pes- 
tered with the vagaries of those who have had the 
hardiness to transgress them. 

The candidates for this country have set an ex- 
ample of economy, which other candidates would 



the other freeholders followed it : and in five min- 
utes twenty-eight out of thirty ragamuifins were 
safely lodged in gaol. Adieu, my dear friend, 
We love you, and are yours, W. & M. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, May 3, 1784. 

The subject of face-painting may be considered 
(I think) in two points of view. First, there is 
room for dispute with respect to the consistency 
of the practice with good morals; and secondly, 
whether it be on the whole convenient or not, 
may be a matter worthy of agitation. I set out 
with all the formality of logical disquisition, but 
do not promise to observe the same regularity any 
further than it may comport with my purpose of 
writing as fast as I can. 

As to the immorality of the custom, were I in 
France, I should see none. On the contrary, it 
seems in that country to be a symptom of modest 
consciousness, and a tacit confession of what all 
know to be true, that French faces have in fact 
neither red nor white of their own. This humble 
acknowledgment of a defect looks the more like a 
virtue, being found among a people not remarka- 
ble for humility. Again, before we can prove the 
practice to be immoral, we must prove unmorality 
in the design of those who use it ; either that they 
do well to follow, having come to an agreement on j intend a deception, or to kindle unlawful desires 
both sides to defray the expenses of their voters, in the beholders. But the French ladies, so far 
but to open no houses for the entertainment of the j as their purpose comes in question, must be ac- 
rabble ; a reform, however, which the rabble did j quitted of both these charges. Nobody supposes 
not at all approve of, and testified their dislike of, their colour to be natural for a moment, any more 
it by a riot, A stage was built, from which the, than if it were blue or green: and thi§ unambiguous 
orators had designed to harangue the electors. ! judgment of the matter is owing to two causes: 
This became the first victim of their fury. Hav- 1 first, to the universal knowledge we have, that 
ing very little curiosity to hear what gentlemen [ French women are naturally brown or yellow, 
could say, who would give them nothing better 
than words, they broke it in pieces, and threw the 
fragments upon the hustings. The sheriff, the 
members, the lawyers, the voters, were instantly 



with very few exceptions, and secondly, to the in- 
artificial manner in which, they pjvint : for they do 
not, as I am most satisfactorily informed, even at- 
tempt an imitation of nature, but besmear them-' 
put to flight. They rallied, but were again routed selves hastily, and at a venture, anxious only to lay 
by a second assault, like the former. They , on enough. Where therefore there is no wanton 
then proceeded to break the windows of the intention, nor a wish to deceive, I can discover no 



inn to which they had fled ; and a fear prevailing 
that at night they would fire the town, a proposal 
was made by the freeholders to face about and en- 
deavour to secure them. At that instant a rioter, 
dressed in a merry Andrew's jacket, stepped for- 
ward and challenged the best man among them. 
Olney sent the hero to the field, who made him 

repent of his presumption. Mr. A was he. 

Seizing him by the throat, he shook him — he 



immorality. But in England (I am afraid) our 
painted -ladies are not clearly entitled to the same 
apology. They even imitate nature with such 
exactness, that the whole public is sometimes di- 
vided into' parties, who litigate with great warmth 
the question, whether painted or nof? this was re- 
markably the case with a Miss B , whom I 

well remember. Her roses and lilies were never 
discovered to be spurious, till she attained an age. 



threw him to the earth, and made the hollowness that made the supposition of their being natural 
of his skull resound by the application of his fists, impossible. This anxiety to be not merely red 
and dragged him into custody without the least and white, which is all they aim at in France, 
damage to his person. — Animated by this example, but to be thought very beautiful, and much more 



Let. 160. 



LETTERS. 



255 



beautiful than nature has made them, is a symp- 
tom not very favourable to the idea we would wish 
to entertain of the chastity, purity, and modesty 
of our country-women. That they are guilty of 
a design to deceive, is certain. Otherwise why so 
much arf? and if to deceive, wherefore and with 
what purpose 1 Certainly either to gratify vanity 
of the silliest kind, or, which is still more criminal, 
to decoy and inveigle, and carry on more success- 
fully the business of temptation. Here therefore 
my opinion splits itself into two opposite sides 
upon the same question. I can suppose a French 
woman, though painted an inch deep, to be a vir- 
tuous, discreet, excellent character ; and in no in- 
stance should 1 think the worse of one because 
she was painted. But an English belle must par- 
don me, if I have not the same charity for her. 
She is at least an impostor, whether she cheats 
me or not, because she means to do so ; and it is 
well if that be all the censure she deserves. 

This brings me to my second class of ideas upon 
this topic: and here I feel that I shpuld be fear- 
fully puzzled, were I called upon to recommend 
the practice on the score of convenience. If a hus- 
band chose that his wife should paint, perhaps it 
might be her duty, as well as her interest, to com- 
ply. But I tliink he would not much consult his 
own, for reasons; that will follow. In the first 
place, she would admire herself the more ; and in 
the next, if she managed the matter well, she 
might be more admired by others ; an acquisition 
that might bring her virtue under trials, to which 
otherwise it might never have been exposed. In 
no other ca^e, however, can I imagine the practice 
in this country to be either expedient or conve- 
nient. • As a general one, it certainly is not expe- 
dient, because in general EngUsh- women have no 
occasion for it. A swarthy complexion is a rarity 
here ; and the sex, especially since the inocula- 
tion has been so mUch in use, have very little 
cause to complain that nature has not been kind 
to them in the article of complexion. They may 
hide and spoil a good one, but they can not (at 
least they hardly can) give themselves a better. 
But even if they could, there is yet a tragedy in 
the sequel, which should make them tremble. I 
understand that in France, though the use of 
rouge be general, the use of white paint is far from 
being so. In England, she that uses one, com- 
monly uses both. Now all white paints, or lotions, 
or whatever they be called, are mercurial, conse- 
quently poisonous, consequently ruinous in time 
to the constitution. The Miss B above men- 
tioned was a miserable witness of tliis truth, it 
being certain that her flesh fell from her bones 

before she died. Lady C — was hardly a less 

melancholy proof of it; and a London physician 
perhaps, were he at liberty to blab, could publish 



a bill of female mortality, of a length that would 
astonish us. 

For these reasons, I utterly condenm the prac- 
tice, as it obtains in England: and for a! reason 
superior to all these, I must disapprove it. I can 
not indeed discover that Scripture Ibrbids it in so 
many words. But that anxious solitude about the 
person, which such an artifice evidently betrays, 
is, I am sure, contrary to the tenor and spirit of it 
throughout. Show me a woman with a painted 
face, and I will show you a woman whose heart 
is set on things of the earth, and not on things 
above. But this observation of mine applies to it 
only when it is" an imitative art. For in the use 
of French women, I think it as innocent as in the 
use of the wild Indian, who draws a circle round 
her face, and makes two spots, perhaps blue, per- 
haps white, in the middle of it. Such are my 
thoughts upon the matter. Vive, valeque. 

Yours ever, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UN WIN. 

• May 8, 1784. 

You do well to make your letters merry ones, 
though not very merry yourself, and that both for 
my sake and your Own; for your own sake, be- 
cause it sometimes happens, that by assuming an 
air of cheerfulness \^e become cheerful in reality; 
and for mine, because I have alwkys more need 
of a laugh than a cry, being somewhat disposed 
to melancholy by natural temperament, as well as 
by other causes. 

It was long since, and even in the infancy of 
John Gilpin, recommended to me, by a lady now 
at Bristol, to write a sequel. But having afways 
observed that authors, elated with the success of 
a first part, have fallen below themselves, when 
they have attempted a second, I had more pru- 
dence than to take her counsel. I want you to 
read the history of that hero, published by Bladon, 
and to tell me what it is made of But buy it not. 
For, pufted as it is in the papers, it can be but a 
bookseller's job, and must be dear at the price of 
two shillings. In the last pacquet but one that I re- 
ceived from Johnson, he asked me if I had any 
improvements' of John Gilpin in hand, or if I de- 
signed any; for that to print only the original 
again would be to publish what has been hacknied 
in every magazine, in every newspaper, and in 
every street. I answered, that the copy which I 
sent him contained two or three small variations 
from, the first, except which I had none to pro- 
pose, and that if he thought him now too trite to 
make a part of my volume, I should willingly ac- 
quiesce in his judgment. I take it for granted 
therefore that he will not bring up the rear of my 



256 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 161, 162, 163. 



Poems according to my first intention, and shall 
not be sorry for the omission. It may spring from 
a principle of pride ; but spring it from what it 
may, I feel, and have long felt, a disinclination to 
a public avowal that he is mine ; and since he be- 
came so popular, I have felt it more than ever ; 
not that I should have expressed a scruple, if 
Johnson had not. But a fear has suggested itself 
to me, that I might expose myself to a charge of 
vanity by admitting him into my book, and that 
some people would impute it to me as a crime. 
Consider what the world is made of, and you will 
not find my suspicions chimerical. Add to this, 
that when, on correcting the latter part of the 
fifth book of the Task, I came to consider the so- 
lenmity and sacred nature of the subjects there 
handled, it seemed to me an incongruity af the 
least, not to call it by a hasher name, to follow up 
such premises with such a conclusion. I am well 
content therefore with having laughed, and made 
others laugh, and will build my hopes of success, 
as a poet, upon more important matter. 

In our printing business we now jog on mei'rily 
enough. The cominj; week wUl I hope bring me 
to an end of the Task, and the next fortnight to 
an end of the whole. I am glad to have Paley 
on my side in the affair of education. He is cer- 
tainly on all subjects a sensible man, and on such, 
a wise one. But I am mistaken, if Tirocinium do 
not make some of my friends angry, and procure 
me enemies not a few. There is a sting in verse, 
that prose neither has, nor can have; and I do not 
kirow that schools in the gross, and especially pub- 
lic schools, have ever been so pointedly condemned 
before. But they are become a nuisance, a pest, 
an abomination, and it is fit that the eyes and noses 
of mankind should, if possible, be opened to per- 
ceive it. , 

This is indeed an author's letter; but is it not 
an author's letter to liis friend. If you wUl be the 
friend of an author, you must expect such letters. 
Come July, and come yourself, with as many of 
your exterior selves as can possibly come with you. 
Yours, my dear William, affectionately, and 
with your mother's remembrances, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, May 22, 1784. 

I AM glad to have received at last an account 
of Dr. Johnson's favourable opinion of my book. 
I thought it wanting, and had long since con- 
cluded that, not having had the happiness to please 
him, I owed my ignorance of his sentiments to the 
tenderness of my friends at Hoxton, who would 
not mortify me with an account of his disapproba- 
tion. It occurs to me that I owe him thanks for 
interposing between me and the resentment of the 
Reviewers, who seldom show mercy to an advocate 



for evangehcal truth, whether in prose or verse. I 
therefore enclose a short acknowledgment, which, 
if you see no impropriety in the measure, you can 
I imagine wdthout much difficulty convey to him 
through the hands, of Mr. Latrobe. If on any ac- 
count you judge it an inexpedient step, you can 
very easily suppress the letter. 

I pity Mr. Bull. What harder task can any 
man undertake than the management of those, 
who have reached the age of manhood without 
having ever felt the force of _ authority, or passed 
through any of the preparatory parts of education! 
I had cither forgot, or never adverted to the cir- 
cumstance, that his disciples were to be men. " At 
present, however, I am not surprised that, being 
such, they are found disobedient, untractable, in- 
solent, and conceited; qualities, that generally pre- 
vail in the minds of adults in exact proportion to 
their ignorance. He dined with us since I re- 
ceived your last. It was on Thursday that he was 
here. He came dejected, burthened, full of com- 
plaints. But we sent him away cheerful. He is 
very sensible of the prudence, delicacy, and atten- 
tion to his character, which the society have dis- 
covered in their conduct towards him upon this 
occasion; and indeed it does them honour; for it 
were past aU enduring, if a charge of insufficiency 
should obtain a moment's regard, when brought 
by five such coxcombs against a man of his erudir 
tion and abiUty. Lady Austen is gone to Bath. 
Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

June 5, 1784. 
When you told me that the critique upon my 
volume was written, though not by Dr. Johnson 
himself, yet by a friend of his, to whom he recom- 
mended the book and the business, I inferred from 
that expression that I was indebted to him for an 
active interposition in my favour, and consequently 
that he. had a right to thanks. But now I concur 
entirely in sentiment with you, and heartily second 
your vote for the suppression of thanks which do 
not seem to be much called for. Yet even now 
were it possible that I could fall into his company, 
I should not think a slight acknowledgment mis- 
applied. I was no other way anxious about his 
opinion, nor could be so, after you and some others 
had given a favourable one, than it was natural I 
should be, knowing, as I did, that his opinion had 
been consulted. 

I am affectionately yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, July 3, 1784. 

We rejoice that you had a safe journey, and 
though we should have rejoiced still more had you 



Let. Ifi4. 



LETTERS. 



257 



had no occasion for a physician, we are glad that, 
having had need of one, you had the good fortune 
to find him. Let us hear soon that his advice has 
proved eflectual, and that you are deUvered from 
a,ll ill symptoms. 

Thanks for the care you have taken to furnish 
me with a dictionary. It is rather strange that at 
my time of life, and after a youth spent in classical 
pursuits, 1 should want one; and stranger still 
that, being possessed at present of only one Latin 
author in the world, I should think it worth while 
to purchase one. I say that it is strange, and in- 
deed I think it so myself But I have a thought 
that when my present labours of the pcfi are ended, 
I may go to school again, and refresh my spirits 
by a little intercourse with the Mantuan and the 
Sabine bard, and perhaps by a reperusal of some 
others, whose works we generally lay by at that 
period of life when we are best qualified to read 
them, when, the judgment and the taste being 
formed, their beauties are least likely to be over- 
looked. 

This change of wind and weather comforts me, 
and I should have enjoyed the first fine morning 
I have seen this month with a peculiar relish, 
if our" new tax-maker had not put me out of tem- 
per. I am angry with him, not only for the mat- 
ter, but for the manner of his proposal. When 
he lays his impost upon horses, he is jocular, and 
laughs, though considering that wheels, and miles, 
and grooms, were taxed before, a graver coun- 
tenance upon the occasion would have been more 
decent. But he provoked me still more by reason- 
ing as he does on the justification of the tax upon 
candles. Some families, he says, will suffer little 
by it — Why 1 because they are so poor, that they 
can not aflbrd themselves more than ten pounds 
in the year. Excellent ! They can use but few, 
therefore they will pay but little, and consequently 
will be but little burthened, an argument which 
for its cruelty and effrontery seems worthy- of a 
hero — but he does not avail himself of the whole 
force of it, nor with all his wisdom had sagacity 
enough to see that it contains, when pushed to its 
utmost extent, a free discharge and acquittal of the 
poor from the payment of any tax at all; a com- 
modity, being once made too expensive for their 
pockets, will cost them nothing, for they will not 
buy it. Rejoice therefore, O ye pennyless! the 
mi-nister will indeed send you to bed in the dark, 
but your remaining halfpenny will be safe; in- 
stead of being spent in the useless luxury of can- 
dlelight, it will buy you a roll for brfeakfast, which 
you will eat no doubt with gratitude to the man 
who so kindly lessens the number of your dis- 
bursements, and, while he seems to threaten your 
money, saves it. I wish he would remember, that 
the halfpenny, which government imposes, the 
shopkeeper will swell to two-pence. I wish he 



would visit the miserable huts of our lace-makers 
at Olncy, and see them working in the winter 
months, by the light of a farthing canale, from four 
in the afternoon till midnight : I wish he had laid 
his tax upon the ten thousand lamps that illumi- 
nate the Pantheon, upon the flambeaux that wait 
upon ten thousand chariots and sedans in an 
evening, and upon the wax candles that give light 
to ten thousand card tables. I wish in short that 
he would consider the pockets of the poor as sa- 
cred, and that to tax a people already so necessi- 
tous, is but to discourage the little industry that is 
left among us, by driving the laborious to despair. 

A neighbour of minCj in Silver-end, keeps an 
ass ; the ass lives on the other side of the garden- 
wall, and I am writing in the green-house : it hap- 
pens that he is this morning most musically dis- 
posed, whether cheered by'the fine weather, or by 
some new tune which he has just acquired, or by 
finding his voice more harmonious than usual. It 
would be cruel to mortify so fine a singer, there- 
fore I do not tell hini that he interrupts and hin- 
ders me, but I venture to tell you so, and to plead 
his performance in excuse of my abrupt conclusion.. 

I send you the goldfinches, with which you will 
do as you see good. We have an affectionate re- 
membrance of your last visit, and of all our friends 
at Stock. 

Believe me ever yours, W. C. 



TO THE HEV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, ' JullJ 5 , .llSi. 

A D^EARTH of materials, a consciousness that my 
subjects ar^^for the most part, and must be unin- 
teresting and unimportant, but above all a poverty 
of animal spirits, that makes writing such a great 
fatigue to me, have occasioned my choice of smaller 
paper. . Acquiesce in the justness of these reasons 
for the present ; and if ever the times should mend 
with me, I sincerely promise to amend with them. 

Homer says on a certain occasion, that Jupiter, 
when he was wanted at home, was gone to partake 
of an entertainment provided for him by the Ethi- 
opians. If by Jupiter we understand the weather, 
or the season, as the ancients frequently did, we 
may say that our English Jupiter has been absent 
on account of some such invitation: during the 
whole month of June he left us to experience al- 
most the rigours of winter. This fine day how- 
ever affords us some hope that the feast is ended, 
and that we shall enjoy his company without the 
interference of his ^Ethiopian friends again. 

Is it possible that the wise men of antiquity 
could entertain a real reverence for the fabulous 
rubbish, wliich they dignified vnih. the name of 
religion 1 We, who have been favoured from our 
infancy with so clear a light, are perhaps hardly 



258 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 165. 



competent to decide the question, and may strive 
in vain to imagine the absurdities that even a good 
understanding may receive as truths, when totally 
unaided by revelation. It seems however that men, 
whose conceptions upon other subjects were often 
sublime, whose reasoning powers were undoubted- 
ly equal to our own, and whose management in 
matters of jurisprudence that required a very in- 
dustrious examination of evidence, was as acute and 
subtle as that of a modern attorney-general, could 
not be the dupes of such imposture as a child 
among us would detect and laugh at, Juvenal, I 
remember, introduces one of his satires with an 
observation that there were some in his day who 
had the hardiness to laugh at the stories of Tarta- 
rus, and Styx, and Charon, and of the frogs that 
croak upon the banks of Lethe, giving his reader 
at the same time cause to suspect that he was hin;i- 
self one of that profane number; Horace, ori the 
other hand, declares in sober sadness that he would 
not for all the world get into a boat with a man 
who had divulged the Eleusinian mysteries. Yet 
we know that those mysteries, whatever they 
might be, were altogether as unworthy to be es- 
teemed divine as the mythology of the vulgar. 
How then must we determine'? If Horace were 
a good and orthodox heathen, how came Juvenal 
to be such an ungracious Ubertine in principle, as 
to ridicule the doctrines which the other held as 
sacred"? Their opportunities of information, and 
their mental advantages were equal. I feel myself 
rather inclined to believe, that Juvenal's avowed 
uifidelity was sincere, and that Horace was no 
better than a canting hypocritical professor. 
, You must grant me a dispensation for saying 
any thing, whether it be sense or nonsense, upon 
the subject of politics. It is truly a- matter in 
which I am so little interested, that were it not 
that it sometimes serves me for a theme when I 
can find no other, I should never mention it. I 
would forfeit a large sum if, after advertising a 
month in the gazette, the minister of the day, who- 
ever he may be, could discover a man that cares 
about him or his measures so little as I do. When 
I say that I would forfeit a large sum, I mean to 
have it understood that I would forfeit such a sum, 
if I had it. If Mr. Pitt be indeed a virtuous man, 
as such I respect him. But at the best, I fear, 
that he will have to say at least with .^neas, 

Si Pergama dextra. 
Defend! possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent. 

Be he what he may, I do not like his taxes. At 
least I am much disposed to quarrel with some of 
them. The additional duties upon candles, by 
which the poor will be much allected. Iiurts me 
most. He says indeed that they will but little feel 
it, because even now they can hardly afford the 
use of them. He had certainly put no compassion 



into his budget, when he produced from it this tax, 
and such an argument to support it. Justly trans- 
lated it seems to amomit to this — ' Make the ne- 
cessaries of life too expensive for the poor to reach 
them, and you will save their money. If they buy 
but few candles, they will pay but little tax ; and. 
if they buy none, the tax, as to them, will be an- 
nihilated.' True. But, in the mean time they 
will break their shins against their furniture, if 
they have any, and will be but little the richer, 
when the hours, in which they might work, if 
they could see, shall be deducted. 

I have bought a great dictionary, and want no- 
thing but Latin authors to finish me with the use 
of it. Had I pmchased them first, I had begun 
at the right end. But I could not afford it. ■ I be- 
seech you admire my prudence. 

Vivite, valete, et mementote nostrum. 

Yours affectionately, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, July 13, 1784. 

I THINK with you that Vinny's line is not pure. 
If he knew any authority that would have justified 
his substitution of a participle for a substantive, 
he would have done well to have noted it in the 
margin. But I am much inclined to think that 
he did not Poets ate sometimes exposed to diffi- 
culties insurmountable by lawful means, whence 
I imagine was originally derived that indulgence 
that allows them the use of what is called the 
poetica licentia. But that liberty, I believe, con- 
tents itself wdth the abbreviation or protraction of a 
word, or an alteration in the quantity of a syllable, 
and never presumes to trespass upon grammatical 
propriety. I have dared to attempt to correct my 
master, but am not bold enough to say that I have 
succeeded. Neither am I sure that my memory 
serves me correctly with the line that follows; but 
when I recollect the English, am persuaded that it 
can not differ much from the true one. Tliis there- 
fore, is my edition of the passage — 



Or, 



Basia amatori tot turn permissa beato. 

Basia quae juveni indulsit Susanna beato 
Navarcha optai'et maximus esse sua. 



The preceding lines I have utterly forgotten, 
and am consequently at a loss to know whether 
the disticTi, thus managed, will connect itself with 
them easily, and as it ought. 

We thank you for the drawing of your house. 
I never knew my idea of what I had never seen 
resemble the original so much. At some time or 
other you have doubtless given me an exact ac- 
count of it, and I have retained the faithful im- 



Let. 1G6, 167. 



LETTERS. 



259 



pression made by your description. It is a com- 
fortable abode, and the time I hope Wi]l come when 
I shall enjoy more than the mere representation 
of it. 

I have not yet read the last Review, but dipping 
into it I accidentally fell upon their account of 
Hume's Essay on Suicide. I am glad that they 
have liberality enough to condemn the licentious- 
ness of an author whom they so much admire. 1 
say liberality, for there is as much bigotry in the 
world to that man's errors as there is in the hearts 
of some sectaries to their peculiar modes and te- 
nets. He is the Pope. of thousands, as blind and 
presumptuous as himself God certainly infatuates 
those who will not see. It were otherwise impos- 
sible, that a man naturally shrewd and sensible, 
and whose understanding has had all the advan- 
tages of constant exercise and cultivation, could 
have satisfied himself, or have, hoped to satisfy 
others with such palpable sophistry as has not 
even the grace of fallacy to recommend it. His 
silly assertion that because it would be no sin to 
divert the course of the Danube, therefore it is 
none to let out a few ounces of blood from an ar- 
tery, would justify not suicide only but homicide 
also. For the lives of ten thousand men are of 
less consequence to their country than the course 
of that river to .the regions through which it flows. 
Population would soon make society amends for 
the loss-of her ten thousand members, but the loss 
of the Danube would be felt by all the millions 
that dwell upon its banks, to all generations. But 
the hfe of a man and the water of a river can never 
come into competition with each other in point 
of value, unless in the estimation of an unprinci- 
pled philosopher. 

I thank you for your offer- of classics. When 
I want I will borrow. Horace is my own. Ho- 
mer, with a clavis, I have had possession of some 
years. They are the property of Mr. Jones. A 

Virgil, the property of Mr. S , I have had 

as long, I am nobody in the affair of tenses, un- 
less when you are present.' 



tacle which this world exhibits, tragi-coinical as 
the incidents of it are, absurd in themselves, but 
terrible in their consequences ; 

Sunt rea humansB flebile ludibrium. 

An instance of this deplorable merriment has oc- 
curred in the course of last week at Olney. A 
feast gave the occasion to a catastrophe truly shock- 
ing. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. J. NEWTON. 



Yours ever, W. C. 



TO THE REV. J. NEWTON. 

July 19, 1784. 
In those days when Bedlam was open to the 
cruel curiosity of holiday ramblers, I have been a 
visiter there. Though a boy, I was not altogether 
insensible of the misery of the poor captives, nor 
destitiite of feeling for them. But the madness of 
some of them had such an humorous air, and dis- 
played itself in so many whimsical freaks, that it 
AVas impossible not to be entertained, at the same 
time that I was angry with myself for being so. 
A line of Bourne's is very expressive of the spec- 



MY DEAR FRIEND, July 28, 1784. 

I MAY perhaps be short, but am not willing that 
3^ou should go to Lymington without first having 
had a hne from me. I know that place well, hav- 
ing spent six weeks there, above twenty years ago. 
The town is neat, and the country delightful. You 
walk well, and will consequently find a part of the 
coast, called Half-Chff, within the reach of your 
ten toes. It was a favourite walk of mine ; to- the 
best of my remembrance, about three miles dis- 
tance from Lymington. There you may stand 
upon the beach,- and contemplate the Needle-rock. 
At least you might have done so twenty years ago. 
But since that time I think it is fallen from its 
base, and is drowned, and is no longer a visible 
object of contemplation. I wish you may pass 
your time there happily, as in all probability you 
will, perhaps usefully too to others, undoubtedly so 
to yourself. 

The manner in which you have been previously 
made acquainted with Mr. Gilpin gives a provi- 
dential air to your journey, and affords reason to 
hope that you may be charged with a message to 
him. I admire him as a biographer. But as Mrs. 
Unwin and I were talking of him last night, 
we could not but, wonder that a man should see 
so much excellence in the lives, and so much glory 
and beauty in the deaiths'of the martyrs, whom he 
has recorded, and at the same time disapprove the 
principles that produced the very conduct he ad- 
mired. It seems however a step towards the truth, 
to applaud the fruits of it • and one can not help 
thinking that one step more Would put him in 
possession of the truth itself By your means may 
he be enabled to take it ! 

We are obliged to you for the preference you 
would have given to Olney, had not providence 
determined your course another way. But as, 
when we saw you last summer, you gave us no rea- 
son to expect you this, we are the less disappointed. 
At your age and mine, biennial visits have such a 
gap between.them that we can not promise our- 
selves upon those terms very numerous future in- 
terviews. But whether ours are to be many or 
few, you will always be welcome to me, for the 
sake of the comfortable days that are past. In 



260 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 168, 169, 



my present state of mind my friendsliip for you 
indeed is as warm as ever. But I feel myself 
very indiflerently qualified to be your companion. 
Other days tlian these inglorious and unprofitable 
ones are promised me, and when I see them-Ishall 
rejoice. 

I saw the advertisement of your adversary's book. 
He is happy at least in this, that whether he have 
brains or none, he strikes without the danger of 
being stricken again. He could not wish to en- 
gage in a coritroversy upon easier terms. The 
other, whose publication is postponed till Christ- 
mas, is resolved, I suppose, to do something. But 
do what he will he can not prove that you have 
not been aspersed, or that you haver^)t refuted the 
charge ; which unless he can do, I^ Qiink he will 
do little to the purpose. 

Mrs. Unwin thinks of you, and always with 
a grateful recollection of yours and Mrs. Newton's 
kindness. She has had a nervous fever lately. 
But I hope she is better. The weather forbids 
walking, a prohibition hurtful to us both. 

We heartily wish you a good journey, and are 
affectionately yours, W. C. and M. U.' 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

.MY DEAR FRIEND, Aug. 14, 1784. 

I GIVE you joy of a journey performed without 
trouble or danger. You have travelled five hun- 
dred miles without having encountered either. 
Some neighbours of ours, about a fortnight since, 
made an excursion only to a neighbouring village 
and brought home with them fractured skulls, and 
broken limbs, and one of them is dead. For my 
own part, I seem pretty much exempted from the 
dangers of the road. Thanks to that tender in- 
terest and concern which the legislature takes in 
my security ! Having no doubt their fears lest 
so precious a life should determine too "soon, and 
by some untimely stroke of misadventure, they 
have made wheels and horses so expensive that I 
am not likely to owe my death to either. 

Your mother and I continue to visit Weston 
daily, and find in those agreeable bowers such 
amusement as leaves us but little room to regret 
that we can go no further. Having touched that 
theme, I can not abstain from the pleasure of tell 
ing you that our neighbours in that place, being 
about to leave it for some time, and meeting us 
there but a few evenings before their departue, en- 
treated us during their absence to consider the 
garden, and all its contents, as our own, and to 
gather whatever we liked, without the least scru 
pie. We accordingly picked strawberries as often 
as wo went, and brouglit home as many bundles 
of honey-suckles as served to perfume our dwelling 
till they returned. 



Once more, by the aid of Lord Dartmouth, I 
find myself a voyager in the Pacific ocean. In 
our last night's lecture we made our acquaintance 
with the island of Hapaee, where we had never 
been before. The French and Italians, it seems, 
have but little cause to plume themselves on ac- 
count of their achievements in tlie dancing way ; 
and we may hereafter, without much repining at 
it, acknowledge their superiority in that art. They 
are equalled, perhaps excelled by savages. How 
wonderful, that without any intercourse with the 
politer world, and having made no proficiency 
in any other accomplishment, they should in this 
however have made themselves such adepts, that 
for reg'ularity and grace of motion they might even 
be our masters. How wonderful too, that with a 
tub and a stick they should he able to produce 
such harmony, as persons accustomed to the sweet- 
est music can not but hear with pleasure; Is it 
not very difficult to account for the striking difier- 
ence of character, that obtains among the inhabi- 
tants of these islands "? Many of them are near 
neighbours to each other. Their opportunities of 
improvement much the same ; yet some of them 
are in a degree polite, discover symptoms of taste, 
and ha've a sense of elegance ; while others are as 
rude as we naturally expect to find a people who 
have never had any communication with the 
northern hemisphere. These volumes furnish much 
matter of philosophical speculation, and often en- 
tertain me even while I am not employed in read- 
ing them. 

I am sorry you have not been able to ascertain 
the doubtful intelligence I have received on the 
subject of court skirts and bosoms. I am now 
every day occupied in giving all the grace I can 
to my new production, and in transcribing it I 
shall soon arrive at the passage that censures that 
folly, which I shall be loth to expunge, but which 
I must not spare, unless the criminals can be con- 
victed. The world however is not so unproduc- 
tive of subjects of censure, but that it may possi- 
bly supply me with some other that may serve me 
as well. 

If you know any body that is writing, or in- 
tends to write, an epic poem on the new regula- 
tion of franks, you may give him my compliments, 
and these two lines for a beginning — 

Heu quot amatores nunc torquet epistola rara! 
Vectigarcertum, perituraque gratia Frahki! 

Yours faithfully, W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, August 16, 1784. 

Had you not expressed a desire to hear from 
me before you take leave of Lymington, I certainly 
should not have answered you so soon. Know- 



Let. 1-70. 



LETTERS. 



261 



ing the place, and the amusements it affords, I 
should have had more modesty than to suppose 
myself capable of adding any thing to your pre- 
sent entertainments worthy to rank with them. 
I am not however totally destitute of such plea- 
sures as an inland country may pretend to. If 
my windows do not command a view of the ocean, 
at least they look out upoii a profusion of migno- 
nette; which, if it be not so grand an object, is 
however quite as fragrant: and if I have not a 
hermit in a grotto, I have nevertheless myself in a 
green-house, a less venerable figure perhaps, but 
not at all less animated than he; nor are we in 
this nook altogether furnished with such means 
of philosophical experiment and speculation as at 
present the world rings with. On Thursday 
morning last, we sent up a balloon from Ember- 
ton meadow. Thrice it rqse, and as oft descend- 
ed, and in the«evcning it performed another flight 
at Newport, where it went up, and came down no 
more. Like the arrow discharged at the pigeon 
in the Trojan games, it kmdled in the air, and 
was consumed in a moment. I have not heard 
what interpretation the soothsayers have given to 
the omen, but shall wonder a little if the Newton 
shepherd prognosticate any thing less from it 
than the most bloody war that was ever waged in 
Europe. 

I am reading Cook's last voyage, and am much 
pleased and amused with it. It seems that in 
some of the Friendly isles, they excel so much in 
dancing, and perform that operation witli such 
exquisite delicacy and grace, that they are not 
surpassed even upon our European stages. O! 
that Vestris had been in the ship, that he might 
have seen himself outdone by a savage. The 
paper indeed tells lis that the queen of France 
has clapped this lung of capers up in prison, for 
declining to dance before her, on a pretence of 
sickness, when in fact he was in perfect health. 
If this be true, perhaps he may by this time be 
prepared to second such a wish as mine, and to 
think- that the durance he suffers would be well 
exchanged for a dance at Anamooka. I should 
however as little have expected to hear that 
these islanders had such consummate skill in 
an art, that requires so much taste in the 
conduct of the person, as that they were good 
mathematicians and astronomers. Defective as 
they are in every branch of knowledge, and in 
every other species of refinement, it seems won- 
derful that they should arrive at such perfection 
in the dance, which some of our English gentle- 
men, with all the assistanceof French instruction, 
find it impossible to learn. We must conclude 
therefore that particular nations have a genius for 
particular feats, and that our neighbours in France, 
and our friends in the South sea, have minda 



very nearly akin, though they inhabit countries bo 
very remote from each other. 

Mrs. Unwin remembers to have been in com- 
pany with Mr. Gilpin at her brother's. She 
thought him very sensible and polite, and conse- 
quently ver}-- agreeable. . 

We are truly glad that Mrs. Newton and your- 
self are so well, and that there is reason to hope 
that Eliza is better. You will learn from this let- 
ter that we are so, and that for my own part I am 
not quite so low in spirits as at some times. Learn 
too, what you knew before, that we love you all, 
and that I am 

Your affectionate friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Olney, Sept. 11, 1784. 

You have my thanks for the inquiries you have 
made. Despairing however of meeting with such 
confirmation of that new mode, as would warrant 
a general stricture, I had, before the receipt of 
your last, discarded the passage in which I had 
censured it. I am proceeding in my transcript 
with all possible despatch, having nearly finished 
the fourth book, and hoping, by the end of the 
month; to have completed the work. When 
finished, that no time may be lost, I purpose 
taking tire first opportunity to transmit it to Le- 
iiian-street; but must beg that you will give me 
in your next an exact direction, that it may pro- 
ceed to the mark without any hazkrd of a miscar- 
riage. A second transcript of it would be a la- 
bour I should very reluctantly undertake; for 
though I have kept copies of all the niaterial al- 
terations, there are so many minufise of which I 
have made none; it is besides slavish work, and 
of all occupations that which I dislike the most. I 
know that you will lose no time in reading it, but 
I must beg you likewise to lose none in convey- 
ing it to Johnson, that if he chooses to print it, it 
may go to the press immediately; if iiot, that it 
rnay be offered directly to your friend Longman, 
or any other. Not that I doubt Johnson's accept- 
ance of it, for he vnll find it more ad captum po- 
puli than theformer. I have not numbered the 
lines, except of the four first books, which amount 
to three thousand two hundred and seventy-six. 
I imagine therefore that the whole contains above 
five thousand. I mention this circumstance now, 
because it may save him some trouble in casting 
the size of the book; and I might possibly forget it 
in another letter. 

About a fortnight since, we had a visit from 

Mr. , whom I had not seen many years. He 

introduced hiihself to us very politely, with many 
thanks on his own part, and on the part of his 



262 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let, 171, 173. 



family, for the amusement which my book had 
afforded them. He said he was sure that it must 
make its way, and hoped tliat I had not layed down 
the pen. I only told him in general terms, that 
the use of the pen was necessary to my well be- 
ing, but gave him no hint of this last production. 
He said that one passage in particular had abso- 
lutely electrified him, meaning the description of 
the Briton in Table Talk. He seemed indeed to 
emit some sparks when he mentioned it. I was 
glad to have that picture noticed by a man of a 
cultivated mind, because I had always thought 
well of it myself, and had never heard it distin- 
guished before. Assure yourself, my William, 
and though I would not write thus freely on the 
subject of me or mine to any but yourself, the 
pleasure I have in doing it is a most innocent one, 
and partakes not in the least degree, so far as my 
conscience is to be credited, of that vanity with 
which authors are in general so justly chargeable. 
Whatever I do, I confess that I nrost sincerely 
wish to do it well, and when I have reason to hope 
that I have succeeded, am pleased indeed, but not 
proud; for He, who has placed every thing out 
of the reach of man, except what he freely gives 
him, has made it impossible for a reflecting mind, 
that knows this, to indulge so silly a passion for a 
moment. Yours, W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Sept. 11, 1784. 

I HAVE never seen Dr. Cotton's book, concern- 
ing which your sisters question me, nor did I 
know, till you mentioned it, that he had written 
any thing newer than his Visions. I have no 
doubt that it is so far worthy of hira, as to be pious 
and sensible, and I beUeve no man hving is better 
qualified to write on such subjects as his title 
seems to announce. Some years have passed 
since I heard from him, and considering his great, 
age, it is probable that I shall hear from him no 
more; but I shall always respect him. He is truly 
a philosopher, according to my judgment of the 
character, every tittle of his knowledge in natural 
subjects being connected in his mind with the 
firm belief of an Omnipotent agent. 

Yours, &c. W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Sept. 18, 1784. 

Following your good example, I lay before me 
a sheet of my largest paper. It was this moment 
fair and unblemished, but I have begun to blot it, 
and having begun am not likely to cease till I 
have spoiled it. I have sent you many a sheet 



that in my judgment of it has been very unworthy 
of your acceptance, but my conscience was in 
some measure satisfied by reflecting, that if it 
were good for nothing, at the same time it«ost 
you nothing, except the trouble of reading it. But 
the case is altered now. You must pay a solid 
price for frothy matter, and though I do not abso- 
lutely pick your pocket, yet you lose your money, 
and, as the saying is, are never the wiser. 

My green-house is never so pleasant as when 
we are just upon the point of being turned out of 
it.- The gentleness of the autumnal suns, andthp 
calmness of this latter season, make it a much 
more agreeable retreat than we ever find it in the 
summer; when, the winds being generally brisk, 
we can Jiot cool it by admitting a sufficient quantity 
of air, without being at the same time incommoded 
by it. But now I sit with ' all the windows and 
the door wide open, and am regaled j?vith the scent 
of every flower in a garden as full of flowers as I 
have knovwi how to make it. We keep no bees, 
but if I lived in a hive I should hardly hear more 
of their music. All the bees in the neighbour- 
hood resort to a bed of mignonette, opposite to the 
window, and pay me for the honey they get out 
of it by a hum, which, though rather iponotonous, 
is as agreeable to my ear as the whistUng of my 
linnets. All the sounds that nature utters are de- 
lightful, at least in this country. I should not per- 
haps find the roaring of lions in Africa, or of bears 
in Russia, very pleasing ;• but I know no beast in 
England whose voice I do- not account musical, 
save and except always the braying of an ass. 
The notes of all our birds and fowls please me, 
without one exception. I should not indeed think 
of keeping a goose in a cage, that I might hang 
him up in the parlour for the sake of his melody, 
but a goose upon a common, or in a farm yard, is 
no bad performer; and as to insects, if the black 
beetle, and beetles indeed of all hues; will keep 
out of my way, I have no objection to any of the 
rest; on the contrary, in whatever key they sing, 
from the gnat's fine treble, to the base of the hum- 
ble bee, I admire them all. Seriously however it 
strikes me as a very observable instance of provi- 
dential kindness to man, that such an exact accord 
has been contrived between his ear, and the sounds 
with which, at least in a rurul situation, it is al- 
most every moment visited. All the world is sen- 
sible of the uncomfortable effect that certain soimds 
have upon the nerves, and consequently upon the 
spirits — And if a sinful world had been filled with 
such as would have ciu'dled the blood, and have 
made the sense of hearing a perpetual inconveni- 
ence, I do not know that we should have had a 
right to complain. But now the fields, the woods, 
the gardens, have each their concert, and the ear 
of man is for ever regaled by creatures who seem 
only to please themselves. Even the ears that are 



Let. 173, 174. 



LETTERS. 



263 



deaf to the Gospel are continually entertained, 
though without knowing it, by sounds for which 
they are solely indebted to its author. There is 
somewhere in infinite space a world that docs not 
roll within the precincts of mercy, and- as it is rea- 
sonable, and even scriptural, to suppose that there 
is music in Heaveii, in those dismal regions per- 
haps the reverse of it is found; tones so dismal, as 
to make wo itself more insupportable^ and to acu- 
minate even despair. But my paper admonishes 
me in good time to draw the reins, and to dfieck 
the descent of my fancy into deeps, with which 
she is but too familiar. Our best love attends you 
both. Yours, W.C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, Oct. 2, 1784. 

A POET can but ill spare time for prose.' " The 
truth is, I am in haste to finish my transcript, that 
you may ireceive it time enough to give it a leisure- 
ly reading .before you go to town; which whether 
I shall be able to accomplish, is at present uncer- 
tairt I have the whole punctuation to settle, 
which in blank verse- is of the last importance, and 
of a species peculiar to that composition ; for I 
know no use of points, unless to direct the voice, 
the management of which, in the reading blank 
verse, being more difficult than in the reading of 
any other poetry, requires perpetual hints and no- 
tices, to regulate the inflections,- cadences, and 
pauses. This however is an affair that in spite 
of grammarians must be left pretty much ad libi- 
tum, scriptoris. For I suppose every author points 
according to his own reading. If I can send the 
parcel to the wagon by one o'clock next Wednes- 
day, you will have it on Saturday the ninth. But 
this is more than I expect. Perhaps I shall not 
be able to despatch it till the eleventh, in which 
case it will not reach 5'ou till the. thirteenth. I 
rather think, that the latter of these two periods 
will obtain, because-, besides the punctuation, I 
have the argument of each book to transcribe. Add 
to this, that in writing for the printer, I am forced 
to -write my best, which makes slow work. The 
motto of the whole is — Fit surculus arbor. If 
you can put the author's name under it, do so — 
if not, it must go without one. For I know not 
to whom to ascribe it. It was a motto taken by a 
cer);ain prince of Orange, in the year 1733, but 
not to a poem of his own writing, or indeed to any 
poem at ail, but, as ! think, to a medal. 

Mr. is a Cornish member, but for what 

place in Cornwall I know not. All I know of him 



morton.. With that gentleman we drank choco- 
late, since I wrote last. The occasion of our visit 
was, as usual, a balloon. Your mother invited 
her, and I him, and they promised to return the 4 
visit, but have not yet performed. Tout Ic monde 
se trouvoit Id, as you may suppose, among the 

rest, Mrs. W . She was driven "to the door 

by her son, a boy of seventeen, in a phaeton, 
drawn by four horses from Lilliput. This is an 
ambiguous expression,, and should what I write 
now be legible a thousand years hence', might puz- 
zle commentators. Be it known therefore to the 
Aldusscs and the Stevenecs of ages yet to come, 

that I do not mean to affirm that Mrs. W 

herself came from Lilhput that morning, or indeed 
that she .was ever there, but merely to describe 
the horses, as being so diminutive, that they might 
be, with propriety, said to be Lilliputian. 

The privilege of franking having been so crop- 
ped, I know not in what manner I and my book- 
seller are to settle the conveyance of proof sheets 
hither, and back again. They must travel I ima- 
gine by coach, a large quantity of them at a time ; 
for, like other authors, I find myself under a poeti- 
cal necessity of being frugal . 

We love you all, jointly, and separately, as 
usual. W. C. 

I have not seen, nor shall see, the Dissenter's 
answer to Mr. Newton, unless you can furnish 
me with it. 



ig, that I saw him once clap his two hands upon a 
rail, meaning to leap over it. But he did not think 
the attempt a safe one, and therefore took them 
off again. He was in company with Mr. Throck- 
18 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Oct. 9, 1784. 

The pains you have taken to disengage our cor- 
respondence from the expense with which it was 
threatened, convincing me that my letters, trivial 
as they are, are yet acceptable to you, encourage 
me to -observe my usual punctuality. You com- 
plain of unconnected thoughts. I believe there is 
not a head in the world but might utter the same 
complaint, and that all would do so, were they all 
as attentive to their own vagaries, and as .honest 
as yours. The description of your meditations at 
least suits mine ; perhaps I can go a step beyond 
you, upon the same ground, and assert with the 
strictest truth that I not only do not think with 
connexion, but that I frequently do not think at 
all. I am much mistaken if I do not often catch 
myself napping in this way ; for when 1 ask my- 
self what was the last idea (as the ushers at West- 
minster ask un idle boy what was the last word,) 
1 am not able to answer, but like the boy in ques- 
tion, am obliged to stare and say nothing. This 
may be a very unphilosppliical account of myself, 
and may clash very much %vith the general opinion 
of the learned, that the soul being an active prin- 
ciple, and her activity consisting in thought, she 



264 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 175. 



must consequently always think. But pardon me, 
%iessicurs Ics philosophes, there are moments when, 
if I think at all, I am utterly unconscious of doing 
so, and the thought, and the consciousness of it, 
seem to me at least, who am no pliilosopher, to be 
inseparable from each other. Perhaps however 
we may both be right; and if you will grant me 
that I do not always think, I will in return cpn- 
cede to you the activity you contend for, and wiU 
qualify the difference between us by supposing 
that though the soul be in herself an active prin- 
ciple, the influence of her present union vdth a 
principle that is not such, makes her 6ften dor- 
mant, suspends her operations, and affects her with 
a sort of deliquium, in wliich she suffers a tem- 
porary loss of all her functions. I have related to 
you my experience truly, and without disguise; 
you must therefore either admit my assertion, that 
the soul does not necessarily always act, or deny 
that mine is a human soul:' a negative that I am 
sure you will not easily prove. So much for a 
dispute which I little thought of being engaged in 
to-day. 

Last night I had a letter from Lord Dartmouth. 
It was to apprise me of the safe arrival of Cook's 
last voyage, which he was so kind as to lend me, 
in St. Jame's Square. The reading of those vol- 
umes afforded me much amusement, and I hope 
some instruction. No observation however forced 
itself upon me with more violence than one, that 
I could not help making on the death of Captain 
Cook. God is a jealous God, and at Owhyhee the 
poor man was content to be worshipped. From 
that moment, the remarkable interposition of Provi- 
dence in his favour, was converted into an opposi- 
tion that thwarted all his purposes. He left the 
scene of his deification, but was driven back to it 
by a most violent storrii, in which he suffered more 
than in any that had preceded it. When he de- 
parted he left his worshippers still infatuated with 
an idea of his godship, consequently well disposed 
to serve him. At his return he found them sul- 
len, distrustful, and mysterious. A trifling theft 
was (Committed, which, by a blunder of his own 
in pursuing the thief after the property had been 
restored, was magnified to an aflair of the last 
importance. One of their favourite chiefs was 
killed too by a blunder. Nothing, in sliort, but 
blunder and mistake attended him, till he fell 
breathless into the water, and then all was smooth 
again. The world indeed will not take notice, or 
see, that the dispensation bore evident marks of 
Divine displeasure ; but a mind I think in any 
degree spiritual can not overlook tlicni. We know 
from truth itself, that the death of Herod was for 
a similar oflence. But Herpd was in no sense a 
believer in God, nor had enjoyed half the opportu- 
nities with which our poor countryman had been 
favoured. It may be urged perhaps that he was 



in jest, that he meant nothing but his own amuse- 
ment, and that of liis companions. I doubt it. 
He knows little of the heart, who does not know 
that even in a sensible man it is flattered by every 
species of exaltation. But be it so, that he was 
in sport — it was not humane, to say no worse of 
it, to sport with the ignorance of his friends, to 
mock their smiphcity, to humour and acquiesce in 
their blind credulity. Besidies, though a stock or 
stone may be worshipped blameless, a baptized 
man may not. He knows what he does, and by 
suffering such honours to be paid him, incurs the 
guilt of sacrilege.* 

We are glad that you are so happy in your 
church, in your society, and in all your connexions. 
I have not left myself room to say any thing of 
the love we feel for you. 

Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, • Oct. 10, 1784. 

I SEND you four quires of verse, which having 
sent, I'shall dismiss from ray thoughts, and think 
no more, of, till I see them in print. I have not 
after all found time or industry enough, to give the 
last hand to the points. I believe however they 
are not very erroneous, though in so long a work, 
and in a work that requires nicety in this particu- 
lar, some inaccuracies will escape. Where you 
find any, you will oblige me by correcting them. 

In some passages, especially in the second book, 
you vdll observe me very satirical. Writing ori 
such subjects I could not be otherwise. I can 
write nothing without aiming at least at usefulness. 
It were beneath my years to do it, and still more 
dishonourable to my religion. I know that a refor- 
mation of such abuses as I have censured is not 
to be expected from the efforts of a poet ; but to 
contemplate the world, its follies, its vices, its in- 
difference to duty, and its strenuous attachment to 
what is evil, and not to reprehend, "vvere to ap- 
prove it. .From this charge at least I shall be 
clear, for I have neither tacitly nor expressly flat- 
tered either its characters, or its customs. I have 
paid one, and only one compliment, which was so 
justly due, that I did not know how to withhold it, 



* Having enjoyed,' in the year 1772, the pleasure of convera. 
ing with tlie illustrious seaman, on board his own ship, the 
i Resolution, I can not pass the present letter without observinar, 
that I am per.suadcd nty friend Cowper utterly misappre- 
hended the behaviour of Captain Cook, in the affair alluded 
to. From the little personal acquaintance, which I had my. 
self with this humane and truly Cluristian navigator, and 
from the whole tenor of hi.'3 life, I can not bejieve it possible 
for him to have acted, under any circumstances, with such 
impious arrogance, as might appear offensive in the eyes of 
the Almighty. Haley. 



Let. 176. 



LETTERS. 



265 



especially having so fair an occasion (I forget my 
self, there is another in tlie first book to Mr. 
Throckmorton,) but the compliment I mean is to 

Mr. . It is however so managed, that 

nobody but himself can rtiakethe application, and 
,you, to, whom I disclose the secret; a delicacy on 
my partj which so much delicacy on his obliged 
me to the observance of ! 

What there is- of a religious cast in the volume I 
have thrown towards the end of it, for two rea- 
sons — first that I might not revolt the reader at 
his entrance — and secondly, that my best impres- 
sions might be made last. Were I to write as 
many volumes as Lopez de Vega, or Voltaire, not 
one of them would be without tliis tincture. If the 
world hke it not, so much the worse for them. I 
make all the concessions I can, that I may please 
them, but I will not please them a.t the expense of 
my conscience. 

My descriptions are all from nature. Not one 
of them second-handed. My delineations of the 
heairt are from my own experience. Not one of 
them borrowed firom books, or in the least degree 
conjectural. In my numbers, which I have varied 
as much as I could (for blank verse without variety 
of numbers is no better than bladder and string) I 
have imitated nobody, though sometimes, perhaps, 
there may be an apparant resemblance ; because 
at the same time that I would not imitate, I have 
not effectually differed. 

If the work can not boast a regular plan (in 
which respect however I do not think it altogether 
indefensible) it may yet boast, that the reflections 
are naturall)' suggested always by the preceding 
passage, and that except the fifth book, which is 
rather of a pohtical aspect, the whole has one ten 
dency; to discountenance the modern enthusiasm 
after a London life, and to recommend rural ease 
and leisure, as friendly to the cause of piety and 
virtue. 

If it pleases you I shall be happy, and collect 
from your pleasitte in it an omen of its general 
acceptance. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, Oct. 20, 1784. 

Your letter has reheved me from some anxiety, 
and given me a good deal of positive pleasure. I 
have faith in your judgment, and an implicit confi- 
dence in the sincerity of your approbation. The 
writing of so long a poem is a serious business ; 
and the author must know little of his own heart, 
who does not in some degree, suspect liimself of 
partiality to his own production ; and who is he 
that would not be mortified by the discovery; that 
he had written five thousand lines in vain 1 The 
poem however which yo.u have in hand, will not of 



itself make a volume so large as the last, or as a 
bookseller would wish. I say this, because when I 
had sent Johnson five thousand verses, he applied 
for a thousand more. Two years since, I began a 
piece wliich grew to the length of two hundred, 
and there stopijcd. I have lately resumed it, and 
(I believe) shall finish it. But the subject is fruit- 
ful, and will not be comprised in a smaller com- 
pass than seven or eight hundred verses. It turns 
on the question, whether an education at school or 
at home be preferable, and I shall give the prefer- 
ence to the latter. I mean that it shall pursue the 
track of the former. That is to say, that it shall 
visit Stock in its way to publication. My design 
also is to inscribe it to you. But you must see it 
first; and if, after having seen it, you should have any 
objection, though it should be no bigger than the 
tittle of an i, I will deny myself that pleasure, and 
find no fault with your refusal. I have not been 
without thoughts of adding John Gilpin at the 
tail of all. He has made a good deal of noise in 
the world, and perhaps it may not be amiss to show, 
that though I write generally with a serious in- 
tention, 1 know how to be occasionally merry. 
The Critical Reviewers charged me with an at- 
tempt at humour. John having been more cele- 
brated upon the score of himiour than most pieces 
that have appeared in modern days, may serve to 
exonerate me from the imputation ; but in this ar- 
ticle I am entirely under your judgment, and mean 
to be set down by it. All these together will make 
an octavo volume like the last. I should have told 
you, that the piece which now employs me, is in 
rhyme. I do hot intend to write any more blank. 
It is more difficult than rhyme, and not so amusing 
in the composition. If, when you make the offer 
of my book to Johnson, he should stroke his chin, 
and look up to the ceiling and cry — ' Humph !' — 
ahticipate him (I beseech you) at once, by say- 
ing, — ' that you know I should be sonry that he 
should undertake for me to his own disadvantage, 
or that .my volume should be in any degree pressed 
upon him. I make him the offer merely because 
I think he would have reason to complain of me, 
if I did not.' But that punctilio once satisfied, it 
is a matter of indifference to me what pubUsher 
sends me forth. If Longman should have diffi- 
culties, which is the more probable, as I under- 
stand from you that he does not in these cases see 
with his own eyes, but Vvill consult a brother poet, 
take no pains to conquer them. The idea of be- 
ing hawked about, and especially of your being 
the hawker, is insupportable. Nichols (I have 
heard) is the most' learned printer of the present 
day. He may be a man of taste as well as learn- 
ing; and I suppose that you would not want a 
gentleman usher to introduce you. He prints the 
Gentleman's Magazine, and may serve us, if the 
others should decUne ; if not, give yourself no 



266 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. IV. 



farther trouble about the matter. I may possibly 
envy authors, who can aHorcl to publisli at their 
own expense, and in that case sliould Avrite no 
more. But the mortiiication would not break my 
heart. 

I proceed to yourcoiTections, for which I most 
unafrcctcdly thank you, adverting to them in their 
order. » 

Page 140. — Trut1%enerally, without th.e article 
the, would not be sufficiently dciined. There are 
many sorts of truth, philosopliical, mathematical, 
moral, &c. ; and a reader not much accustomed to 
hear of religious or scriptural truth, might possi- 
bly, and indeed easily doubt what truth was par- 
ticularly intended. I acknowledge that grace, in 
my use of the word, does not often occur in poet- 
rj'. So neither does the subject wliich 1 handle. 
Every subject has its own terms, and religious 
ones talce theirs with most propriety from the scrip- 
ture. Thence I take the word grace. The sar- 
castic use of it in the mouths of infidels I admit, 
but not their avithority to proscribe it, especially 
as God's favour in the abstract has no other 
word, in all our language, by which it can be ex- 
pressed. 

Page 150. — Impress the inind faintly, or not at 
all. — I prefer this Une, because of the interrupted 
run of it, having always observed that a little un- 
evenness of this sort, in a long work, has a good 
effect, used, 1- mean sparingly, and with discre- 
tion. 

Page 137. — This should have been noted first, 
but was overlooked. Be pleased to alter for me 
thus, with the difference of only one word from 
the alteration proposed by you — 

We too are friends to royalty. We love 

.The king who loves the law, respects liis bounds. 

And reigns content within them. 

You observed probably, in your second reading, 
that I allow the life of an animal to be fairly taken 
away, when it interferes either with the interest or 
convenience of man. Consequently snails, and all 
reptiles that spoil our crops, either of fruit or grain, 
may be destroyed, if we can catch them. It gives 
me real pleasure, that Mrs. Unwin so readily un- 
derstood me. Blank verse, by the unusual arrange- 
ment of the words, and by the frequent infusion 
of one line into another, not less than by the style, 
which requires a kind of tragical magnhicence, can 
not be chargeable with much obscurity, must rather 
be singularly persspicuous", to be so easily compre- 
hended. It is my labour, and my principal one, 
to be as clear as possible. You do not mistake 
me, when you suppose that I have great respect 
for the virtue that flies temptation. It is that sort 
of prowess which the whole train of scripture calls 
us to manifest, when assailed by sensutil evil. In- 
terior miscliiefs must be grappled with. Tliere is 



no flight from them. . But solicitations to sin, that 
address themselves to our bodily senses, are, I be- 
lieve, seldom conquered in any other way. 

I can easily see that j'ou may have very reasona- 
ble objections to my dedicatory proposal. You are 
a clergyman, and I have banged your order. You 
are a child of alma mater, and I have banged her 
too. Lay yourself therefore under no constraints 
that I do not lay you under, but consider yourself 
as perfectly free. * 

With our best love to you all, I bid you heartily 
farewell. I am tired of this endless scribblement. 
Adieu! Yours,- W.C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Oc^. 30, 1784, 

I ACCEDE most readily to the justness of your 
remark on the subject of the truly Roman heroisni 
of the Sandwich islanders. Proofs of such prowess 
I believe are seldom exhibited by a people who 
have attained to a high degree of civilization. Re- 
finement and profligacy of principle are too nearly 
allied, to admit of any thing so noble ; and I ques- 
tion whether any instances of faithful friendship, 
like that which so much ciffected you in the be- 
haviour of the poor savage, were produced even by 
the Romans themselves, in the latter days of the 
empire. They had been a nation whose ^^rtues it 
is impossible not to wonder at. But Greece, which 
was to them what France is to us, a Pandora's 
box of mischief, reduced them to her own standard, 
and they naturally soon sunk still lower. Rehcrion 
in this case seems pretty much out of the question. 
To the production of such heroism, undebauched 
nature herself is equal. When Italy was a land 
of heroes, she knew no more of the true God than 
her cicisbcps and her fiddlers know now; and in- 
deed it seems a matter of indifference, whether a 
man be born under a truth which does not in- 
fluence him, or vmder the actual influenqe of a 
lie; or if there be any difference between the two 
cases, it seems to be rather in favour of the latter: 
for a false persuasion, such as the Mahometan for 
instance, may animate the courage, and furnish 
motives for the contempt of death, while despisers 
of the true reUgion are punished for their folly by 
being abandoned to the last degrees of depravity. 
Accordingly we see a Sandwich islander sacri- 
ficing lumself to his dead friend, and our Christian 
seamen and mariners, instead of being impressed 
by a sense of his generosity, butchering him with 
a persevering cruelty that will di-sgrace them for 
ever : for he was a defenceless, xuiresisting enemy, 
who meant nothing more than to gratify his love 
' for the deceased. To slay him in such circum- 
stances was to murder liim, and with every aggra- 
, vation of the crime that can be imagined. 



Let. 178, 179. 



LETTERS. 



267 



I am again at Johnson's in the shape of a poem 
in blank vel-sc, consisting of six books, and called 
The Task. I began it about this time twelve- 
month, and writing sometimes an hour in the day, 
sometimes half a one, and sometimes two hours, 
have lately finished it. I mentioned it not sooner, 
because almost to the lagt I was doubtful whether 
I ^hould ever bring it to a conclusion, working 
often in such distress of mind, as, while it spurred 
me to the work, at the same time threatened to 
disqualify me for it. My bookseller I suppose will 
be as tardy as before. I do not expect to be born 
into the world till the month of March, when I 
and the crocuses shall peep together. You may 
assure yourself that I shall take my first opportu- 
nity to wait on you. I mean likewise to gratify 
myself by obtruding my muse upon Mr. Bacon. 

Adieu, my dear friend ! we are well, ^nd love 
you. Yours and Mrs. Newton's, W. C 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND NoV. 1, 1784. 

Were I to delay my answer, I must yet write 
without a frank at last, and may as well therefore 
write without one now, especially feeling, as I do, 
a desire to thank you for your friendly offices so 
well performed. I am glad for your sake, as well 
as for my own, that you succeeded in the first in- 
stance, and that the first trouble proved the last. I 
am wilUng too to consider Johnson's readiness to 
accept a second volume of mine, as an argument 
that at least he was no loser by the formier. I col- 
lect from it some reasonable hope that the volume 
in question may not wrong him neither. My 
imagination tells me (for I know you interest your- 
self in the success of my productions) that your 
heart fluttered when you approached Johnson's 
door, and that it felt itself discharged of a burthen 
when you came out again. You did well to men- 
tion it at the T s; they will now know that 

you do not pretend a share in my confidence, 
whatever be the value of it, greater than you ac- 
tually possess. I wrote to Mr. Newton by the last 
post, to tell him that I was gone to the press 
again. He will be surprised and perhaps not 
pleased. But I think he can not complain, for he 
keeps his own authorly secrets without participating 
them with me. I do not tliink myself in the least 
injured by his reserve; neither should I, if he were 
to publish a whole library witliout favouring me 
with any previous notice of his intentions. In 
these cases it is no violation of the laws of friend- 
ship not to communicate, thpugh there must be ja. 
friendship where the communication is made. But 
many reasons may concur In disposing a writer to 
keep his work secret, and none of them injurious 



to his friends. The influence of one I have felt 
myself, for which none of them would blame me — 
I mean the desire of surprising agreeably. And 
if I have denied myself this pleasure in your in- 
stance, it was only to give myself a greater, by 
eradicating from your mind any little weeds of sus- 
picion, that might still remain in it, that any man 
living is nearer to me tlian yourself Had not 
this consideration forced up the lid of my strong 
box like a lever, it would have kept its contents 
with an invisible closeness to the last; and the first 
news that cither you or any of my frieiids would 
have heard of the Task, they would have received 
from the pubUc papers. But you know now, that 
neither as a poet, nor a man, do I give to any man 
a precedence in my estimation at your expense. 

I am proceeding with my new work (which at 
present I feel myself much inclined to call by the 
name of Tirochiium) as fast as the muse permits. 
It has reached the length of seven hundred lines, 
and will probably receive an addition of two or 

three hundred more. When you see Mr. 

perhaps you will not find it diflScuIt to procure 
from him half a dozen -franks, addressed to your- 
self, and dated the fifteenth of December,. in which 
case, they will all go to the post filled with my 
lucubrations, on the evening of that day. I do 
not name an earUer, because I hate to be hurried ; 
and Johnson 'can not want it sooner than,' thus 
managed, it will reach him. 

I am not sorry that John Gilpin, though hitherto 
he has been nobody's child, is likely to be owned at 
last. Here and there I can give hhn a touch that 
I think will mend him, the language in some 
places not being quite so quaint and old-fashioned 
as it should be ; and in one of the stanzas there is 
a false rhyme. When I have thus given the finish- 
ing stroke to his figure, I mean to grace him with 
two mottos, a Greek and a Latin one, which, 
when the world shall see that I have only a little 
one of three words to the volume itself, and none 
to the books of which it consists, they will perhaps 
understand as a stricture upon that pompous dis- 
play of literature, with which some authors take 
occasion to crowd their titles. Knox, in particu- 
lar, who is a sensible man too, has not, I think, 
fewer than half a dozen to his Essays. 

■ ■ " Adieu, W. C. 



[TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.] 

November 8, 1784. 
The Task, as you know, is gone to the press: 
since it went I have been employed in writing ano- 
ther poem, which I am no w transcribing, and which 
in a short time I design shall follow. It is enti- 
tled, Tirocinium, or a Review of Schools : .the bu- 
siness and purpose of it are, to censure the want 



268 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 180, 181. 



of discipline, and the scandalous inattention to 
morals, that obtain in tlicni, especially in the larg- 
est; and to recommend private tuition- as a mode 
of education preferable on all accounts ; to call up- 
on fathers to become tutors of their own sons, 
where that is practicable ; to take home a domestic 
tutor, where it is not ; and if neither can be done, 
to place them under the care of such a man, as he 
to whom I am writing, some rural parson, whose 
attention is hmited to a few. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 
MY DKAR FRIEND, November, 1784. 

To condole with you on the death of a mother 
aged eighty-seven would be absurd — rather, there- 
fore, as is reasonable, I congratulate you on the 
almost singular felicity of having enjoyed the com- 
pany of so amiable and so near a relation so long. 
Your lot and mine in this respect have been very 
different, as indeed in almost every other. Your 
mother lived to see you rise, at least to see you 
comfortably established in the world. Mine, dy^ 
ing when I was six years pld, did not live to see 
me sink in it. You may remember with pleasure, 
while you live, a blessing vouchsafed to you so 
long ; and I, while I live, must regret a comfort of 
which I was "deprived so early. I can truly sa}', 
that not a week passes (perhaps I might with equal 
veracity say a day) in which. I do not think of her. 
Such was the impression her tenderness made up- 
on me, though the opportunity she had for show- 
ing it was so short. But the ways of God are 
equal — and when I reflect on the pangs she would 
have suffered, had she been a witness of all mine, 
I see more cause to rejoice, than to mourn, that 
she was hidden in the grave so soon. 

We have, as you say, lost a lively and sensible 
neighbour in Lady Austen, but we have been long 
accustomed to a state of retirement within one de- 
gree of solitude, and being naturally lovers of still 
life, can relapse into our former duality without 
being unhappy at the change. To me indeed a 
third is not necessary, while I can have the com- 
panion 1 have had these twenty years. 

I am gone to the press again ; a volume of mine 
will greet your hands some time either in the course 
of the winter, or early in the spring. You wdll 
find it perhaps on the whole more entertaining than 
the former, as it treats a great variety of subjects, 
and those, at least the most, of a sublunary kind. 
It will consist of a poem in six books, called the 
Task. To which will be added another, which 1 
finished yesterday, called, 1 believe, Tirocinium, on 
the subject of education. 

You perceive that 1 have taken your advice, and 
given the pen no rest.* W. C. 



* On ilie 21st of this month iIir wriici' coramenced his 
iranslalioii of Ilomer, 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, NoV. 27, 1784. 

Ai-L the interest that you take in my new pub-; 
lication, and all the pleas that you urge in behalf 
of your right to my confidence, the moment I had 
read your letter, struck me as so many proofs of 
your regard ; of a friendship, in which distance 
and time make no abatement. But it is difficult 
to adjust opposite claims to the satisfaction of all 
parties. 1 have done my best, and mu^' leave it 
to your candour to put a just interpretation upon 
all that has passed, and to give me credit for it, as 
a certain truth, that whatever seeming defects, in 
point of attention and attachment to you, my con- 
duct on this occasion may have appeared to have 
been chargeable with, I am in reality as clear of 
all real ofies, as you would wish to find me. 

I send you enclosed, in the first place, a copy of 
the advertisement to the reader, which accounts 
for my title, not otherwise easily accounted for — 
secondly, what is called an argument, or a summa- 
ry of the contents of each book, more circumstan- 
tial and diffuse by far than that which I have sent 
to the press. It will give you a pretty accurate 
acquaintance-with my matter, though the tenons 
and mortises, by which the several passages are 
connected, and let into each other, can not be ex- 
plained in a syllabus — and lastly, an extract as you 
desired. The subject of it I am sure will please 
you, and as I have admitted into my description 
no images but what are scriptural, and have aim- 
ed as exactly as I could at the plain and simple 
sublimity of the scripture language, I have hopes 
the manner of it may please you too. As far as 
the numbers and diction are concerned, it may serve 
pretty well for a sample of the whole. But the 
subjects being so various, no single passage can in 
all respects be a specimen of a book at large. 

lyiy principal purpose is to allure the reader, by 
character, by scenery, by imagery, and such poeti- 
cal embellishments, to the, reading of what may 
profit him. Subordinately to this, to combat that 
predeliction in favour of a metropolis, that beggars 
and exhausts the country, by evacuating it of all 
its principal inhabitants : and collaterally, and as 
far as is consistent with this double intention, to 
have a stroke at vice, vanity, and folly, wherever 
I find them. I have not spared the universities, 
A letter which appeared in the General Evening 
Post of Saturday, said to have been received by a 
general officer, and by him sent to the press, as 
worthy of public notice, and which has all the ap- 
})earance of authenticity, would alone justify the 
severest censure of those bodies, if any such jus- 
tification were wanted. By way of ,su])plcment to 
what I have written on this subject, I have added 
a poem, called Tirocinium, which is in rhyme. It 
treats of the scandalous relaxation of that disci- 



Let. 182, 183. 



LETTERS. 



269 



pline that obtains in almost all schools universally, 
but especially in the largest, which are so negli- 
gent in the article of morals, that boys arc de- 
bauched in general the moment they are capable 
of being so. It recommends the office of tutor to 
the father, where there is no real impediment ; the 
expedient of a domestic tutor, where there is ; and 
the disposal of boys into the hands of a respectable 
country clergyman, who limits his attention to two, 
in all cases where they can not be conveniently 
educated at home. Mr. Unwin happily affording 
me an instance in point, the' poem is inscribed to 
him. You will now I hope coimnand your hun- 
ger to be patient, and be satisfied with the luncheon 
that I send, tUl dinner comes. That piecemeal 
perusal of the work, sheet by sheet, would be so 
disadvantageous to the work itself, and therefore 
so uncomfortable to me, that (I dare say) you will 
wave your desire of it. A poem, thus disjointed, 
can not possibly be fit for any body's inspection 
but the author's. 

Tully's rule — ' Nulla dies sine linecv' — will make 
a volume in less time than one would suppose. 1 
adhered to it so rigidly, that though more than once 
I found three' hnes as many as 1 had time to com- 
pass, still I wrote ; and finding occasionally, and 
as it might happen, a more fluent vein, the abun- 
dance of one day made me amends for the barren- 
ness of the other. But I do not mean to write 
blank verse again. Not having the music of rhyme, 
it requires so close an attention to the pause, and 
the. cadence, and such a peculiar mode of expres- 
sion, as to render it, to me at least, the most diffi- 
cult species of poetry that I have ever meddled with. 
■ I am obhged to you, and to Mr. Bacon, for your 
kind remembrance of me wheri you meet. No ar- 
tist can excel as he does, without the finest feelings ; 
and every man that has the finest feeUngs is, and 
must be, aniiable. Adieu, my dear friend ! 

Affectionately yom's, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, 1784. 

The slice which (you observe) has been taken 
from the top of the sheet, it lost before I began to 
write: but being a part of the paper which is sel- 
dom used, I thought it would be pity to discard or 
to degrade to meaner purposes, the fair and ample 
remnant, on account of so immaterial a defect. I 
therefore have destined it to be the vehicle of a let- 
ter, which you will accept as entire, though a law- 
yer perhaps would, without much difficulty, prove 
it to be but a fragment. The best recompense 1 
can make you for writing without a frank is, to 
propose it to you to take your revenge by return- 
ing an answer under the same predicament; and 
the best reason I can give for doing it is the occa- 



sion following. In my last I recommended it to 
you to procure franks for the conveyance of Tiro- 
cinium, dated on a day therein mentioned, and the 
earliest which at that time I could venture to ap- 
point. It has happened however that the poem is 
finished a month sooner than I expected, and two- 
thirds of it arc at this time fairly transcribed; an 
accident to' which the riders of a Parnassian steed 
are liable, who never know, before they mount 
him, at what rate he will choose to travel. If he 
be indisposed to despatch, it is impossible to acce- 
lerate his pace ; if otherwise, equally impossible to 
stop him. Therefore my errand to you at this 
time is to cancel the former assignation, and to 
inform you that by whatever means you please, 
and as soon as you please, the piece in question 
will be ready to attend you ; for without exerting 
any extraordinary diligence, I shall have completed 
the transcript in a week. 

The critics will never know that four lines of it 
were composed while I had a dose of ipecacuanha 
on my stomach; in short, that I was dehvered of 
the emetic and the verses in the same moment. 
Knew they this, they would at least allow me to 
be a poet of singular industry, and confess that I 
lose no time. I have heard of poets who have 
found cathartics of sovereign use, when they had. 
occasion to be particularly brilliant. Dryden al- 
ways used them, and in commemoration of it, 
Bayes iri the Rehearsal is made to inform the au- 
dience that in a poetical emergency he always had 
recourse to stewed prunes. But I am the only 
poet who has dared to reverse the prescription, and 
whose enterprise, having succeeded to admiration, 
warrants him to recommend an emetic to all future 
bards, as the most infallible means of producing a 
fluent and easy versification. 

My love to all your family. 

Adieu, W.C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, NoV. 29, 1784. 

I AM happy that you are pleased, and accept it 
as an earnest that I shall not at least disgust the 
puUic. For though I know your partiaUty to me, 
I know ar the same time with what laudable ten- 
derness you feel for your own reputation, and that 
for the sake of that most delicate part of your pro- 
perty, though you would not criticise me with an 
unfriendly and undue severity, you would however 
beware of being satisfied too hastily, and with no 
warrantable cause of being so. I called you the 
tutor of your two sons, in contemplation of the 
certainty of that event — it is a fact in suspense, 
not in fiction. 

My principal errand to you now is to give you 
information on the following subject: The moment 



270 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 184. 



Mr. Newton knew (and I took care that he should 
learn it first from me) that I had communicated to 
you what I had concealed froai him, and that you 
were my authorship's go-between with Johnson 
on this occasion, he sent me a most friendly letter 
indeed, but otie in every line of which I could hear 
the soft murmur of somethuiff like mortification, 
that could not be entirely suppressed. It contained 
nothing however that you yourself would have 
blamed, or that I had not every reason to consider 
as evidence of his regard to me. He concluded 
the subject with desiring to know something of 
my plan, to he favoured with an extract, by way 
of specimen, or (which he should like better still) 
with wishing me to order Johnson to send him a 
proof as fast as they were printed off. Determin 
ing not to accede to tliis last request for many rea- 
sons (but especially because I would no more show 
my poem piecemeal, than I would my house if I 
had one; the merits of the structure, in either case, 
being equally Uable to sufifer by such, a partial 
view of it), I have endeavoured to compromise the 
difference between us, and' to satisfy him without 
disgracing myself. The proof sheets I have abso- 
lutely though civilly refused. But I have sent him 
a copy of the arguments of each book, more di- 
lated and circumstantial than those inserted in the 
work ; and to these I have added an extract as he 
desired ; selecting, as most suited to his. taste — 
The view of the restoration of all things — which 
you recollect to have seen near the end of the last 
book. I hold it necessary to tell you this, lest, if 
you should call upon him, he should startle you 
by discovering a degree of information upon the 
subject, which you could not otherwise know how 
to reconcile, or to account for. 

You have executed yout commissions a mer- 
veille. We not only approve, but admire. No 
apology was wanting for the balanc.e struck at the 
bottom, which we accounted rather a beauty than 
a deformity. Pardon a poor poet, who can not 
speak even of pounds, shiUings, and pence, but in 
his own way. 

I have read Lunardi with pleasure. He is a 
lively, sensible young fellow, and I suppose a very 
favourable sample of the Italians. When I look 
at his picture, I can fancy that I see in him that 
good sense and courage that no doubt were legible 
in the face of a young Roman, two thousand years 
ago. 

Your affectionate -W. C. 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, ■ t)ec. 13, 1784. 

Hating imitated no man, I may reasonably 
hope that I shall not incur the disadvantage of a 
comparison with my betters. Milton's manner 



was peculiar. So is Thomson's. He that should 
write like either of them, would in my judgment 
deserve the name of a copyist, but not a poet. A 
judicious and sensible reader therefore, like your- 
self, will not say that my manner is not good, be- 
cause it docs not resemble theirs, but will rather 
consider what it is in itself Blank verse' is sus- 
ceptible 6f a much greater diversification of man- 
ner, than verse in rhyme: and why the modem 
writers of it have all thought proper to cast their 
numbers alike, I know not. Certainly it was not 
necessity that compelled them to it. I flatter my- 
self however that I have avoided that sameness 
with others which would entitle me to nothing but 
a share in one common oblivion with them all. It 
is possible that, as -a reviewer of my former volume 
found cause to say that he knew not to what class 
of writers to refer me, the reviewer of this, whoever 
he shall be, may see occasion to remark the same 
singularity. At any rate, though as httle apt to 
be sanguine as most men, and more prone to fear 
and despond, than to overrate my own produc- 
tions, I am persuaded that I shall not forfeit any 
tiling by this volume that I gained by the last; As 
to the title, I take it to be the best fhat is to be 
had. It is not possible that a boolc, including such 
a variety of subjects, and in which no particular 
one is predominant, should find a title adapted to 
them all. In such a case, it seemed almost neces- 
sary to accommodate the name to the incident that 
gave birth to the poem ; nor does it appear to me, 
that because I performed more than my task, there-i 
fore the Task is not a suitable title. A house 
would still be a house, though the builder of it 
should make it ten times as big as he at first in- 
tended. I might indeed, following the example 
of the Sunday newsmonger, -call it the Olio. But 
I should do myself wrong: for though it have 
much variety, it has I trust no confusion. 

For the same reason none of the interior titles 
apply themselves to the contents at large of that 
book to which they belong. They are, every one 
of them, talcen either from the leading (I should 
say the introductory) passage of that particular , 
book, or from that which makes tlie most conspi- 
cuous figure in it. Had I set off with a design to 
write Jjpon a gridiron, and had I actually written 
near two hundred fines upon that utensil, as I 
jiave upon the Sofa, the gridiron should have been 
my title. But the Sofa being, as I may say, the 
starting post from which I addressed myself to the 
long race that I soon conceived a design to run, it 
acquired a just pre-eminence in my account, and 
was very worthily advanced to the titular honours 
it enjoys, its right being at least so far a good one, 
that no word in the language could pretend a bet- 
ter. 

The Time-piece appears to nie (though by 
some accident the import of the title has escaped 



Let. 185, 186. 



LETTERS. 



271 



you) to have a degree of propriety beyond most 
of fhem. The book to which it belongs is in- 
tended to strike the hour that gives notice of ap- 
proaching judgment, and dcaUng pretty largely in 
the signs of the times, seems to be denominated, 
as it is, with a suflic»nt decree of accommodation 
to the subject. 

As to the word worm, it is the very appellation 
which Milton himself, in a certain passage of the 
Paradise Lost, gives to the serpent. Not having 
the book at hand, I can not now refer to it, but I 
am sure of the fact. I am mistaken, too, if Shak- 
speare's Cleopatra do not call the asp, by which 
she thought fit to destroy herself, by the same 
name. But not having read the play these five- 
and-twenty years, I will not affirm it. They are, 
however, without all doubt convertible terms. A 
worm is a small serpent, and a serpent is a large 
worm. And when an epithet significant of the 
most terrible species of those creatures is adjoined, 
the idea is surely sufficiently ascertained. No ani- 
mal of the vermicular or serpentine kind is crested, 
but the most formidable of all. 

Yours aflectionately, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Dec. 18, 1784. 

I CONDOLE with you, that you had the trouble 
to ascend St. Paul's in vain, but at the same time 
congratulate you, that j'ou escaped an ague. I 
should be very well pleased to have a fair pros- 
pect of a balloon under sail, with a philosopher or 
two on board, but at the same time should be very 
sorry to expose myself, for any length of time, to 
the rigour of the upper regions, at this season, for 
the sake of it. The travellers themselves I sup- 
pose arc secured from all injuries of the weather 
by that fervency of spirit and agitation of mind, 
which must needs accompany them in their flight ; 
advantages which the more composed and phleg- 
matic spectator is not equally possessed of. 

The inscription of the poem is more . your own 
affair than any other person's. You have, there- 
fore, an undoubted right to fashion it to your 
mind, nor have 1 the least objection to the slight 
alteration that you have made in it. I inserted 
what you have erased for a reason that was per- 
haps rather chimerical than soUd. I feared, how- 
ever, that the Reviewers, or some of my sagacious 
readers, not more merciful than they, might sus- 
pect that there was a secret design in tlie wind; 
and that author and friend had consulted in what 
manner author might introduce friend to pubUc 
notice, as a clergyman every way qualified to erw 
tertain a pupil or two, if peradventure any gen- 
tleman of fortune were in want of a tutor for his 
children, I therefore added the words — " And of 



his two sons only" — by way of insinuating, that 
you are perfectly satisfied with your present 
charge, and that you do not wish for more ; thus 
meaning to obviate an illiberal construction, which 
we are both of us incapable of deserving. But 
the same caution not having appeared to you to be 
necessary, I am very willing and ready to suppoSe 
that it is not so. 

1 intended in my last to have given you my rea- 
sons for thecomj)linicnt I have paid Bishop Bagot, 
lest, knowing that 1 have no connexion with him, 
you should suspect me of having done it rather 
too much at a venture. Jn the first place then, 1 
wished the world to know that 1 have no objec- 
tion to a bishop, quia bishop. In the second 
place, the brothers were all five my schoolfellpws, 
and very amiable and valuable boys they wer^ 
Thirdly, Lewis, the bishop, had been rudely and 
coarsely treated in the Monthly Review, on ac- 
count of a sermon, which appeared to me, when 1 
read their extract from it, to deserve the highest 
conmiendations, as exhibiting explicit proof both 
of his good sense, and his unfeigned piety. ' For 
these causes me thereunto moving, I felt myself 
happy in an opportunity to do public honour to a 
worthy man, who had been publicly traduced; 
and indeed the Reviewers themselves have since 
repented of their aspersions, and have traveled not 
a little out of their way in order to retract them, 
having taken occasion by the sermon preached at 
the bishop's visitation at Norwich, to say every 
thing handsome of his lordship, who, whatever 
might be the merit of the discourse, in that in- 
stance at least could himself lay claim to ho other 
than that of being a hearer. 

Since I wrote, I have had a letter from Mr. 
NewtoUr that did not please me, and returned an 
answer to it, that possibly may not have pleased 
him. We shall come together again soon (I sup- 
pose) upon as amicable terms as usual. But at 
present he is in a state of mortification. He 
would have been pleased, had the book passed out 
of his hand into yours, or even out of yours into 
his, so that he had previously had opportunity 
to advise a measure which I pursued without his 
recommendation, and had seen the poems in manu- 
script. But my design was to pay you a whole 
compliment, and I have done it. If he says more 
on the subject, I shall speak freely, and perhaps 
please him less than I have done already. 

Yours, wdth our love to all, W. C 



TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Christmas Eve, 1784. 

I AM neither Mede nor Persian, neither am I 
the son of any such, but was born at Great Berk- 
hamsted, in Hertfordshire, and yet I can neither 



272 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 187- 



find a new title for my book, nor please myself 
with any addition to the old one. I am however 
willing to hope that, when the volume shall cast 
itself at your feet, you will be in some measure 
reconciled to the name it bears, especially when 
you shall find it justiried both by the exordium of 
thp poem, and by the conclusion. But enough, 
as you say with great truth, of a subject very un- 
worthy of so much consideration. 

Had I heard any anecdotes of poor dying 

that would hav£ bid fair to deserve your attention, 
I should have sent them. The little that he is re- 
ported to have uttered of a spiritual import, was 
not very striking. That little however I can give 
you upon good authority. His brother asking 
him how he found himself, he replied, " I am very 
composed, and think that 1 may safely believe my- 
self entitled to a portion." The world has had 
much to say in his praise, and both prose and 
verse have been employed to celebrate liim in the 
Northampton Mercury. But Christians (I sup- 
pose) have judged it best to be silent. If he ever 
drank of the fountain of life, he certainly drank 
also, and often too freely, of certain other stream^, 
which are not to be bought witliout money and 
without price. He had virtues that dazzled the 
natural eye, and failings that shocked the spirit- 
ual one. But iste dies indtcabit. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UN WIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, Olney, Jan. 15, 1785. 

Your letters are always welcome. You can 
always either find something to say, or can amuse 
me and yourself with a sociable and friendly way 
of saying nothing. I never found that a letter 
was the more easUy written, because the writing 
of it had been long delayed. On the contrary, 
experience has taught me to answer soon, that I 
may do it without difficulty. It is in vain to wait 
for an accumulation of materials- in a situation 
such as yours and mine, productive of few events. 
At the end of our expectations we shall find our- 
selves as poor as at the beginning. 

I can hardly tell you with any certainty of in- 
formation, upon what terms Mr. Newton and I 
may be supposed to stand at present. A month 
(I believe) has passed, since I heard from him. 
But my fiiseur, having been in London in the 
course of this week, whence he returned last 
night, and having called at Hoxton, brought me 
his love, and an excuse for his silence, which (he 
said) had been occasioned by the frequency of his 
preachings at this season. He was not pleased 
that my manuscript was not first transmitted to 
him, and I have cause to suspect that he was even 
mortified at being informed, that a- certain in- 



scribed poem was not inscribed to himself. But 
wc shall jumble together again, as people that 
have an aflection for each other at bottom, not- 
withstanding now and then a shght disagreement, 
always do. 

I know not whether Mr.^ has acted 

in consequence of your hint, or whether, not 
needing one, he transmitted to us his bounty, be- 
fore he had received it. He has however sent us 
a note for twenty pounds ; with which we have 
performed wonders, in behalf of the ragged and the 
starved. He is a most extraordinary young man, 
and, though I shall probably never see him, will 
always have a niche in the museum of my reve- 
rential remembrance. 

The death of Dr. Johnson has set a thousand 
scribblers to work, and me among the rest. While 
I lay in bed, waiting till I could reasonably hope 
that the parlour might be ready for me, I invoked 
the muse, and composed the following Epitaph.* 

It is destined (I beUeve) to the Gentleman's 
Magazine, which I consider as a respectable repo- 
sitory fi)r small matters, which, when intrusted ,to 
a newspaper, can expect but the duration of a day. 
But Nichols ha^'ing at present a small piece of 
mine in his hands, not yet printed, (it is called the 
Poplar Field, and I suppose you Tiave it) I wait 
till his obstetrical aid has brought that to light, 
before I send him a new one. In his last he pub- 
lislied my epitaph upon Tiney; which (I likewise 
imagine) has been long in your collection. 

Not a word yet from Johnson. I am easy how- 
ever upon the subject, being assured that so long 
as his own interest is at stake, he will not want a 
monitor to remind him of the proper time to pub- 
hsh. 

You and your family have our sincere love. 
Forget not to present my respectful compliments 
to Miss Unwin, and, if you have not done it al- 
ready, thank her on my part for the very agreea- 
ble narrative of Lunardi. He is a young man (I 
presume) of great good sense and spirit, (his let- 
ters at least, and his enterprising turn, bespeak 
him such) a man qualified to shine not only among 
the stars, but in the more useftd, though humbler 
sphere of terrestrial occupation. 

I have been crossing the channel in a balloon, 
ever since I read of that achievement by Blanch- 
ard. I have an insatiable tliirst to know the phi- 
losophical reason, why his vehicle had like to have 
fallen into the sea, when for aught that appears 
the gas was not at all exhausted. Did not the 
extreme cold condense the inflammable air, and 
cause the globe to collapse 1 Tell me, and be my 
Apollo for ever I 

Affectionately yours, W. C. 



' See Cowper's Poems. 



Let. 188, 189. 



LETTERS. 



273 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Feb. 7, 1785. 

We live in a state of such uninterrupted retire- 
ment, in which incidents worthy to be recorded 
occur so seldom, that I always sit down to write 
with a discouraging conviction that I have nothing 
to say. The event commonly justifies the presage. 
For when I have filled my sheet, I find that I have 
said nothing. Be it known to you, however, that 
I may now at least communicate a piece of intelli- 
gence to which you will not be altogether indif- 
ferent, that I have received, and returned to John- 
son, the two first proof sheets of my new publica- 
tion. The business was despatched indeed a 
fortnight ago, since when I have heard from him 
no further. From such a beginning however I 
venture to prognosticate the progress, and in due 
time the conclusion, of the matter. 

In the last Gentleman's Magazine my Poplar 
Field appears. I have accordingly sent up two 
pieces mote, a Latin translation of it, which you 
have never seen, and another on a Rose-bud, the 
neck of which I in^advertently broke, which, whe- 
ther you have seen or not, I know not. As fast 
as Nichols prints off the poems I send him, I send 
him new ones. My remittance usually consists 
of two ; and he publishes one of them at- a time. 
I may indeed furnish him at this rate, .without 
putting myself to any great inconvenience. For 
my last supply was transmitted to him in August, 
and is but now exhausted. 

I communicate the follovsdng anecdote at your 
mother's instance, who will suffer no part 6f my 
praise to be sunk in oblivion. A certain Lord has 
hired a house at Chfton, in our neighbourhood, 
for a hunting seat. There he lives at present 
with his wife and daughter. They are an exem- 
plary family in some respects, and (I beUeve) an 
amiable one in, all. The Reverend Mr. Jones, 
the curate of that parish, who often dines with 
them by invitation on a Sunday, recommended my 
volume to their reading; and his Lordship, after 
having perused a part of it, expressed to the said 
Mr. Jones an ardent desire to be acquainted with 
the author, from motives which my great modesty 
vpill not suffer me to particularize. Mr. Jones, 
however, like a wise man, informed his Lordship, 
that for certain special reasons and causes I had 
declined going into company for many years, and 
that therefore he must not hope for my acquaint- 
ance. His Lordship most civilly subjoined, that 
he was sorry for it. " And is that alH" say you. 
Now were I to hear you say so, I should look 
foolish and say — "Yes." — But having you at a 
distance, I snap my fingers at you, and say, — " No, 

that is not all." — Mr. , who favours us now 

and then with his company in an evening, as 



usual, was not long since discoursing with that 
eloquence which is so peculiar to himself, on the 
many providential interpositions that had taken 
place in his favour. " He had wished for many 
things (he said) which, at the time when he formed 
those wishes, seemed distant and improbable, some 
of them indeed impossible. Among other wishes 
that he had indulged, one was, that he might be 
connected with men of genius and ability — and in 
my connexion with this worthy gentleman (said 
he, turning to me,) that wish, I am sure, is amply 
gratified." You may suppose that I felt the sweat 
gush out upon my forehead, wlicn I heard this 
speech ; and if you do, you will not be at all mis- 
taken. So much was I delighted with the delica- 
cy of that incense. 

Thus far I proceeded easily enough ; and here 
I laid down my pen, and spent some minutes- in 
recollection, endeavouring to find some subject, 
with which 1 might fill the httle blank that re- 
mains. But none presents itself Farewell, there- 
fore, and remember those who are mindful of you ! 

Present our love to all your comfortable fire- 
side, and believe me ever most affectionately yours, 

W. C: 

They that read Greek with the accents would 
pronounce the s in i^Asa as an «. But I do not 
liold with that practice, though educated in it. I 
should therefore utter it just as I do the Latin 
word Jilio, taking the quantity for my guide. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR W-ILLIAM, March 20, 1785. 

I THANK you for your letter. It made me laugh, 
and there .are not many things capable of being 
contained within the dimensions of a letter, for 
which I see cause to be more thankful. I was 
pleased too to see my opinion of his Lordship's 
nonchalance upon a subject that you had so much 
at heart, completely verified. I do not know that 
the eye of a nobleman was ever dissected. I can 
not help supposing however that, were that organ, 
as it exists in the head of such a personage, to be 
accurately examined, it would be found to diflfer 
materially in its construction from the eye of a 
commoner ; so very different is the \iew that inen 
in an elevated, and in an humble station, have of 
the same object. What appears great, sublime, 
beautiful, and important, to you and to me, when 
submitted to the notice of my lord, or his grace, 
and submitted too with the utmost humility, is 
cither too minute to be visible at all, or if seen, 
seems trivial, and of no account. My supposition 
therefore seems not altogether chimerical. 

In two months I have corrected proof sheets to 
the amount of ninety-three pages, and no more. 



274 COWPER'S WORKS. Let. 190. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 



In other words, I have received three packets. 
Nothing is quick enough for impatience, and I 
suppose that the impatience of ar^ author has the 
quickest of all possible movements. It appears to ; my dear friend, April 30, 1785. 

me, however, that at tliis rate we shall not publish { return you thanks for a letter so warm Avith 
till next autumn. Should you happen therefore the intelligence of the celebrity of John Gilpin. 
to pass Johnson's door, pop in your head as you I little thought, when I mounted him upon my 
go, and just insinuate to liim, that, were his re- Pegasus, tliat he would become so famous. I have 
mittances rather more frequent, that frequency learned also, from Mr. JJewton, that he is equally 
would be no inconvenience to me. I much ox- renowned in Scotland, and that a lady there had 
pected one this evening, a fortnight having now undertaken to write a second part, on the subject 
elapsed since the arrival of the last. But none of Mrs. Gilpin's return to London, but not sno- 
came, and 1 felt myself a little mortified. I took ceeding in it as she wished, she dropt it. Hetell^ 
up the newspaper, however, and read it. There I nie likewise, that the head master of St. Paul's 
found that the emperor and the Dutch are, after school (who he is I know not) has conceived, in 
all their negotiations, going to war. Such reflec- consequence of the entertainment that John has 
tions as these struck me. A great part of Europe afforded him, a vehement desire to write to me. 
is going to be involved in the greatest of all cala- Let us hope he will alter his mind ; for should we 
anities — troops are in motion — artillery is drawn to- even exchange civilities on the occasion, -Tiroci- 
gether — cabinets are busied in contriving schemes nium will spoil all. The great estimation how- 
of blood and devastation — thousands will perish, ever in which this knight of the stone-bottles is 
•who are incapable of understanding the dispute ; held, may turn out a circumstance propitious to 
and thousands, who, whatever the event may be, the volume of which his history will make a part, 
are little more interested in it than myself, will Those events that prove tjie prelude to our great- 
suffer unspeakable hardships in the course of the est success, are often apparently trivial in them- 
quarrel — Well! Mr. Poet, and how thenl You selves, and such as seerned to promise nothing, 
have composed certain verses, which you are de- The disappointment that Horace mentioned is.re- 
sirous to see in print, and because the impression versed — We design a mug and it proves a hogs- 
seems to be delayed, you are displeased, not to say head. It is a little hard that I alone should, be 
dispirited — be ashamed of yourself! you live in a unfurnished with a printed copy of this facetious 
world in which your feelings may find worthier story. When you visit London next, you'mUst 
subjects — be concerned for tlie havoc of nations, buy the most elegant impression of it, and bring 
and mourn over your retarded volume when you it with you. I thank you also for writing to John- 
find a dearth of more important tragedies! son. I likewise wrote to him myself Your let- 

You postpone certain topics of conference to our ter and mine together have operated to admiration, 
next meeting. When shall it take place? I do There needs nothing more than that the effect be 
not wish for you just now, bec«ause the garden is a lasting, and the whole will be soon printed. We 
wilderness, and so is all the country around us. now draw towards the middle of the fifth book of 
In May we shall have asparagus, and weather in the Tagk. The man, Johnson, is like unto some 
which we may stroll to Weston ; at least we may vicious horses, that I have known. They would 
hope for it; therefore come in May; you will find not budge till they were spurred, and when they 
us happy to receive you, aifd as much of your fair were spurred they would kick — So did he — His 
household as you can bring with you. temper was somewhat disconcerted ; but his' pace 

We are very sorry for your uncle's indisposition, was quickened, and I was contented. 
The approach of summer seems however to be in I was very much pleased with the following sen- 
his favour, that season being of all remedies for tence in Mr. Newton's last — " I am perfectly sat- 
the rheumatism I believe the most effectual. . isfied with the propriety of your proceeding as to 

I thank you for your intelligence concerning the the publication." — Now therefore we are friends 
celebrity of John Gilpin. You may be sure that again. Now he once more inquires after the work, 
it was agreeable — ^but your own feelings on occa- which, till he liad disburdened himself of this ac- ' 
sion of that article pleased me most of all. Well, knowledgment, neither he nor 1,- in any of our 
my friend, be comforted ! You had not an op- letters to each other, ever mentioned. Some side- 
portunity of saying publicly, " I know the author." wind has wafted to him a report of those reasons 
But the author will say as nmch for you soon, and by which I justified my conduct. I never made a 
perhaps will feel in doing so a gratification equal secret of them, but both your mother and I have 
to your own. ^ . j studiously deposited them with those who we 

In the affair of face-painting, I am precisely of thought were most hkely to transmit them to him 
your opinion. Adieu, W. C. • They wanted only a hearing, which once obtained, 



Let. 191, 192. 



LETTERS. 



275 



-their solidity and cogency were such that they 
were sure to prevail. 

You mention . I formerly knew the 

man you mention, but his elder brother much bet- 
ter. We were schoolfellows, and he was one of a 
club of seven Westminster men, to which I be- 
longed, whodincdtogetherevery Thursday. Should 
it please God to give me ability to perform the 
poet's part to some purpose, many whom I once, 
called friends, but v^'hohave since treated me with 
a most magnillccnt indilierence, wilf be ready to 
take me by the hand again, and some, whom I 

never held in that estimation, will, like. , (who 

was but a boy when I left Loudon) boast of a con- 
nexion with me vvhich they never had. Had I the 
virtues, and graces, and accomplishments of St. 
Paul himself, I might have them at Olney, and 
nobody would care a button, about me, yourself 
and, one or two more excepted. Fame begets 
favour, and one talent, if it be rubbed a little bright 
by use and practice, will procure a man more 
friends than a thousand virtues. Dr. Johnson (I 
believe) in the life of one of our poets, says, that 
he retired from the world flattering himself that he 
should be regretted. But the world never missed 
him. I think his observation upon it is, that the 
vacancy made by the retreat of any individual is 
soon filled up ; that a man may always be obscure, 
if he chooses to be so ; and that he, who neglects 
the world, will be by the world neglected. 

Your mother and I walked yesterday in the 
wilderness. As we entered the gate, a glimpse of 
something wliite, contained in a little hole in the 
gate-post, caught my eye. I looked again, and 
discovered a bird's nest, with two tiny eggs in it. 
By and by they will be fledged, and tailed, and get 
wing-feathers, and fly. My case is somewhat simi- 
lar to that of the "parent bird. My nest is a little 
nook. Here I brood and hatch, and in due time 
my progeny takes wing and whistles. 

We wait for the time of your coming with pleas- 
ant expectation. . Yours truly, W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ,. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, " June 25, 1785. 

I WRITE in a nook that I call my Boudoir. It 
is a summer-house liot much bigger than a sedan 
chair, the door of wliicli opens into the garden, 
that is now crowded with pinks, roses, and honey- 
suckles, and- the window into my neighbour's or- 
chard. It formerly served an apothecary, ' now 
dead, as a smoking-room ; and under my feet is a 
trap-door, which ^jnce covered a hole in the ground 
where he kept his bottles. At present however it 
is dedicated to sublimer uses. Having hned it 
with garden mats; and furnished it with a table 
and two chairs, here I write all that I viTrite in the 



summor-time, whether to my friends, or to the 
public. It is secure from all noisCj and a refuge 
from all intrusion ; for intruders sometimes trouble 
me in the winter evenings at Olney. But (thanke 
to my Boudoir .') I can now hide myself from them« 
A poet's retreat is sacred. They acknowledge the 
truth of that proposition, and never presume to 
violate it. 

The last sentence puts me in mind to tell you 
that I have ordered my volume to your door. My 
bookseller is the most dilatory of all his fraternity, 
or you would have received it long since. It is 
more than a month since I returned him the last 
proof, and consequently since the printing was 
finished. 1 sent him the manuscript at the be- 
ginning of last November, that he might publish 
while the town was full, and he will hit the exact 
moment when it is entirely empty. Patience (you 
will perceive) is in no situation exempted from the 
severest trials ; a remark that may serve to comfort 
you under the numberless trials of ybvu: own.* 

W.C, 



TO THE REV, WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, Juhj 27, 1785. 

. You and your party left me in a frame of mind 
that indisposed me much to company. I com- 
forted myself vyith the hope that I should spend a 
silent day, in which I should find abundant lei- 
sure to indulge sensations which, though of the 
melancholy kind, I yet wished to nourish. But 
that hope proved vain. • In less than an hour after 

your departure, Mr. made his appearance at 

the green-house door. We were obliged to ask 
him to dinner, and he dined with us. He is an 
agreeable, sensible, w.ell-bred young man, but with 
all Jiis recommendations, I felt that on that occa- 
sion I could have spared him. So much better 
are the absent, whom we . love much, than the 
present whom we love a little. I have however 
made myself amends since, and nothing else 
having interfered, have sent many a thought 
after you. 

You had been gone two days when a violent 
thunder-storm came over us. I was passing out 
of the parlour into the hall, vyith Mungo at my 
heels, when a. flash seemed to fill the room with 
fire. In the same instant' fame the clap, so that 
the explosion was (I suppose) perpendicular to 
the roof. Mungo's courage upon the tremendous 
occasion constrained me to smile, in spite of the 
solemn impression that such an event never fails 
to aflect me with — the moment that he heard the 
thunder (wliich was hke the burst of a great gun), 



* In this interval The Task was. published. 



276 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 193. 



with a wrinkled forehead, and with eyes directed 
to the ceihng, ^vhcncc the sound seemed to pro- 
ceed, he barked ; but he barked exactly in concert 
with the thiuidcr. It thundered Once, and he 
barked once; and so precisely the very instant 
when the thunder happened, that both sounds 
seemed to begin and to end 'together. Some dogs 
'will clap their tails close, and sneak into a corner, 
at such a time, but Mungo it seems is of a more 
fearless family. A house at- no great distance 
from ours was the mark to which the lightning 
was directed; it knocked down tlie chimney, split 
the building, and carried away the corner of the 
next house, in which lay a fellow drunk, and 
asleep upon his bed — it roused and terrified him, 
and he promises to get drunk no more ; but I have 
seen a woful end of many such conversions. I 
remember but one such storm at OIney since I 
have known the place ; and I am glad that it did 
not happen two days sooner for the sake of the 
ladies, who would probably, one of them at least, 
have been alarm.ed by it. I have received, since 
you went, two very flattering letters of thanks, 
one from Mr. Bacon, and one from Mr. Barham, 
such as might make a lean poet plump, and an 
humble poet proud. But being myself neither 
lean nor humble, I know of no other effect they 
had, than that they pleased me ; and I communi- 
cate the intelligence to you, not without an as- 
sured hope that you will be pleased also. We 
are now going to walk, and thus far I have writ- 
ten before I have received your letter. Friday. — 
I must now be as compact as possible. When I 
began, I designed four sides, but my packet being 
transformed into two singlfe epistles, I can conse- 
quently afford you but three. 1 have filled a large 
sheet with animadversions upon Pope. I am 
proceeding in my translation — " Vp.Hs et remis, 
omnibus nervis" — as Hudibras has it; and if God 
give me health and ability, will put it into your 

hands when I see you next. Mr. h has just 

left us. He has read my book, and, as if fearful 
that I had overlooked some of them myself, has 
pointed out to me all its beauties. 1 do assure 
you the man has a very acute discernment, and a 
taste that I have no fault to find with. I hope 
that you are of the same opinion. 

Be not sorry that 3'our love of Christ was ex- 
cited in you by a picture. Could a dog or cat 
suggest to me the thouglit, that Christ is precious, 



fills my soul with ineffable love and joy. Will a 
man tell me that I am deceived, that I ouorht not 
to love or rejoice in him for such a reason, be- 
cause a dream is merely a picture drawn upon 
the imagination'? I hold not with such divinity. 
To lo\t; Christ is the greatest dignity of man, be 
that affection wrought in him how it may. 

Adieu ! May the blessing of God be upon you 
all ! It is your mother's heart's wish and mine. 
Yours ever, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEiVD, AugUSt 27, 1785. 

I WAS low in spirits yesterday, when your par- 
cel came and raised them. Every proof of atten-. 
tion and regard to a man who lives in a vinegar 
bottle is welcome from his friends on the outside 
of it — accordingly your books were welcome (you 
must not forget by the way that I want the ori- 
ginal, of which you have sent me the translation 
only) and the ruffles from Miss Shuttleworth 
most welcome. I am covetous, if ever man was^ 
of living in the remembrance of absentees whom 
I highly value and esteem, and consequently felt 
myself much gratified by her very obliging pre- 
sent. 1 have had more comfort, far more comfort, 
in th6 connexions that 1 have formed within the 
last twenty years, than in the more numerous 
ones that I had before. 

Memorandum — The latter are almost all Un- 
wins or Unwinisms. 

You are entitled to my' thanks also for the fa- 
cetious engravings of John Gilpin. A serious 
poem is like a swan, it flies heavily, and never far, 
but a jest has the wings of a swallow, that never 
tire, and that carry it into every nook and cor- 
ner. I am perfectly a stranger however to the 
reception that my volume meets with, and I be- 
lieve in respect of my nonchalance upon that sub- 
ject, if autliors would but copy so fair an exam- 
ple, am a most exemplary character. I must tell 
you nevertheless, that although the laurels that I 
gain at Ohiey will never minister much to my 
pride, I hdve acquired some. The Rev. Mr. 

S is my admirer, and thinks my second 

volume superior to my first. It ought to be so. 
If we do not improve by practice, then nothing 
can mend us ; and a man has no more cause to be 
mortified at being told that he has excelled him- 
1 would not despise that thought because a dog or self, tlian the elephant had, whose praise it was, 
cat suggested it. The meanness of the instru- that he was the greatest elephant in the world, 
mcnt can not debase the nobleness of the princi- ■ himself excepted. If it be fair to judge of a book 
pie. He that kneels before a picture of Christ, is by an extract, I do not wonder that you were so 
an idolater. But he in whose heart the sight of a little edified by Johnson's Journal. It is even 

picture kindles a warm ronicmbrancc of the Sa- more ridiculous than was poor 's of flatu- 

viour's sufferings, must be a Christian. Suppo.se lent memory. The portion of it given to us in 
that I dream as Gardiner did, that Christ walks this day's paper contains not one sentiment worth 
before me, that he turns and smiles upon me, and one fartliing ; except the last, in which he re- 



Let. 194. 



LETTERS. 



277 



solves to bind himself with no more unbidclcn 
obligations. Poor man! one would think, that 
to pray for his dead wife, and to pinch himself 
■with church fasts, had been almost the whole of 
his religion. I am son-y that he, who was so 
manly an advocate for the canse of virtue in all 
other places, was so childishly employed, and so 
superstitiously too, in his closet. Had he studied 
his Bible more, to which by his own confession 
he was in great part a stranger, he had known 
better what use to make of his retired hours, and 
had trifled less. His lucubrations of this sort 
have rather the appearance of religious dotage, 
than of any vigorous exertions towards God. It 
will be well if the publication prove not hurtful 
in its effects, by exposing the best cause, already 
too much despised, to ridicule still more profane. 
■ On the other side of the s^ime paper I find a long 
string of aphorisms, and maxims, and rules for the 
conduct of life, which, though they appear not with 



give more than you gave me this morning. When 
I came down to breakfast, and found upon the 
table a letter franlced by my uncle, and when 
opening that frank I found that it contained a let- 
ter from you, I saiil within myself — ' This is just 
as it should be. We are all grown young again, 
and the days that I thought I should see no more, 
are actually returned.' You perceive therefore 
that you judged well wheft you conjectured that a 
line from you would not be disagreeable to me. It 
could not be otherwise than- as in fact it proved, a 
most agreeable surprise, for I can truly boast of an 
aflection for j'ou, that neither years, nor interrupt- 
ed intercourse, have at all abated. I need only 
recollect how much 1 valued you once, and with 
how much cause, immediately to feel a revival 
of the same value : if that can be said to revive, 
which at the most has only been dormant for 
want of employment. But I slander it when I say 
that it has slept. A thousand times have I re- 



his name, are so much in his manner, with the i collected a thousand scenes, in which our two 
above-mentioned, that I suspect them for lais. I [ selves have formed the Whole of the drama, with 
have not read them all, but several of theiri I read the greatest pleasure ; at times too, when I had no 



that were trivial enough : for the sake of one how- 
ever I give him the rest — he advises never to ban- 
ish hope entirely, because it is the cordial of life, 
although it be the greatest flatterer in the world. 
Such a measure of hope as may not endanger my 
peace by disappointment I would wish to cherish 
upon every subject, in which I am interested. 



reason to suppose that I should ever hear from you 
again. I have laughed with you at the Arabian 
Nights' Entertainments, which afforded us, as j'ou 
well know, a fund of merriment that deserves never 
to be forgot. . I have walked with you to Netley 
Abbey, and have scrambled with you over hedges 
in every direction, and many other feats we have 



But there lies the difficulty. A cure however, I performed together, upon the field of my remem- 
and thfe only one, for all the irregularities both of; brance, and all within these few years. Should I 



hope and fear, is found in submission to the will 
of God. Happy they that have it ! 

This last sentence puts me in mind of your re- 
ference to Blair in a former letter, whom you there 
permitted to be your arbiter to adjust the respective 
claims of who or that. I do not rashly differ from 
so great a .grammarian, nor do at any rate differ 



say within this twelvemOnth, I should not trans- 
gress the truth. The hours that I have spent 
with yoii were among the pleasantest of my former 
days, and are therefore chronicled in my mind so 
deeply as to feel no erasure. Neither do I forget 
my poor friend Sir Thomas, I should remember 
liim indeed, at any rate, on account of his personal 



from him altogether — upon solemn occasions, as , kindness to myself; but the last testimony that he 
in prayer or preaching for instance, I would be 1 gave of his regard for you endears him to me still 
strictly correct, and upon stately ones, for instance '. more. With his uncommon understanding (for 
were I writing an epic poem, I would be so Uke- with many peculiarities he had more sense than 
wise, but not upon familiar occasions. God wfw any of his acquaintance,) and with his generous 
heareth prayer, is right. Hector who saw Patro- 1 sensibilities, it was hardly possible that he should 
clus, is right. And the man that dresses me every ! not . distmguish you as he has done. As it was 



day, is in my mind right also ;^because the con- 
trary would give an air of stiffness and pedantry to 
an expression, that in respect of the matter of it 
can not be too negligently made^ up. 

Adieu, my dear Wilham! I have scribbled with 
all my might, which, breakfast-time excepted, has 
been my employment ever since I rose, and it is 
now past one. Yours, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAR COUSIN, Oct. 12, HSS. 

It is no new thing with you to give pleasm-e 
But I will venture to say that you do not often ' account myself happy m havuig been for thirteen 



the last, so it was the best proof that he could give, 
of a judgment that never, deceived him, when he 
would allow hmaself leisure to consult it. 

You say that' you have often heard of me ; that 
puzzles me. I can not imagine from what quarter, 
but it is no matter. I must tell you however, my 
cousin, that your information has been a little de- 
fective. That I am happy in my situation is true ; 
Ihve, and have lived these twenty years, with 
Mrs. Unwin, to whose affectionate care of me, 
during the far greater part of that time, it is under 
Providence owing that I live at all. But I do not 



27S 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 195, 196. 



of those years iu a state of mind, that has made all 
that care and attention necessary; an attention 
and a care that have injured her health, and which, 
had she not been uncommonly supported, must 
have brought her to the {rrave. But I will pass to 
another suhject; it would be cruel to particularize 
only to give pain, neither would I by any means 
give a sable hue to the first letter of a correspond- 
ence so unexpectedly reiiewed. 

I am delighted with what you tell me of my 
uncle's good health. To enjoy any measure of 
cheerfulness at so late a day is much._ But to have 
that late day enlivened with the vivacity of youth, 
is much more, and in these postdiluvian times a 
rarity indeed. Happy for the most part are pa- 
rents who have daughters. Daughters are not apt 
to outlive their natural affections, which a son has 
generally survived even before his' boyish years 
are expired. I rejoice particularly in my uncle's 
felicity, who has three female descendants from 
his little person, who leave him nothing to wish 
for upon that head. 

• My dear cousin, dejection of spirits, which (I 
suppose) may have prevented many a man from 
becoming an author, made me one. I find con- 
stant employment necessary, and therefore take 
care to be constantly employed. Manual occupa- 
tions do not engage the mind sufficiently, as I 
know by experience, having tried many. But 
composition, especially of verse, absorbs it wholly. 
I write therefore generally three hours in a morn- 
ing, and in an evening I transcribe. I read also, 
but less than I write, for I must have bodily exer- 
cise, and therefore never pass a day without it. 

You ask me where I have been this summer. I 
answer, at Olney. Should you ask me where I 
spent the last seventeen summers, I should still 
answer at Olney. Ay, and the winters also; I 
have seldom left it, and except when I attended 
my brother in his last illness, never 1 believe a 
fortnight together. 

Adieu, my beloved cousin', I shall not always be 
thus nimble in reply, but shall always have great 
pleasure in answering you when I can. 

Yours, my friend and cousin, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, Oct. 22, 1785. 

You might well suppose that your letter had 
miscarried, though in fact it was duly received. 1 
arft not often so long in arrear, and you may assure 
yourself that when at any time it happens that I 
am so, neither neglect nor idleness is the cause. I 
have, as you well know, a daily occupation, forty 
lines to translate, a task which I never excuse my- 
self when it is possible to perform it. Equally 
sedulous I am in the matter of transcribing, so that 



between both, my nxorning and evening are for the 
most part completely engaged. Add to this, that 
though my spirits are seldom so bad but I can 
write verse, they are often at so low an ebb as to 
make the production of- a letter impossible. So 
much for a trespass wliich called for some apology, 
but for v\'hich to apologize further, would be to 
commit a greater trespass still. 
. I am now in the twentieth book of Homer, and 
shall assuredly proceed, because the farther I go 
the more I find myself justified in the undertaking: 
and in due. time, if I live, shall ag'suredly publish. 
In the whole I shall have composed about forty 
thousand verses, about wliich forty thousand verses 
I shall have taken great pains, on no occasion suf- 
fering a slovenly line to escape me. I leave you 
to guess therefore whether, such a labour once 
achieved, I shall not determine to turn it to some 
account, and. to gain myself profit if I can, if not, 
at least some credit, for my revs^ard. 

I perfectly approve of your course with John. 
The most entertaining books are best to begin 
with, and none in the world, so far as entertain- 
ment is concerned,. deserves the preference to Ho- 
mer. Neither do I know, that there is any where 
to be found Greek of easier construction. Poetical 
Greek I mean ; and as for prose, I should recom- 
mend Xenbphon's Cyropaedia. That also is a 
most amusing narrative, and ten times easier to 
understand . than the crabbed epigrams and scrib- 
blements of the minor poets, that are generally put 
into the hands of boys. I took particular notice 
of the neatness of John's Greek character, which 
(let me tell you) deserves its share of commenda- 
tion ; for to write the language legibly is not the 
lot of every man who can read it. Witness my- 
self for one. 

I like the little ode of Hiintingford's that you 
sent me. In such matters we do not expect much 
novelty, or much depth pf thought. The expres- 
sion is all in all, which to me at least appears to 
be faultless. 

Adieu, my dear William ! We are well, and 
you and yours are ever the objects of our affection. 

W. C, 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, Olney, Nov. 9, 1785. • 

Whose last most aflfectionate letter has run in 
my head ever since I received it, and which I now 
sit down to answer two days sooner than the post 
will serve me; I thank you for it, and with a 
warmth for which I am sure you will give me cre- 
dit, though I do not spend many words in describ- 
ing it. . I do not' seek new friends, not being alto- 
gether sure that I should find them, but have un- 
speakable pleasure in being still beloved by an old 



Let. 196. 



LETTERS. 



279 



one. I hope that now our correspondence has suf- 
fered its last interruption; and that we shall go 
down together to the grave, chatting and chirping 
as merrily as such a scone of tilings, as tliis will 
perniit. . 

I am happy that my poems have pleased you. 
My volume has afforded me no such pleasure at 
any time, either while I was writing it, or since its 
publication, as I have derived from yours and my 
uncle's opinion of it. I make certain allowances 
. for partiality, and for that peculiar quickness of 
taste, with which you both relish what you like, 
and after all drawbacks, upon those accounts duly 
made, find myself rich in the measure of your ap- 
probation that still remains. But upon all I ho- 
nour John Gilpin, since it was he who first encou- 
raged you to write. I made him on purpose to 
laugh at, and he served his purpose well ; but I am 
now in debt to him for a more valuable acqmsition 
than all the laughter in the world amounts to, the 
recovery of ray intercourse with you, which is to 
me inestimable. My benevolent and generous 
cousin, when I was once asked if I wanted any 
thing, and given deUcately enough to understand 
that the inquirer was ready to supply all my occa- 
sions, I thankfully and civilly, but positively, de- 
clined the favour. I neither suffer, nor have suf- 
fered any such inconveniences as I had not much 
rather endure, than come under obligations of that 
sort to a person comparatively with yourself a 
stranger to me. But to you I answer otherwise. 
I know you thoroughly, and the hberality of your 
disposition ; and have that consummate confidence 
in the sincerity of your wish to serve me, that de- 
livers me from all awkward constraint, and from 
all fear of trespassmg by acceptance. To you, 
therefore, I reply, yes. Whensoever and whatso- 
ever, and in what manner soever you please ; and 
add moreover, that my affection for the giver is 
such, as will increase to me tenfold the satisfaction 
that I shall have in receiving. It is necessary, 
however, that I shovild let you a little into the state 
of my finances, that you may not suppose them 
more narrowly'circumscribed than they are. Since 
Mrs. Unwin and I have lived at Olncy, we have 
had but one purse, although during the whole of 
that time, till lately, her income was nearly double 
mine. Her revenues indeed are now in some mea- 
sure reduced, and do not much exceed my own ; 
the worst consequence of' this is, that we are forc- 
ed to deny ourselves some things which hitherto 
we have been better able to afford, but they are 
such things as neither hfe, nor the well-being of 
life depend upon. My own income has been bet- 
ter than it is, but when it was best, it would not 
have enabled me to live as my connexions demand- 
ed that I should, had it not been combined with a 
better than itself, at least at this end of tlie king- 
dom. Of this 1 had full proof during three months ' 
19 



that I spent in lodgings at Huntingdon, in which 
time, by the help of good management, and a clear 
notion of economical matters, 1 contrived to sjjcnd 
the income of a twelvemonth. Now, my beloved 
cousin, you are in possession of the whole case as 
it stands. Strain no points to your own inconve- 
nience or hurt, for- there is no need of it, but in- 
dulge yourself in communicating (no matter what) 
that you agn spare without missing it, since by so 
doing you will be sure to add to the comforts of 
my life one of the sweetest that I can enjoy — a 
token and proof of your affection. 

In the affair of my next publication, toward 
which you also offer me so kindly your assistance, 
there will be no need that you should help me in 
the manner that you propose. It will be a large 
work, consisting, I should imagine, of six volumes 
at least. The twelfth of this month I shall have 
spent, a year upon it, and it will cost me more than 
another. I do not love the booksellers well enough 
to make them a present of such a labour, but in- 
tend to pubhsh by subscription. Your vote and 
interest, my dear cousin, upon the occasion, if you 
please, but nothing more J I will trouble you with 
«ome papers of proposals, when the time shall 
come, and am sure that you will circulate as many 
for me as you can. . Now, my dear, I am going to 
tell you a secret. It is a great secret, that you 
must not whisper even to your cat. No creature 
is at this moment apprised of it but Mrs. Unwin 
and her son. I am making a new translation of 
Homer, and am on the pomt of finishing the 
twenty-first book of the Iliad. The reasons up- 
on which I undertake this Herculean labour, and 
by which I justify an enterprise in which I seem 
so eflectually anticipated by Pope, although in fact 
he has not anticipated me at all, I may possibly 
give you, if you wish for them, when I can find 
nothing more mteresting to say. A period which 
I do not conceive to be very near ! I have not an- 
swered many things in your letter, nor can I do it 
at present for want of room. . I can not believe but 
that I should know yoH, notwithstanding all that 
time may have done. There is not a feature of 
your face, could I meet it upon the road by itself, 
that I should not instantly recollect. I should say, 
that is my cousin's nose, or those are her lips and 
her chin, and no woman upon earth can claim them 
but herself As for me, I am a very smart youth 
of my years. I am not indeed grown gray so 
much as I- am grown bald. No matter. There 
was more hair in the world than ever had the ho- 
nour to belong to me. Accordmgly having found 
just enough to curl a little at my ears, and to in- 
termix with a little of my own that still hangs be- 
hind, I appear, if you see me in the afternoon, to 
have a very decent head-dress, not easily distin- 
guished from my natural growth; which being 
worn with a small bag, and a black riband about 



280 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 197, 198, 199. 



my neck, continues to me the charms of my youth, 
even on the verge of age. Away with the fear of 
writing too often. 

Yours, my dearest cousin, W. C. 
P. S. -That the view I give you of my- 
self may be complete, I add the two following 
items — That I am in debt to nobody, and that I 
grow fat. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, 

I AM glad that I always loved you as I did. It 
releases me from any occasion to suspect that my 
present affection for you is indebted for its exist- 
ence to any selfish considerations. No, I am sure 
I love you disinterestedly, and for your own sake, 
because I never thought of you with any other 
sensations than those of the truest affection,- even 
while I was under the influence of a persuasion 
that I should never hear from you again. But 
with my present feelings, superadded to those that 
I always had for you, I find it no easy matter to. 
do justice to my sensations. I perceive myself in 
a state of mind similar to that of the traveller, de- 
scribed in Pope's Messiah, who, as he passes through 
a sandy desert, starts at the sudden and unexpect- 
ed sound of a waterfall. You have placed me in 
a situation new tome, and in which I feel myself 
somewhat puzzled how I ought to behave. At the 
same time that I would not grieve you, by putting 
a check upon your bounty, I would be as careful 
not to abuse it, as if I were a miser, and the ques- 
tion not about your money, but my owm. 

Although I do not suspect that a secret to you, 
my cousin, is.. any burthen, yet having maturely 
considered that point, since I wrote my last, I feel 
myself altogether disposed to release you from the 
injunction, to that effect, under which I laid you. 
I have now made sush a progress in translation, 
that I need neither fear that I shall stop short of 
the end, nor that any other Vider of Pegasus should 
overtake me. Therefore if at any time it should 
fall fairly in your way, or you should feel your- 
self invited to say I am so occupied, you have my 
poetship's free permission. Dr. Johnson read-, and 
jrecomiiiended my first volume. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, NoV.d, 1785. 

You desired me to return your good brother the 
bishop's charge as soon as I conveniently could, 
and the weather having forbidden us to hope for 
the pleasure of seeing you, and Mrs. Bagot with 
you, this morning, 1 return it now, lest, as you 



told me that your stay in this country would be 
short, you should be gone before it could reach 
you. 

I wish, as you do, that the charge in question 
could find its way into all the parsonages in the 
nation. It is so generally applicable, and yet so 
pointedly enforced, that it deserves the most ex- 
tensive spread. I find in it the happiest mixture 
of spiritual authority, the meekness of a Christian, 
and the good manners of a gentleman. It has 
convinced me, that the poet, who, Uke myself, 
shall take the liberty to pay the author of such val- 
uable admonition a compliment, shall do at least 
as much honour to himself as to his subject. 

Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Dec. 24, 1785. 

You would have found a letter from me at Mt. 

's, according to your assignation, had not 

the post, setting out two hours sooner than the 
usual time, prevented me. The Odyssey that you 
sent has but one fault, at least but one that I have 
discovered, which is, that I can not read it. The 
very attempt, if persevered in, would soon make 
me as blind as Homer was himself. 1 am now 
in the last book of the Ihad ; shall be obliged to 
you therefore for a more legible one by the first 
opportunity. 

I WTote to Johnson lately, desiring him to give 
me advice and information on the subject of pro- 
posals for a subscription ; and he desired me in 
his answer nOt to use that mode of publication, 
but to treat with him ; adding, that he could make 
me such offers; as (he believed) I should approve. 
I have rephed to his letter, but abide by my first 
purpose. 

Having occasionto writeto Mr. , con- 
cerning his princely benevolence, extended this 
year also to the poor of Olney, I put in a good 
word for my poor self likewise, and have received 
a very obliging and encouraging answer. He 
promises me six names in particular, that (he 
says) will do me no discredit, and expresses a wish 
to be served with papers as soon as they shall be 
pi-yited. 

I meet with encouragement fi'om all quarters, 
such as I find need of indeed in an enterprise of 
such length and moment, but such as at the same 
time I find efffectual. Homer is not a poet to be 
translated under the disadvantages of dout>ts and 
dejection. 

Let me sing the praises of the desk which — — 
has sent me. In general, it is as elegant as possi- 
ble. In particular, it is of cedar, beautifully 
lacquered. When put together, it assumes the 



Let. 200, 201. 



LETTERS. 



281 



form of a handsome small chest, and contains all 
sorts of accommodations ; it is inlaid with ivory, 
and serves the purpose of a reading desk. 

Your affectionate, W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Dec. 24, 1785. 

Till I had made such a progress in my pre- 
sent undertaking, as to put it out of all doubt that, 
if I lived, I should proceed in, and finish it, I kept 
the matter to myself It would have done me lit- 
tle honour to have told my friends that I had an 
arduous enterprise in hand, if afterwards . I miist 
have told them that I had dropt it. Knowing it to 
have been universally the opinion of the literati, ever 
since they hav-e allowed themselves to consider the 
matter coolly, that a translation, properly so called, of 
Homer is, notwithstanding what Pope has done, 
a desideratum in the English language, it struck 
me, that an attempt to supply the deficiency would 
be an honourable one ; and having made myself, 
in former years, somewhat critically a master of 
the original, I was by tliis double consideration in- 
duced to make the attempt myself I am now 
translating into blank verse the last book of the 
Iliad, and mean to pubUsh by subscription. 



TO THE REV, WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, • Dec. 31, 1785. 

You have learned from my last that I am now 
con.ducting myself upon the plan that you recom- 
mended to me in the summer. But since I wrote 
it, I have made still farther advances in my nego- 
ciation with Johnson. The proposals are adjusted. 
The proof-sheet has been printed off, corrected, 
and returned. They will be sent abroad as soon 
as I make up a complete hst of the personages and 
persons to whom I would have them sent ; which 
in a few days J hope to be able to accompUsh. 
Johnson behaves very well, at least according to 
my conception of the matter, and seems sensible 
that I have dealt liberally with him. He wishes 
me to be a gainer by my labours, in his own 
words, ' to put something handsome into my pock- 
et,' and recommends two large quartos for the 
whole. He would Hot (he says) by any means 
advise an extravagant price, and has fixed it at 
three guineas ; the half, as usual, to be paid at the 
time of subscribing, the remainder on deliver}^ 
Five hundred names (he adds) at this price will 
put above a thousand pounds into my purse. I 
am doing my best to obtain them. Mr. Newton 
is warm in my service, and can do not a little. I 



have of course written to Mr. Bagot; who when 



he was here, with much earnestness and affection 
intreatcd me to do so, as soon as I should have set- 
tled the conditions. If I could get Sir Richard 
Sutton's address, I would write to him also, though 
I have been but once in his company since I left 
Westririnster, where he and I read the Iliad and 
Odyssey through together. I enclose Lord Dart- 
mouth's answer to my application, which I will 
get you to show to Lady Hcsketh, because' it will 
please her. I shall be glad if you can make an 
opportunity to call on her, during your present 
stay in town. You observe therefore that I am 
not wanting to myself He that is so, has no just 
claim on the assistance of others, neither shall my- 
self have cause to complain of me in other res- 
pects. I thank you for your friendly hints, and 
precautions, and shall not fail to give them the 
guidance of my pen. I respect the public, and I 
respect myself, and had rather want bread than 
expose myself wantonly to the condemnation of 
either. I hate the affectation so frequently found 
in authors, of negligence and slovenly sliglitness; 
and in the present case am sensible how necessary . 
it is to shun them, when I undertake the vast and 
invidious labour of doing better than Pope has 
done before me. I thank you for all that you have 
said and done in my cause, and beforehand for 
all that you shall say and do hereafter. I am sure 
.that there will be no deficiency on your part. In 
particular I thank you for taking such jealous care 
of my honour and respectability, when the man 
you mention applied for samples of my transla- 
tion. When I deal in wine, cloth, or cheese, I 
will give samples, but of verse, never. No con- 
sideration would have induced me to comply with 
the gentleman's demand, unless he could have as- 
sured me that his wife had longed. 

I have frequently thought with pleasure of the 
summer that you have had in your heart, while 
you have been employed in softening the severity 
of winter in behalf of so manj^ who must other- 
wise have been exposed to it. I wish that you 
could make a general gaol delivery, leaving only 
those behind who can not elsewhere he so properly 
disposed of You never said a better tiling in 

your life, than when 3'ou assured Mr. 

of the expediency of a gift of bedding to the poor 
of Olney. There is one article of this world's com- 
forts, with which, as Falstaff says, they are so 
heinously unprovided. When a poor woman, and 
an honest one, whom we know well, carried home 
two pair of blankets, a pair for herself and hus- 
band, and a pah for her six children ; as soon as 
the children saw them they jumped out of their 
straw, caught them in their arms, kissed them, 
blessed them, and danced for joy. An old woman, 
a very old one, the first night that she found her- 
self so comfortably covered, could not sleep a wink, 
being kept awake by the contrary emotions, of 



282 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 202, 203. 



transport on the one hand, and the fear of not be- 
ing thankful enough on the other. 

It just occurs to mc, to say, that this manuscript 
of mine wiJl be ready for the press, as I hope, by 
the end of February. I shall have finished the 
Iliad in about ten days, and shall, proceed imme- 
diately to the revisal of the whole. You must, if 
possible, come down to Olney, if it be only that 
you may take the charge of its safe delivery to 
Johnson. For if by any accident it should be lost, 
I am undone — the first copy being but a lean 
counterpart of the second. • • 

Your mother joins with me in love and good 
wishes of every kind, to you, and all yours. • 
Adieu, W, C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Jan. 10, 1786. 

It gave me great pleasure that you fouAd my 
friend Unwin, what I was sure you would find 
him, a most agreeable man. I did not usher him 
in with the marrow-bones and cleavers of high- 
sounding panegyric, both because I was certain 
that whatsoever merit he had, your discernment 
would mark it, and because it is possible to do a 
man material injury by making his praise his har- 
binger. It is easy to raise expectation to such a 
pitch, that the reality, be it ever so excellent, must 
necessarily fall below it. 

I hold myself much indebted to Mr. , 

of whom I have the first information from your- 
self, both for his friendly disposition towards me, 
and for the manner in which he marks the defects 
in my volume. An author must be tender indeed 
to wince on being touched so gently. It is un- 
doubtedly as he says, and as you and my uncle 
say. You can not be all mistaken, neither is it at 
all probable that any of you should be so. I take 
it for granted therefore that there are inequalities 
in the composition, and I do assure you, my dear, 
most faithfully, that if it should reach a second 
edition, I will spare no pains to improve it. It 
may serve me for an agreeable amusement perhaps 
when Homer shall be gone and done with. The 
first edition of poems has generally been suscep- 
tible of improvement. Pope, I believe, never pub- 
lished one in his' life that did not undergo varia- 
tions ; and his longest pieces, many. 1 will only 
observe, that inequalities there must be always, 
and in every work of length. There are level 
parts of every subject, parts which we can not 
with propriety attempt to elevate. They arc by 
nature humble, and can only be made to assume 
an awkward and uncouth appearance by being 
mounted. But again I take it for granted that 
this remark does not apply to the matter of your 
objection. You were sufficiently aware of it be- 



fore, and have no need that I should suggest it as 
an apology, could it have served that office, but 
would have made it for me yourself In truth, 
my dear, had you known in what anguish of mind 
I wrote the whole of that poem, and under what 
perpetual interruptions from a. cause that has 
since been removed, so that sometimes I had not 
an opportunity of writing more Ihan three lines at 
a sitting, you would long since have wondered as 
much as I do myself, that it turned out any thing 
better than Grub-street. • 

My cousin, give yourself no trouble to find out 
any of the Magi to scrutinize my Homer. I can 
do without them ; and if 1 were not conscious that 
I have no need of their help, 1 would be the first 
to call for it. Assure yourself that I intend to be 
careful to the utmost line of all possible caution, 
both with respect to language and versification. 
I will not send a verse to the press, that shall not 
have undergone the strictest examination. 

A subscriptioir is surely on every account the 
most eligible mode of publication. When I shall 
have emptied the purses of my friends, and of their 
friends, into my own, I am still free to levy contri- 
butions upon the world at large, and I shall then 
have a fund to defray the expenses of a new edi- 
tion. I have ordered Johnson to print the propo- 
sals immediately, and hope that they will kiss 
your hands before the week is expired. 

I have had the kindest letter from Josephus that 
I ever had. He mentioned my purpose to one of 
the Masters of Eton, who rephed that ' such a 
work is much wanted.' 

Yours affectionately, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, , • Jan. 14, 1786. 

i AM glad that you have seen Lady Hesketh. 
I knew that you would find her every thing that is 
amiable and elegant. Else, being my relation, I 
would never have shown her to you. She also was 
delighted with her visiter, and expects the greatest 
pleasure in seeing you again; but is under sorpe 
apprehensions that a tender regard for the drum 
of your ear may keep you from her. Never mind ! 
You have two drums ; and if she should crack 
both, I will buy you a trimapet. 

General Cowper having much pressed me to 
accompany my proposals with a specimen, I have 
sent him one. It is taken from the twenty-fourth 
liook of the Iliad, and is part of the interview be- 
tween Priam and Achilles. Tell me, if it be pos- 
sible for any man to tell me— why did Homer 
leave off at the burial of Hector? Is it possible 
that he could be determined to it by a conceit, so 
little worthy of him, as that, ha\'ing made the 
number of his books completely the alphabetical 



Let. 204, 205. 



LETTERS. 



283 



number, he would not for the joke's salsp proceed 
any farther 1 Why did he not give us the death 
of Achilles, and the destruction of Troy ^ Tell 
me also, if the critics, with Aristotle at their head, 
h.ave not found that he left off exactly where he 
should ; and that every epic poem, to all genera- 
tions, is bound to conclude with the burial of Hec- 
tor'? I do not in the least doubt it. Therefore, 
if I live to wi'ite a dozen epic poems, I will always 
take care to bury Hector, and to bring all matters 
at that point to an immediate conclusion. 

I had a truly kind letter from Mr. , writ- 
ten immediately on his recovery from the fever. I 
am bound to honour James's powder, not only for 
the services it has often rendered to myself, but 
still more for having been the means of preserving 
a life ten tunes more valuable to society, than mine 
is ever likely to be. 

You say — " why should I trouble you with my 
troubles'?" I answer — "why notl What is a 
friend good for, if we may not lay one end of the 
sack upon Ms shoulders, while we ourselves carry 
the other ■?" 

You see your duty to God, and your duty to 
yo.ur neighbour: and you practise both vrithyour 
best ability. • Yet a certain person accounts you 
blind. I wordd that all the world were so blind 
even as you are. But there are some in it, who, 
like the Cliinese,' say-^" We have two eyes; and 
other nations have but one !" I am glad however 
that in your one eye you have sight enough to dis- 
cover that such censures are not worth minding. 

I thank you heartily for every step you ta.ke in 
the advancenient of my present purpose. 

Contrive to pay Lady H. a long visit, for she 
has a thousand things to say. 

Yours, my dear WiUiam, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DKAR FRIEND, Jan. 15, 1786. 

I HAVE just time to give you a hasty line to 
explain to you the delay that the publication of 
my proposals has unexpectedly encountered, and 
at wliich I suppose that you have been somewhat 
surprised. 

I have a near relation in London and a warm 
friend in General Cowper; he is also a person as 
able as willing to render me material service. I 
lately made hun acquainted with my design of 
sending into the world a new Translation of Ho- 
mer, and told liim that my papers would soon at- 
tend him. He soon after desired that I would 
annex to them a specimen of the work. To this 
I at first objected, for reasons that need not be 
enumerated here ; but at last acceded to his ad- 
vice ; and accordingly the day before yesterday I 
sent him a specimen. It consists of one hundred 



and seven lines, and is taken from the interview 
between Priam and Achilles in the last book. I 
chose to extract from the latter end of the poem, 
and as near to the close of it as possible, that I 
might encourage a hope in the readers of it, that 
if they found it in some degree worthy of their 
approbation, they would find the former parts of 
their work not less so. For if a writer flags any 
where, it must be when he is near the end. 

My subscribers will have an option given them 
in the proposals respecting the price: My prede- 
cessor in the same business was not quite so mo- 
derate. — You may say perhaps (at least if your 
Idndness for me did not prevent it you would be 
ready to say) " It is well — but do you place your- 
self on a level with Pope"?" I answer, or rather 
should answer — " By no means — not as a poet; 
but as a translator of Homer, if I did not expect 
and believe that I should even surpass him, why 
have I meddled with this matter at alH If I con- 
fess inferiority, I reprobate my owjj undertaking." 

When I can -hear of the rest of the bishops, 
that they preach and live as your brother does, I. 
will thinli more respectfully of them than I feel 
inclined to do at present. They may be learned,, 
and I know that some of them are ; but your bro- 
ther, learned as he is, has other more powerful re- 
commendations. Persuade him to publish his 
poetry, and 1 promise you that he shall find as 
warm and sincere an admirer in me as in any man 
that lives. Yours, my dear friend, 

Very affectionately, W. C. 



TO THE REV.. WALTER BAGOT. 



Jan. 23, 1786. 



MY DEAR AND FAITHFUL FRIEND, 



The paragraphs that I am now beginning will 
contain information of a Icind that I am not very 
fond of conununicating, and on a subject that I 
am not very fond of writing about. Only to you 
I vnll open my budget without reserve, because I 
know that in what concerns my authorship you 
take an interest that demands my confidence, and 
will be pleased with every occurrence that is at 
all propitious to my endeavours. Lady Hesketh, 
who, had she as many mouths as Virgil's Fame, 
vrith a tongue in each, would employ them all in 
my service, writes me word that Dr. Maty of the 
Museum has read my Task. I can not even to 
you relate what he says of it ; though, when I be- 
gan this story, I thought I had courage enough to 
tell it boldly. He designs however to give his 
opinion of it in his next Monthly Review; and 
being infonned that I was about to finish a trans- 
lation of Homer, asked her Ladyship's leave to 



284 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 206. 



mention the circumstance on that occasion.. This 
incident pleases me the more, because I have au- 
thentic intelligence of his being a critical character 
in all its forms, acute, sour, and blunt; and so 
incorrujitible withal, and so unsusceptible of bias 
from undue motives, that, as my correspondent 
informs me, he would not praise liis own mother, 
did he not think she deserved it. 

The snid Task is hkewise gone to Oxford, con- 
veyed thither by an intimate friend of Dr. , 

with a purpose of putting it into his hands. My 
friend, what will they do with me at Oxford ^ Will 
they burn me at Carfax, or will they anathema- 
tize me with bell, book, and candle"? I can say 
with more truth than Ovid did — Parve nee in- 
video. 

The said Dr. has been heard to say, and 

I give you his own words (stop both your pars 
while I utter them) " that Homer has never been 
translated, and that Pope was a fool." Very- ir- 
reverent language to be sure, but in consideration 
of the Subject on which he used them, we will par- venture 

don it, even in a dean. One of the masters of i Johnson the MS. copy of a specimen, that I had 
Eton told a friend of mine lately, that a translation 
of Homer is much wanted. So now you have all 
my news * * * * 

Yours, my deare'st friend, cordially, W. C. 



letters ar« the joy of my heart, and I can not en- 
dure to be robbed, by I know not whom, of half my 
treasure. But there is no comfort without a draw- 
back, and therefore it is that I, who have unknown 
friends, have unknown enemies also. Ever since 
I wrote last I find myself in better health, and my 
nocturnal spasms and fever considerably abated. 
I intend to write to Dr. Kerr on Thursday, that 
I may gratify him with an account of my amend- 
ment ; for to him I know that it will be a gratifi- 
cation. Were he not a physician I should regret 
that he lives so distant, for he is a most agreeable 
man; but being what he is, it would be impossible 
to have his company, even if he were a neighbour, 
unless in time of sickness; at which time,- whatever 
charms he might have himself, my own must ne- 
cessarily lose much of their effect on him. 

When I write to you, my dear, what I have al- 
ready related to the General, I am always fearftd 
lest I should tell you that for news with which you 
are Well acquainted. For once however I will 
On Wednesday last I received from 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Olney, Jan. 31, 1786. 

It is very pleasant, my dearest cousin, to re- 
ceive a present so delicately conveyed as that which 
I received so lately from Anonymous ; but it is 
also very paiiiful to have nobody to thank for it. 
[ find myself therefore driven by stress of necessity 
to the following resolution, viz. that I will consti- 
tute you my Thank-receiver general for whatso- 
ever gift I shall receive hereafter, as well as for 
those that I have already received /rom a nameless 
benefactor. I therefore thank you, my cousin, for 
a most elegant present, including the most elegant 
compliment that ever poet was honoured with ; for 
a snuff-box of tortoise-shell, with a beautiful ]and- 
scape on the lid of it, glazed with crystal, having 
the figures of three hares in the fore-ground, and 
inscribed above with these words, The Peasant's 
Nest — and below with these — Tincy, Puss, and 
Bess. For all and every of these 1 thank you, 
and also for standing proxy on this occasion. Nor 
must I forget to thank you, that so soon after I 
had sent you the first letter of Anonymous, I re- 
ceived another in the same hand. — There, now I 
am a little easier. 

I have almost conceived a design to send up 
half a dozen stout country fellows, to tic by the leg 
to their respective bedposts the company that so 
abridges your opportunity of writing to me. Your 



sent to the General; and, enclosed in the same 
cover, notes upon it by an unknown critic. John- 
son, in a short letter, recommended him to me as 
a man of unquestionable learning and ability. On 
perusal and consideration of his remarks 1 found 
him such; and having nothing so much at heart 
as to give all possible security to yourself and the 
General, that my work shall not come forth unfin- 
ished, I answered Johnson that I would gladly 
submit my MS. to his friend. He is in truth a 
very clever fellow, perfectly a stranger to me, and 
one who I promise you will not spare for severity 
of animadversion, where he shall find occasion. It 
is impossible for you, my dearest Cousin, to ex- 
press a Avish that I do not equally feel a wish to 
gratify. You are desirous that Maty should see 
a book of my Homer, and for that reason if Maty 
loill see a book of it, he shall be welcome, although 
time is likely to be precious, and consequently any 
delay that is not absolutely necessary, as much as 
possible to be avoided. I am now revising the 
Iliad. It is a business that will cost me four 
months, perhaps five; for I compare the very 
words as I go, and if much alteration should oc- 
cur, must transcribe the whole. The first book I 
have almost transcribed already. To these five 
months Johnson says that nine more must be add- 
ed for printing, and upon my own experience I 
will venture to assure you, that the tardiness of 
l)rinters will make those nine months twelve. 
There is danger therefore that my subscribers may 
think that I make them wait too long, and that 
they who know me not may suspect a bubble. 
Plow glad shall I be to read it over in an evening, 
book by book, as fast as I settle the copy, to you, 
and to Mrs. Unwin! She has been my touch- 



Let. 207, 208. 



LETTERS. 



285 



stone always, and without reference to her taste 
and judgment I have printed nothing. With one 
of you at each elbow, I should thinli myself the 
happiest of all poets. 

The General and I, having broken the ice, are 
upon the most comfortable terms of correspondence. 
He writes very affectionately to me, and I say every 
thing to him that comes uppermost. I could not 
write frequently to any creature hving, upon any 
other terms than those. He tells me of infirmities 
that he has, which makes him less active than he 
was : I am sorry to hear that he has any such. 
j^as ! alas ! he was young when I saw him, only 
twenty years ago. 

■ I have the most affectionate letter imaginable 
from Colman, who writes to me like a brother. 
The Chancellor is yet dumb. 

May God have you in his keeping, my beloved 
cousin. Farewell, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, Olney, Feb. 9, 1786. 

I HAVE been impatient to tell you that I am im- 
patient to see you again. Mrs. Unwin partakes 
with me in all my feelings upon^this subject, and 
longs also to see you. I should have told you so 
by the last post, but have been so completely oc- 
cupied by this tormenting specimen, that -it was 
impossible to do it. I sent the General a letter on 
Monday, that would distress and alarm him; I 
sent him another yesterday, that will I hope quiet 
him again. Johnson has apologized very civilly 
for the multitude of his friend's strictures; and his 
friend has promised to confine himself in future to 
a comparison of me. v^'ith the original, so that (I 
doubt not) we shall jog on merrily together. And 
now, my dear, let me tell, you once more, that 
your kindness in promising us a visit has charmed 
us both. I shall see you again. I shall hear your 
voice. We shall take walks together. I will 
show you my prospects, the hovel, the alcove, the 
Ouse, and its banks, every thing that I have de- 
scribed. I anticipate the pleasure of those days 
not very far distant, and feel a part of it at this 
moment. Talk not of an inn! Mention it not 
for your life ! We have never had so many visit- 
ers, but we could easily accommodate them all; 
though we have received Unwin, and his wife, 
and his sister, and his son, all at once. My deaf, 
I will not let you come till the end of May, or 
beginning of June, because before that time my 
greenhouse will not be ready to receive us, and it 
is the only pleasant room belonging to us. When 
the plants go out, we go in. I line it with mats, and 
spread the floor with mats ; and there you shall sit 
with a bed of mignonette at your side, and a hedge 
of honeysuckles, roses, and jasmine; and I will 



make you a bouquet of myrtle every day. Sooner 
than the time I mention the country will not be 
in complete, beauty. And I will tell you what 
you shall find at your first entrance. Imprimis, 
as soon as you have entered the vestibule, if you 
cast a look on cither side of you, you shall see on 
the right hand a box of my making. It is the 
box in which have been lodged all my hares, and 
in which lodges Puss at present. But he, poor 
fellow, is worn out with age, and promises to die 
before you can see him. On the right hand, 
stands a cup-board, the work of the same author; 
it was once a dove-cage, but I transformed it. 
Opposite to you stands a table, which I also made. 
But a merciless servant having scrubbed it until 
it became paralytic, it serves no purpose now but 
of ornament ; and all my clean shoes stand under 
it. On the left hand, at the farther end of this 
superb vestibule, you will find the door of the 
parlour, into which I will conduct you, and where 
I will introduce you to Mrs. Unwin, unless we 
should meet her before, and where we will be as 
happy as the day is long. Order yourself, my 
cousin, to the Swan at Newport, and Ihere you 
shall find me ready to conduct you to Olney. 

My dear, I have told Homer what you say 
about casks and urns, and have asked him, whe- 
ther he is sure that it is a cask, in which Jupiter 
keeps hjs wine. He swears that it is a cask, and 
that it will never be any thing better than a cask 
to eternity. So if the god is content with it, we 
must even wonder at his taste, and be so too. 

. Adieu! my dearest, dearest cousin, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, Olney, Feb. 11, 1786. 

It must be (1 suppose) a fortnight or thereabout 
since I wrote last, I feel myself so alert and so 
ready to write again. Be that as it may, here I 
come. We talk of nobody but you. What we 
will do with you when we get you, where you 
shall walk, where you shall sleep, in short every 
thing that bears the remotest relation to your well- 
being at Olney, occupies all our talking time, 
which is all that I do not spend at Troy. 

I have every reason for writing to you as often 
as I can, but I have a particular reason for. doing 
it now. 1 want to tell you that by the Diligence 
on Wednesday next, I mean to send you a quire 
of my Homer for Maty's perusal. It will contain 
the first book, and as much of the second as brings 
us to the catalogue of the sliips, and is every mor- 
sel of the revised copy that I have transcribed. 
My dearest cousin, read it yourself, let the Gene- 
ral read it, do what you please with it, so that it 
reach Johnson in due time. But let Maty be 
the only critic that has any thing to do with it. 



286 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 209. 



The vexation, the perplexity, that attends a mnl-j 
tipUcity of criticisms by \'arious hands, many of 
which are sure to be futile, many of them ill- 
founded, and some of them contradictory to others, 
is inconceivable, except by the author, whose ill- 
fated work happens to be the subject of them. 
This also appears to be self-evident, that if a 
work have passed under the review of one mah 
of taste and learning, and have had the good for- 
tune to please him, his approbation gives security 
for that of all others qualified like himself. I 
speak thus, my dear, after having just escaped 
from such a storm of trouble, occasioned by end- 
less remarks, hints, suggestions, and objections, as 
drove me also to despair, and to the very verge 6f j 
a resolution to drop my undertaking for ever. 
With infinite difficulty I at last sifted the chaff 
from the wlieat, availed myself of what appeared 
to me to be just,' and rejected the rest^ but not till 
the laliour and anxiety had nearly undone all that 
Kerr had been doing for me. My beloved cousin, 
trust me for it, as you safely may, that temper, 
vanity, and self-importance, had nothing to do in 
all this distress that I suffered. It was merely 
the eflect of an alarm, that I could not help taking, 
when I compared the great trouble I had with a 
few lines only, thus handled, with that which 1 
foresaw such handling of the whole must neces- 
sarily give me. I felt beforehand that my consti- 
tution would not bear it. I shall send up this 
second specimen in a box, that I have made on 
purpose ; and when Maty has done with the copy, 
and you have done with it yourself, then you 
must return it in said box to my translatorship. 
Though Johnson's friend has teased me sadly, I 
verily believe that I shall have no more such cause 
to complain of him. We now understand one 
another, and I firmly believe that 1 might have 
gone the world through, before I had found his 
equal in an accurate and familiar acquaintance 
with the original. 

A letter to Mr. Urban in the late Gentleman's 
Magazine, of which I's book is the subject, pleases 
mc more than any thing I have seen in the way 
of eulogium yet. f have no guess of the author. 

I do not wish to remind the Chancellor of liis 
promise. Ask you why, my cousin'? Because I 
suppose it would be impossible. He has no doubt 
forgotten it entirely, and would be obliged to take 
my wotd for the truth of it, which I could not 
licar. We drank tea together with Mrs. C- 
and her sister, in King-street, Bloomsbury, and 
there was the promise made. I said — " Thurlow, 
I am nobody, and shall be always nobody, and 
you will be Chancellor. You shall provide for 
me when you are." He smiled, and replied, " I 
surely will." " These ladies," said I, " are wit- 
ness<;s." He still smiled, and said — " Let them be 
so, for I will certainly do it." But alasl twenty- 



four years have passed since the day of the date 
thereof; and to mention it now would be to up- 
braid him with inattention to his blighted troth. 
Neither do I suppose he could easily serve such 
a creature as I am, if he would. 

Adieu, whom I love entirely, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, Olney, Feb. 19, 1786 

Since so it must be, so it shall be. If you will 
not sleep under the roof of a friend, may y<pi 
never sleep under the roof of an enemy ! An ene- 
my however you will not presently find. . .Mrs. 
Unwin bids me mention her affectionately, and 
tell you that she willingly gives up a part, for the 
sake of the rest, willingly, at least as far as wil- 
hngly may consist with some reluctance; I feel my 
reluctance too. Our design was, that you should 
have slept in the room that serves me for a study, 
and its having been occupied by you would have 
been an additional recommendation of it to me. 
But all reluctances are superseded by the thought- 
of seeiiig you: and because we have nothing so 
much at heart as the wish to see you happy and 
comfortable, we are desirous therefore to accommo- 
date you to your own mind, and not to ours. Mrs. 
Unwin has already secured for you an apartment, 
or rather two, just such as we could wish. The 
house in which you will find them ie within thirty 
yards of our own, and opposite to it. The whole 
affair is thus commodiously adjusted ; and now 1 
have notliing to do but to wish for June; and 
June, my cousin, was never so wished for, since 
June was made. I shall have a thousand things 
to hear, and a thousand to say, and they will all 
rush into my mind together, till it will- be so 
crowded, with things impatient to be said, that 
for some time I shall- say nothing. But no mat- 
ter — sooner or later they will all come out; and 
since we shall have you the longer for not having 
you undei; our own roof (a circumstance, that, 
more than any thing, reconciles us to that mea- 
sure), they will stand the better chance. After 
so long a separation, a separation that of late 
seemed lUiely to j|ast for life, we shall meet each 
other as ahve from the dead ; and for my own part 
I can truly say, that I have not a friend in the 
other world, whose resurrection would give me 
greater pleasure. 

1 am truly happy, my dear, in having pleased 
you with what you have seen of mj' Homer. I 
wish that all English readers had your unsophisti- 
cated, or rather unadulterated taste, and could 
relish simplicity like you. But I am well aware 
tlKit in this respect I am under a disadvantage, 
and that many, especially many ladies, missing 
many turns and prettinesses of expression, that 



Let. 210, 211. 



LETTERS. 



287 



they have admired in Pope, will account my trans- 
lation in those particulars defective. But I com- 
fort myself with the thought, that in reality it is 
no defect; on the contrary, that the Want of all 
such embellishments as do not belong to the ori- 
ginal will be one of its principal merits with per- 
sons indeed capable of relishing Homer. He is 
the best poeb that ever hved for many reasons, but 
for none more than for that majestic plainness that 
distinguishes him from all others. As an accom- 
plished person moves gracefully without thinking 
of it, in like manner the dignity of Homer seems 
to cost him no labour. It was natural to him to 
say great things, and to say them well, and httle 
ornaments were beneath his notice. If Maty, my 
dearest cousin, should return to you my c«py with 
any such strictures as may make it necessary for 
me- to see it again, before it goes to Johnson, in 
that case you shall send it to me, otherwise to 
Johnson Immediately; for he writes me word he 
wishes his friend to go to work upoji it as soon as 
possible. When you come, my dear, we will 
hang all these critics together. For they have 
worried "me without remorse or conscience. At 
least one of them has. I had actually murdered 
more than a few of the best lines in the specimen, 
in compUance with his requisitions, but plucked 
up my courage at last, and in that very last oppor- 
tunity that I had, recovered them to hfe again by 
restoring the original reading. At the same time 
I readily confess that the specimen is the better 
for all this discipline its author has undergone ; 
but then it has been more indebted for its improve- 
ment to that pointed accuracy of examination, to 
which I was myself excited, than .to any proposed 
amendments from Mr. Critic ; for 'as sure as you 
are my cousin, whom I long to see at Olney, so 
surely would he have done me irritable .miscliief, 
if I would have given him leave. 

My friend Bagot writes to me in a most friend- 
ly strain, and calls loudly upon me for original 
poetry. When I shall have done with Homer, 
probably he will not call in vain. Having found 
th6 prime feather of a swan on the banks of the 
smug and silver Trent, he keeps it for me. 

Adieu, dear cousin, W. C, 

I am sorry that the General has such indiflerent 
health. He must not die. 1 can by no means 
spare a person so kind to me. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

Olney, Feb. 27, 1786. 

Alas! alas! my dear, dear friend, may God 

himself comfort you ! I will not be so absurd as to 

attempt it. By the close of your letter it should 

seem, that in this horn* of great trial he withholds 



not his consolations from you. I know by expe- 
rience that they arc neither few nor small ; and 
though I feel for you as I never felt 'for man before, 
yet do I sincerely rejoice in this, that whereas 
there is but one true comforter in the universe, 
under afflictions such as yours, you both know him, 
and know where to seek him. I thought you a 
man the most happily mated, that I had ever seen, 
and had great pleasure in your felicity. Pardon 
me, if now I feel a wish that, short as my acquaint- 
ance with her was, I had never seen her. I should 
have mourned with you, "but not as I do now. 
Mrs. Unwin sympathizes with you also most sin- 
cerely, and you neither are, nor will be soon for- 
gotten in such prayers as we can make at Olney. 
I will not detain you longer now, my poor afflicted 
friend, than to commit you to the tender mercj' 
of God, and to bid you a sorrowful adieu! 

Adieu I ever yom-s, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

, ■ Olney, March 6, 1786. 

MT DEAREST COUSIN, 

YoaR opinion has more weight with me than 
that of all the critics in the world ; and to give you 
a proof of it, 1 make you a covenant, that I would 
hardly have made to them all united. Tdo not 
indeed, absolutely covenant, promise,' and agree, 
that I will discaijl all my elisions, but I hereby 
bind myself to dismiss as many of them as, with- 
out sacrificing energy to sound, I can. It is in- 
cmnbent upon me in the mean time to say some- 
thing in justification of the few that I shall retain, 
that I may not seem a poet mounted rather on a 
mule than on Pegasus. In the first place, The, 
is a ba!rbarism. We are indebted for it to the 
Celts, or the Goths, or to the Saxons, or perhaps 
to thenj all. In the two best languages that ever 
were spoken, the Greek and the Latin, there is no 
similar incumbrance of expression to be found. 
Secondly, The perpetual use of it in our language 
is to us miserable poets attended with two great 
inconveniences. Omx verse consisting only of ten 
syllables, it not unfrequently happens that a fifth 
part of a line is to be engrossed, and necessarily 
too, (unless elision prevents it) by this abominable 
intruder ; and, vi'hich is worse in my account, open 
vowels are continually the consequence — The ele- 
ment — The air, &c. Thirdly, the French, who 
are equally with the English chargeable with bar- 
barism in this particular, dispose of their Le and 
their La without ceremony, and always take care 
that they shall be absorbed, both in verse and in 
prose, in the vowel that immediately follows them. 
Fourthly, and I believe lastly, (and for your sake 
I wish it may prove so) the practice of cutting 
short a The is warranted by Milton, who of all 



288 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let, 212. 



will of course pass into your hands before they 1 
are sent to Johnson. The quire that I sent is ' 
now in the hands of Johnson's friend. I intended 
to have told you in my last, but forgot it, that John- 
son behaves very handsomely i^i the affair of my 
two volumes. He acts with a liberahty not often 
found in persons of his occupation, and to mention 
it, when occasion calls me to it, is a justice due to 
him. • • , ■ 

I am very much pleased with Mr. Stanley's let- 
ter — several compliments were paid me, on the 
subject of that first volume, by my own friends ; 
but I do not recollect that I ever knew the opinion 
of a stranger about it before, whether favourable 
or otherwise ; I only heard by a- side wind, that 
it was very much read m Scotland, and more than 
here. 

Farewell, my dearest cousin, whom we expect, 
of whom we talk continually, and whom we con- 
tinually long for. W. C. 

Your anxious wishes for my success delight me, 
and you may rest assured, my dear, that I have all 
the ambition on the subject that you can wish me 
to feel. I more than admire my author. ' I often 
stand astonished at his beauties. I am for ever 
amused vsdth the translation of liim, and I haye 
received a thousand encouragements. These are 
all so many happy omens, that I hope shall be 
verified by the event. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN 

MT^EAR FRIEND, March 13, 1786. 

I SEEM to be. about to write to you, but I foresee 
that it will not be a letter, but a scrap that I 
shall send you. I could tell you things that, know- 
ing how. much you interest yourself in my suc- 
cess, I am sure would please you, but every mo- 
ment of my leisure is necessarily spent at Troy. 
I am revising my translation, and bestowing on it 
more labour than at first. At the repeated solici- 
tation of General Cowper, who had doubtless irre- 
fragable reason on his side, I have put my book 
into the hands of the most extraordinary critic 
that I have ever heard of. He is a Swiss ; has 
an accurate knowledge of Enghsh, and for his 
knowledge of Homer has, I verily believe, no fel- 
low. Johnson recommended him to me. I am 
to send him the quires as fast as I finish them off, 
and the first is now in his hands. I have the com- ' 
fort to be able to tell you, that he is very much 
pleased with what he has seen. Johnson wrote 
to me lately on purpose to tell me so. Things 
having taken this turn, I fear that I must beg a 
release from my engagement to put the MS. into 
yoiu" hands. I am bound to print as soon as three 
hundred shall have subscribed, and consequently 
have not an hour to spare. 



English poets that ever lived, had certainly the 
finest ear> Dr. Warton 'indeed has dared to say 
that he had a bad one; for which he deserves, as 
far as critical demerit can deserve it, to lose his 
own. I thought I had done, but tl>€re is still a 
fifthly behind, and it is this, that the custom of 
abbreviating The belongs to the style in wliich, 
in oiy advertisement annexed to the specimen, I 
profess to write. The use of that style would have 
warranted me in the practice of much greater li- 
berty of this sort than I ever intended to take. In 
perfect consistence witk that style I might say, 
r th' tempest, F th' door-way, &c., which however 
I would not allow myself to do, because I was 
aware that it would be objected to, and with rea- 
son. But it seems to me forthe causes above said, 
that when I shorten The, before a vowel, or before 
ich, as in the line you mention, 

"Than th' whole broad Hellespont in all its parts," 

my license is not equally exceptionable, because 
W though he rank as a consonant in the word 
whole, is not allowed to announce himself to the 
ear; and H is an aspirate. But as I said at the 
Ijeginning, so say I still, I am most wilhng to con- 
form myself to your very sensible observation, that 
it is necessary, if we would please, to consult the 
taste of our own day ; neither would I have pelted 
you, my dearest cousin, with any part of this vol- 
ley of good reasons, had I not designed them as -an 
answer to those objections which you say you have 
heard from others. But I only mention them. 
Though satisfactory to myself, I waive them, and 
will allow to The his whole dimensions, whenso- 
ever it can be done. 

Thou only critic of my verse that is to be found 
in all the earth, whom I love, what shall I say in 
answer to your own objection to th;at passage, 

" Softly he plac'd his hand ^ 

On the old man's hand, and push'd it gently away?" 

I can say neither more nor less than this, that 
when our dear friend, the General, sent me his 
opinion of the specimen, quoting those very few 
words from it, he added, " With this part I was 
particularly pleased ; there is nothing in poetry 
more descriptive." Such were his very words. 
Taste, my dear, is various : there is nothing so 
various ; and even between the persons of the best 
taste there arc diversities of opinion on the same 
subject, for which it is not possible to account. So 
much for these matters. 

You adnse me to consult the General, and to 
confide in him. I follow yoiir advice, and have 
done both. By the last jwst I asked liis permis- 
sion to send him the books of my Homer, as fast 
as I should finish them off. I shall be glad of his 
remarks, and more glad than of any thing, to do 
that wliich I hope may be agreeable to him. They 



LeT.213,214. 



LETTERS. 



289 



People generally love to go where they are ad- 
mired, yet lady Hesketh complains of not having 
seen you. Yours, W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

April 5, 1786. 
■ I DID, as you suppose, bestov? all possible con- 
sideration on the . subject of an apology for my 
Homerican undertaking. I turned tlie matter 
about in my mind an hundred diflerent ways, and 
in every way in which it would present itself 
found it an impracticable business. It is impossi- 
ble for me, with vvhat delicacy soeyer I may man- 
age it, to state the objections that lie against Pope's 
translation, without incurring odium, and the im- 
putation of arrogance; foreseeing this danger, I 
choose to say nothing. W. C. 

P. S. — You -may well wonder at my courage, 
who have undertaken a work of such enormous 
length. You would wonder more if you knew 
that I translated the whole Iliad with no other 
help than a Clavis, But I have since .equipped 
myself better for tliis immense journey, and am 
revising the work in company with a good com- 
mentator. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Olney, April 17, 1786. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, 

If you wOl not quote Solomon, my dearest cou- 
sin, I will. He says, and as beautifully astruly — 
" Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when 
the desire cometh, it is a tree of life !" I feel how 
much reason he had on liis side when he made 
this observation, and am myself sick of your fort- 
night's delay. 

The vicarage was built by Lord Dartmouth, 
and was not finished till some time after we ar- 
rived at Olney, consequently it is new. It is a 
smart stone building well sashed, by much too 
good for the living, but just what I would wish 
for you. It has, as you justly concluded from my 
premises, a garden, but rather calculated for use 
than ornament. It is square, and well walled, but 
has neither arbour, nor alcove, nor other shade, 
except the shadow of the house. P>ut we have 
two gardens, which .are yours. Between yoiir 
mansion and ours is interposed nothing but an 
orchard, into which a door opening out of our 
garden affords us the easiest communicatioTi imag- 
inable, will save the round-about by the tovni, and 
make both houses one. Your chamber-windows 
look oyer the river, and over the meadows, to a 



village called Emberton, and command the whole 
length of a long bridge, described by a certain poet, 
together with a view of the road at a distance. 
Should you wish for books at Olney, you must 
bring them with j'ou, or you will wish in vain, for 
I have none but the works of a certain poet, Cow- 
per, of whom perhaps you have heard, and they 
are as yet but two volumes. They may multiply 
hereafter, but at present they are no more. . 

You are the first person for whom I have heard 
Mrs. Unwin express such feelings as she does for 
you. She is not profuse in professions, nor for- 
ward to enter into treaties of friendship with new 
faces, but when her friendship is once engaged, it 
may be confided in even unto death. She loves 
you already, and how much more will she love you 
before this time twelvemonth I I have indeed en- , 
deavoured to describe you to her, but perfectly as I 
have you by heart, I am sensible that my picture 
can not do you justice. I never saw one that did. 
Be you what you may, you are much beloved and 
will be so at Olney, and Mrs. U. expects you with 
the pleasure that one feels at the return of a long 
absent, dear relation ; that is to say, with a pleasure 
such as mine. She sends you her warinest afleo- 
tions. 

On Friday I received a letter from dear Anony- 
mous, apprising me of a parcel that the coach 
would bring me on Saturday. Who is there in 
the world that has, or thinks he has reason to love 
me to the degree that he does 1 But it is no mat- 
ter. He chooses to be unknown, and his choice 
is, and ever shall be so sacred to rhe, that if his 
name lay on. the table before me reversed, I would 
not turn the paper about that I might read it. 
Much as it would gratify me to thank him, I would 
turn my eyes away from the forbidden discovery. 
I long to assure him that those same eyes, con- 
cerning which he expresses such kind apprehen- 
sions, lest they should suffer by this laborious un- 
dertaking, are as well as I could expect them to 
be, if I were never to touch either book or pen. 
Subject to weakness, and occasional slight inflam- 
mations, it is probable that they will always be ; 
but I can not remember the time when they en- 
joyed any thing so like an exemption from those 
infirmities as at present. One would almost sup- 
pose that reading Homer were the best ophthalmic 
in the world. I should be happy to remove his 
solicitude on the subject, but it is a pleasure that' 
he will not let me enjoy. Well then, I will be 
content without it ; and so content that, though I 
believe you, my dear, to be in full possession of 
all this mystery, you shall never know me, while 
you live, either directly, or by hints of any sort, 
attempt to extort, or to steal the secret from you. 
I should think myself as justly punishable as the 
Bethshemites, for looking into the ark, which they 
were not allowed to touch. 



290 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 215,216. 



I have-not sent for Kerr, for Kerr, can do no- 
thing but send me to Bath, and to Bath I can not 
go for a thousand reasons. The siunmcr will set 
me up again; I grow fat every day, and shall be 
as big as Gog or Magog, or both put together, be- 
fore you come. 

I did actually live, three years with Mr. Chap- 
man, a solicitor, that is to say, I slept three years 
in his house, but I lived, that is to say, I spent my 
days in Southampton Row, as you very well re- 
member. There was I, and the future Lord Chan- 
cellor, constantly eniploycd from morning to night 
in giggling and making giggle, instead of studying 
the law. .0 fie, cousin ! how could you do sol I 
'am pleased with Lord Thurlow's inquiries about 
me. If he takes it into that inimitable head of 
his, he may make a man of me yet. I could love 
him heartily if he would but deserve it at my 
hands. That I did so once is certain. The Duch- 
ess of , who in the world set her a going 1 

But if all the duchesses in the world were spin- 
ning, hke so many whirligigs, for my benefit, I 
would not stop them. It is a noble thing to be a 
poet, it makes all the world so ■ Uvely. I might 
have preached more sermons than even Tillotson 
did, and better, and the world would have been 
still fast asleep, but a volume of verse is a fiddle 
that puts the universe in motion. 

Yours, my dear friend and cousin, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Olney, April 24, 1786. 
Your letters are so much my comfort that I 
often tremble lest by any accident I should be dis- 
appointed; and the more because you have been, 
more than once, so engaged in company 011 the 
writing day, that 1 have had a narrow escape. Let 
me give you a piece of good counsel, my cousin ; 
follow my. laudable example, write when you can, 
take Time's forelock in one hand, and a pen in 
the other, and so make sure of your opportunity. 
It is well for me that you write faster than any 
body, and more in an hour than other people in 
two, else I know not what would become of me. 
When I read your letters I hear you talk, and I 
love talldng letters dearly, especially from you. 
Well ! the middle of June will not be always a 
thousand years off, and when it comes I shall hear 
you, and see you too, and shall liot care a farthing 
then if you do not touch a pen in a month. By 
the way, you must either send me, or bring me 
some'more paper, for before the moon shall have 
perfomied a few more revohitions I shall not have 
a scrap left, and tedious revolutions they are just 
now, that is certain. 

I give you leave to be as peremptory as you 
please, especially at a distance; but when- you say 



that you are a Cowper (and the better it is for the 
Cowpers that such you are, and 1 give them joy 
of you, vrith all my heart) you must not forget that 
I boast myself a Cowj^er too, and have my hu- 
mours, and fancies, and purposes, and determina- 
tions, as well as others of my name, and hold them 
as fast as they can. You indeed tell me how often 
I shall see you when you come. A pretty story 
truly. I -am a he Cowper, my dear, and .claim 
the privileges that belong to my noble sex. But 
these matters shall be settled, as'my cousin Aga- 
memnon used to say, at a more convenient time. 

I shall rejoice to see the letter you promise me, 
for though I met with amorsel of praise last week, 
I do riot knov^ that the ^eek current is likely to 
produce me any, and having lately been pretty 
much pampered with that diet, I expect to find 
inyself rather hungry by the time when your next 
letter shall arrive. It will therefore be very op- 
portune. The morsel above alluded to, came from 

— whom do you think"? From — = , but she 

desires that her authorship may be a secret. And 
in my answer I promised not to divulge it except 
to you. It is a pretty copy of verses, neatly writ- 
ten, and- well turned, and when you come you 
shall see them. I intend to keep all pretty tilings 
to mj'self till then, that they may serve me- as a 
bait to lure j'ou hither more effectually. • Tlie last 

letter that I had from I received so many 

years since, that it seems as if it had reached me 
a good while before I was born. 

I was grieved at the heart that the General could 
not come, and that illness was in part the cause 
tliat hindered him. I have sent him, by his ex- 
press desire, a new edition of the first book, and 
half the second. He would not suffer me to send 
it to you, my dear, lest you should post it away 
to Maty at once. He did not give that reason, 
but, beirig shrewd, I found' it. 

The grass begins to grow, and the leaves to bud, 
and every thing is preparing to be beautiful against 
you come. Adieu, W. C. 

You inquire of our walks, I perceive, as well as 
of our rides. They are beautiful. You inquire 
also concerning a cellar. You have two cellars. 
Oh! what years have passed since we took the 
same walks, and drank out of the same bottle! 
but a few more weeks and then! 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Olney, May 8, 1786. 
I- DID not at all doubt that your tenderness for 
my feelings had inclined you to suppress in your 
letters to me the intelligence concerning Maty's 
critique, that yet reached me from another quarter. 
When I wrote to you I had not learned it from 



Let. 216. 



LETTERS. 



291 



the General, but from my friend Bull, who only 
knew it by hearsay.. The next post brought mc 
the news of it I'rom the first-mentioned, and tlic 
critique itself enclosed. Together with it came 
also a squib discharged against me in the Public 
Advertiser. The General's letter found me in one 
of my most melancholy moods, and ray spirits- did 
not rise on the receipt of it. The letter indeed that 
he had cut from the newspaper gave me little pain, 
both because it contained nothing formidable, 
though written with malevolence enough, and be- 
cause a nameless author can have no more weight 
with his readers than the reason which he has on 
his side can give him. But Maty's animadversions 
hurt me more. In part they appeared to me un- 
just, and in part ill-natured, and yet the man him- 
self being an oracle in every body's account, I ap- 
prehended that he had done me much mischief. 
Why he says that the translation is far fi'ora ex- 
act, is best known to himself. For I know it to 
be as exact as is compatible with poetry; and 
prose translations of Homer are not wanted, the 
world has one already. But I will not fill my let- 
ter to you with hypercriticisms, I will only add an 
extract from a letter of Colman's, that I received 
last Friday, and will then dismiss the subject. It 
came accompanied by a copy of the specimen, 
which he himself had amended, and with so much 
taste and candour that it charmed me. He says 
as follows ; 

' One copy I have ireturned with some remarks, 
prompted by my zeal for your success, not, Heaven 
knows, by arrogance or impertinence; I know no 
other way at once so plain and so short, of deliver- 
ing my thoughts on the specimen of your transla- 
tion, which on the whole I -admire exceedingly, 
tliinking it breathes the spirit, and conveys the 
manner of the original ; though having here neither 
Homer, nor Pope's Homer, I can not speak pre- 
cisely of particularhnes or expressions', or compare 
your blank verse with his rhyme, except by de- 
claring, that I think blank verse infinitely more 
congenial to the magnificent sunphcity of Homer's 
hexameters, than the confined couplets, and the 
jingle of rhyme.' 

His amendments are chiefly bestowed- on the 
lines encmnbered with elisions, and I will just take 
this opportunity to tell you, my dear, because I 
know you to be as much interested in what I write 
as myself, that some of the most offensive of those 
elisions were occasioned by mere criticism. Iwas 
fairly hunted into them, by vexatious objections 

made without end by ;, and his friend, and 

altered, and altered, till at last I did not care how 

I altered. Many thanks for 's verses, which 

deserve just the character you give of them. They 
are neat and easy — but I would mumble her well, 
if I could get at her, for allowing herself to sup- 
pose for a mon;ent that I praised the Chancellor 



with a view to emolument. I wrote those stanzas 
merely for my own amusement, and they slept in 
a dark closet years after I composed them ; not in 
the least designed for publication. But when 
Johnson had prmted oH" the longer ideces, of which 
the first volume principally consists, he wrote me 
word that he wanted yet two thousand Unes to 
swell it to a proper size. On that occasion it was 
that I collected every scrap of verse that I could 
find, and that among the rest. None of the smaller 
poems had been introduced or had been pubUshed 
at all with my name, but for this necessity. 

Just as I wrote the last word I was called down 
to' Dr. Kerr, who came to pay me a voluntary 
visit. Were I sick, Iris cheerful and friendly man- 
ner would almost restore- me. Air and exercise 
are his theme; them he recommends as the best 
physic for me, and in all weathers. Come there- 
fore, my dear, and take a little of this good physio 
with me, for you will find it beneficial as well as 
I ; come and assist Mrs. Unwin in the re-establish- 
ment of your cousin's . health. Air and exercise, 
and she and .you together, will make me a perfect 
Sampson. You will have a good house over your 
head, comfortable apartments, obligmg neighbours, 
good roads, a pleasant country, and in us your 
constant companions, two who will love you, and 
do already love you dearly, and with all our hearts. 
If you are in any danger of trouble, it is from my- 
self, if my fits of dejection seize me; and as often as 
they do, you will be grieved for me ; but perhaps 
by your assistance I shall be able to resist them 
better. If there is a creature under heaven, from 
whose co-operations with Mrs. Unwin I can rea- 
sonably expect such a blessing, that creature is 
yourself. I was not without such attacks when I 
hved in London, though at that time they were 
less oppressive, but in your company I was never 
unhappy a whole day in all my life. 

Of how much importance is an author to him- 
self! I return to that abominable specimen again, 
just to notice Maty's impatient censure of the re- 
petition that you mention. I mean of the word 
hand. In the original there is not a repetition of it. 
But to repeat a word in that manner, and on such 
an occasion, is by no means, what he calls it, a 
modern invention. In Homer I could show him 
many such, and in Virgil they abound. Colman, 
who, in his judgment of classical matters, is in- 
ferior to none, says, ' I know not ichy Maty objects 
to this expression.' I could easily change it. But 
the case standing thus, I know not whether my 
proud stomach will condescend so low. I rather 
feel disinclined t(^ it. 

One evening last vs^eek, Mrs. Unwin and I took . 
our walk to- Weston, and as we were returning 
throufrh the grove opposite to the' house, the , 
Throckmortons presented themselves at the door. 
They are owaiers of a house at Weston, at present 



292 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 217- 



empty. It is a very good one, infinitely superior 
to ours. When we draiik chocolate with them, 
they both expressed tiieir ardent desire that we 
would take it, wishing to have us for nearer neigh- 
bours. If you, my cousin, were not so well pro- 
vided for as you are, and at our very elbow. I verily 
believe I should have mustered up all my rhetoric 
to recommend it to you. You might have it for 
ever without danger of ejectment, whereas your 
possession of the vicarage depends on the life of the 
vicar, who is eighty-six. The environs are most 
beautiful, and the village itself one of the prettiest 
I ever saw. Add to this, you would step imme- 
diately into Mr. Throckmorton's pleasure ground, 
where you would not soil your slipper even in win- 
ter. A most unfortunate riiistake was made by 
that gentleman's bailiff in his absence. Just before 
he left Weston last year for the winter, he gave 
him orders to cut short the tops of the flowering 
shrubs, that hned a serpentine walk in a delightful 
grove, celebrated in my poetship in a little piece 
that you remember was called the Shrubbery. The 
dunce, misapprehending the order, cut down and 
fagoted up the whole grove, leaving neither tree, 
bush, nor twig; nofhing but stumps about as high 
as my ancle. Mr. T. told us that she never saw 
her husband so angry in her life. I judged indeed 
by his physiognomy, which has great sweetness in 
it, that he is very little addicted to that infernal 
passion. But had he cudgeled the man for his 
cruel blunder, and the havoc made inconsequence 
of it, I could have excused him. 

I felt myself really concerned for the Chancel- 
lor's illness, and from what I learned of it, both 
from the papers, and from General Cowper, con- 
cluded that he must die. I am accordingly de- 
lighted in the same proportion with the news of 
his recovery. May he live, and live to be still the 
support of government! If it shall be his good 
pleasure to render me personally any material ser- 
vice, I have no objection to it. But Heaven knows, 
that it is impossible for any living wiglit to bestow 
less thought on that subject than myself — May 
God be ever with you, my beloved cousin ! 

W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, Olueij, May 15, 1786. 

From this'vcry morning I begin to date the last 
month of our long separation, and confidently and 
most comfortably hope that before the fifteenth 
of June shall present itself, we shall have seen 
each other. Is it not so? And will it not be one 
of the most extraordinary eras of my extraordinary 
life'? A year ago, we neither • corresponded, nor 
expected to meet in this world. But this world is 
a scene of marvellous events, many of them more 



marvellous than fiction itself would dare to hazard: 
and (blessed be God !) they are not all of the dis- 
tressing kind. Now and then in the course of an 
existence, whose hue is for the most part sable, a 
day turns up that makes amends for many sighs, 
and many subjects of complaint. Such a day 
shall I account the day of your arrival at Olney. 

Wherefore is it (canst thou tell me 1) that to- 
gether vwth all those delightful sensations, to which 
the sight of a long absent dear friend gives birth, 
there is a mixture of something painful ; flutterings, 
and tumults, and I know not what accompani- 
ments of our pleasure, that are in fact perfectly 
foreign from the occasion 1 Such I feel when I 
think of our meeting-,, and such I stippose feel you ; 
and the nearer the crisis approaches, the more I am 
sensible of them. I know beforehand that they 
will increase with every turn of the wheels, that 
shall convey me to "K^ewport, when I shall set out 
to meet you, and that when we actually meet, the 
pleasure, and this unaccountable pain together, 
will be as much as I shall be able to support. I 
am utterly at a loss for the cause, and can only 
resolve it into that appointment, by which it has 
been foreordained that all human delights shall be 
qualified and mingled with their contraries. For 
there is nothing formidable in you. To me at 
least there is nothing such, no, not even in your 
menaces, unless when you threaten me to write no 
more. Nay, I verily believe, did I not know you 
to be what you are, and had less aflection for you 
than I have, I should have fewer of these, emo- 
tions, of which I would have none, if I could help 
it. But a fig for them all! Let us resolve to con>- 
bat with, and to conquer thiem. They are dreams. 
They are illusions of the judgment. Some enemy 
that hates the happiness of human kind, and is 
ever industrious to dash it, works them in us; and 
their being so perfectly unreasonable as they are is 
a proof of it. Nothing that is such can be the 
work of a good agent. This I know too by ex- 
perience, that, like all other illusions, they exist 
only by force of imagination, are indebted for their 
prevalence to the absence of their object, and ina 
few moments after its appearance cease. So -then 
this a settled point, and the case stands thus. You 
will tremble as you draw near to Newport, and so 
shall I. But we will both recollect that there is 
no reason why we should, and this recollection 
will at least have some Uttle effect in o"ur favour. 
We will hkewise both take the comfort of what we 
know to be true, that the tumult will soon cease, 
and the pleasure long survive the pain, even as 
long as I trust we ourselves shall survive it. 

What you say of Maty gives me all the conso- 
lation that you intended. We both think it highly 
probable that you suggest the true cause of his 
displeasure, when you suppose him mortified at 
not having had a part of the translation laid before 



Let. ai8. 



LETTERS. 



593 



him, ere this specimen was published. The Ge- 
neral was very much hurt, and calls his censure 
harsh and unreasonable. He likewise sent me a 
consolatory letter on the occasion, in which he 
took the kindest pains to heal the wound that he 
supposed I might have suflered. I am not na- 
turally insensible, and the sensibilities that I had 
by nature have b6en wonderfully enhanced by a 
long series of shocks, given to a frame of nerves 
that was never very athletic. I feel accordingly, 
whether painfiU or pleasant, in the extreme; am 
easily elevated, and easily cast down. The frown 
of a critic freezes my poetical powers, ajid dis- 
courages me to a degree that makes me ashamed 
of iny own weakness. Yet I presently recover my 
confidence again. The half of what 3'ou so kindly 
say in your last would at any time restore my 
spirits, and, being said by you, is infallible. I am 
not ashamed to confess, that having commenced 
an author, I am most abundantly desirous to suc- 
ceed as such. I have (ichat perhaps you little 
suspect me'of) in my nature an infinite share of 
ambition. But with it I have at the same time, 
as you well know^, an equal share of diffidence. 
To this combination of opposite qualities it has 
been owing that, till lately, I stole through life 
without undertaking any thing, yet always wish- 
ing to distinguish myself At last I ventured, 
ventured too in the only path that at so late a 
period was yet open to me ; and am determined, 
if God have not determined otherwise; to work my 
way through the obscurity that has been so long 
my portion, into notice. Every thing therefore 
that seems to threaten this my favourite purpose 
with disappointment, affects me nearly. I suppose 
that all ambitious minds aj'e in the same predica- 
ment. He who seeks distinction must be'sensible 
of disapprobation, exactly in the same proportion 
as he desires applause. And nov?, my precious 
cousin, I have unfolded my heart to you in this 
particular, without a speck of dissimulation. Some 
people, and good people too, would blame me. But 
you will not; and they I think would blame with- 
out just cause. We certainly do not honour God 
when we bury, or when we neglect to improve, as 
far as we may, whatever talent he may have be- 
stowed on us. whether it be Httle or much. In 
natural things, as well as in spiritual, it is a never- 
failing truth, that to him who hath (that is to lifim 
who occupies what he hath diUgently, and so as 
to increase it) more shall be given. Set me iown 
therefore, my dear, for an industrious rhymer, so 
long as I shall have the ability. For in this only 
way is it possible for me, so far as I can see, either 
to honour God, or to serve man, or even to serve 
myself. 

I rejoice to hear that Mr. Throckmorton wishes 
to be on a more intimate footing. I am shy, and 
suspect that he is- not very much otherwise; and 



the consequence has been that we have mutually 
wished an acquaintance without being able to ac- 
complish it. Blessings on you for the hint that 
you dropped on the subject of the house at Wes- 
ton ! For the burthen of my song is — ' Since we 
have met once again, let us never be separated, as 
we have been, more.'. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Olney, May 20, 1786. 

About three weeks since I met your sister Ches- 
ter at Mr. Throckmorton's, and from her learned 
that you are at Blithfield, and in health. Upon 
the encouragement of this information it is that I 
write now; I should not otherwise have known 
with certainty where to find you, or have been 
equally free from the fear of unseasonable intru- 
sion. May God be with you, my friend, and give 
■you a just measure of submission to his will! the 
most effectual of all remedies for the evils of this 
changing scene. I doubt not that he has granted 
you this blessmg already, and may he still con- 
tinue it 1 

Now I will- talk a httle about myself For ex- 
cept myself, living in this Terr arum, angulo, what 
can I have to talk about "? In a scene of perfect 
tranqilQlity, and the profoundest silence, I am kick- 
ing up the dust of heroic narrative, and besieging 
Troy again. I told you that I had almost finished 
the translation of the Iliad, and I verily thought 
so. But 1 was never more ipistaken. By the 
time when I had reached the end of the poem, the 
first book of my version was a twelvemonth old. 
When I came, to- consider it after having laid it 
by so long, it did riot satisfy me. I set myself to 
mend it, and I did so. • But still it appeared to me 
improveablc, and that nothing would so effectually 
secure that point as to give- the whole book a new 
translation. With the exception of very few lines 
1 have so- done, and was never in my Ufe so con- 
vinced of the soundness of Horace's advice to pub- 
lish nothing in haste ; so much advantage have 
I derived from doing that twice which I thought I 
had accomplished notably at once. He indeed 
recommends nine years' imprisonment of your 
verses before you send them abroad ; but the ninth 
part of that time is I beheve as much as there is 
need of to open ei man's eyes upon his own defects, 
and to secure him from the danger of. premature 
self-approbation. Neither ought it to be forgotten 
that nine years make so wide an interval between 
the cup and the Hp, that a thousand things may 
fall out between. New engagements may occur, 
which may make the finishing of that which a 
poet has begun, impossible. In nine years he 
may. rise into a situation, or he may sink into one 
highly incompatible with his purpose. His con- 



294 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 219, 



stitution may break in nine years, and sickness 
may disqualify him for improving what he enter- 
prised in the days of lioalth. His inclination may 
change, and he may find some other employment 
more agreeable, or another poet may enter upon 
the same work, and get the start of him. There- 
fore, my friend Horace, though I acknowledge 
your principle to be good, I must confess tliat I 
think the practice you would ground upon it car- 
ried to an extreme. The rigour that I exercised 
upon the first book, I intend to exercise upon all. 
that follow, and have now actually advanced into 
the middle of the seventh, no where admitting 
more than one line in fifty of the first translation 
You must not imagine that I had been careless 
and hasty in the first instance. In truth I had 
not; but in rendering so excellent a poet as Homtr 
into our language, there are so many points to be 
attended to both in respect to language and num 
hers, that a first attempt must be fortunate indeed 
if it does not call aloud for .a -second. You saw 
the specimen, and you saw (I am sure) one great 
fault in it ; I mean the harshness of some of the 
elisions. I did not altogether take the blame of 
these to myself, for into some of them I was actu- 
ally driven .and hunted by a series of reiterated 
objections made by a critical friend, whose scruples 
and delicacies teazcd me out of all ray patience. 
But no such monsters will be found in the ■wolume. 
Your brother Chester has furrushed me with 
Barnes's Homer, from whose notes I collect here 
and there some useful information, and whose fair 
and legible type preserves me from the danger of 
being as blind as was my author. I saw a sister 
of yours at Mr. Throckmorton's, but I am not good 
at making myself heard across a large room, and 
therefore nothing passed between us. I felt how- 
ever that she was my friend's sister, and I much 
esteemed her for your sake. 

Ever yours, W. C. 

P. S. The swan is called argutus (I suppose) 
o non arguciido, and canorus a non canendo. 
But whether he be dumb or vocal, more poetical 
than the. eagle or less, it is no matter. A feather 
of either, in token of your approbation and esteem, 
will never, you may rest assured, be an oflence 
to me. 



.TO LADY HESKETH. 

■ Olney, May 25,, 178G. 
I HAVK at length, my cousin, found my way into 
my summer abode. I believe that 1 described it to 
you some time since, and will therefore now leave 
it undcscribed. I will only say that I am writing 
in a bandbox, situated, at least in my account, de- 
lightfully, because it has a window in one side 



that opens into that orchard, through which, as I 
am sitting here, I shall see you often pass, {ind 
which therefore I already prefer to all the orchards 
in the world. You do well to prepare me for all 
possible delays, because in this life all sorts of dis- 
appointments are possible, and I shall do well, if 
any such delay of your journej' should happen, to 
practise that lesson of patience which you incul- 
cate. But it is a lesson which, even with you for 
my teacher, I shall be slow to learn. Being sure 
however that you will not procrastinate without 
cause, I will make myself as easy as I can about 
it, and hope for the best. To convince you how J 
much I am under discipline, and good advice, I I 
will lay. aside a favourite measure, influenced in 
doing so by nothing but the good sense of ypur con- 
trary opinion. I had set my heart on meeting you 
at Newport. In my haste to see you once again, 
I was willing to overlook many awkwardnesses' I 
could not but foresee would attend it. I put them 
aside so long as I only foresaw them myself, but 
since I find that j^ou foresee them too, I can no 
longer deal so shghtly with them. It is therefore 
determined that we meet at Olney. Much I shall 
feel, but I will not die if I can help it, and I beg 
that you will take all possible care to outlive it 
likewise, for I know what it is to be balked in the 
moment of acquisition, and should be loath to 
know it again. 

Last Monday in the evening we walked to 
Weston, according to our usual custom. It hap- 
pened, owing to a mistake of time, that we set 
out half an hour sooner than usUal. This mis- 
take we discovered while we were in the wilder- 
ness. So, finding that we had time before us, as 
they say, Mrs. Unwin proposed that we should go 
into the village, and take a view of the house that 
I had just mentioned to you.. We did so, and 
found it such a one as in most respects would suit 
you well. But Moses Brown, our vicar, who, as 
I told you, is in his eighty-sixth year, is not bound 
to die for that reason. He said himself, when he 
was here last, summer, that he should live ten 
years longer, and for aught that appears so he 
may. In, which case, for- the sake of its near . 
neighbourhood to us, the vicarage has charms for 
me, that no other place can rival. But this and 
a thousand tilings more, sliall be talked over vfhen 
yoii^comc. ^ . 

We have been industriously cultivating our ac- 
quaintance with our Weston neighbours since I 
wrote last, and they on their part have been equally 
diligent in the same cause. I have a notion that 
we shall all suit well. I see much .in them both 
that I admire. You know perhaps that they are 
catholics. 

It is a delightful bundle of praise, my cousin, 
that you have sent me. All jasmine and laven- 
der. Whoever the lady is, shp has evidently an 



Let. 220. 



LETTERS. 



295 



admirable pen, and a cultivated mind. If a per- 
son reads, it is no matter in what language, and if 
the mind be informed, it is no matter whether 
that mind belongs to a man or a woman. The 
taste and the judgment will receive the benefit 
alike in both. Long before the Task was published 
I made an experiment one day, being in a frolick- 
some mood, upon my friend. We were walking 
in the garden, and conversing on a subjecfsimilar 
to these lines — 

The few that pray at all, pray oft amiss. 

And seeking grace t' improve the present good, 

Would urge a wiser suit than asking more. 

I repeated them, and said to him with an air of 
nonchalance, " Do you recollect those linesT 1 
have seen them somewhere, where are they 1" He 
put on a considering face, and after some deliber- 
ation replied — " O, I will tell you where they must 
be — in the Night Thoughts." I was glad my 
trial turned out so well, and did not ruideceive 
him. I mention this occurrence only in confirma- 
tion of the letter-writer's opinion, but at the same 
time I do assure you, on the faith of an honest 
man, that I never in my life designed an imitation 
of Yomig, or of any other writer ; for municry is 
my abhorrence, at least in poetry. 

Assure yourself, my dearest cousin, that both for 
your sake, since you make a point of it, and for 
my own, I will be as philosophically careful as 
possible, that these fine nerves of mine shall not 
be beyond measure agitated when you arrive. In 
truth, there is much greater probability that they 
will be benefited, and greatly too. Joy of heart, 
from whatever occasion it may arise, is the best of 
all nervous medicines ; and I should not wonder 
if such a turn given to my spirits should have 
even a lasting eifect, of the most advantageous 
kind, upon them. You must not Lnagine neither, 
that I am on the whole in any great degree subject 
to nervous affections ; occasionally I am, and have 
been these many years, much hable to dejection. 
But at intervals, and sometimes for an interval of 
weeks, no creature would suspect it. For I have 
not that which commonly is a symptom of such a 
case belonging to me : I mean extraordinary ele- 
vation in the absence of Mr. Bluedevil. When 
I am in the best health, my tide of animal sprighth- 
ness flows with great equality, so that I am never, 
at any time, exalted in proportion as I am some- 
times depressed. My depression has a cause, and 
if that cause were to cease, I should be as cheer- 
ful thenceforth, and perhaps for ever, as any man 
need be. But, as I have often said, Mrs. Unwin 
shall be my expositor. 

Adieu, my beloved cousin. God grant that our 

friendship which, while we could see each other, 

never suffered a moment's interruption, and which 

so long a separation has not in the least abated, 

20 



may glow in us to our last hour, and be renewed 
in a better world, there to be perpetuated for ever. 
For you must know, that I should not love you 
half so well, if I did not believe you would be my 
friend to eternity. There is not room enough for 
friendship to unfold itself in full bloom, in such a 
nook of life as this. Therefore I am, and must, 
and will be, Yours for ever, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Olney, May 29, 1784. 

Thou dear, comfortable cousin, whose letters, 
among all that I receive, have this property pecu- 
liarly their own, that I expect them without 
trembling, and never find any thing that does not 
give me pleasure ; for wliich therefore I would 
take nothing in exchange that the world could 
give me, save and except that for which" I must 
exchange them soon (and happy shall 1 be to do 
so), your own company. That, indeed, is delayed 
a httle too long ; to my impatience at least it seems 
so, who find the spring, backward as it is, too for- 
ward because many of its beauties will have faded 
before you will have an opportunity to see them. 
We took our customary walk yesterday in the 
wilderness at Weston, and saw, with regret, the 
laburnums, syringas, and guelder-roses, some of 
them blown, and others just upon the point of 
blowing, and could not help observing — all these 
will be gone before Lady Hesketh comes. Still 
however there vnll be roses, and jasmine, and honey- 
suckle, and shadj"- walks, and cool alcoves, and 
you will partake them vdth us. But I want you 
to have a share of every thing that is delightful 
here, and can not bear that the advance of the 
season should steal away a single pleasure before 
you can come to enjoy it. 

Every day I think of you, and almost all the 
day long; I will venture to say, that even you 
were never so expected in your Ufe. I called last 
week at the Gluaker's to see the furniture of your 
bed, the fame of which had reached me. It is, I 
assure you, superb, of printed cotton, and the sub- 
ject classical. Every morning you will open your 
eyes on Phseton kneeling to Apollo, and implor- 
ing his father to grant him the conduct of his 
chariot for a day. May your sleep be as sound as 
your bed will be sumptuous, and your nights at 
least will be well provided for. 

I shall send up the sixth and seventh books of 
the lUad shortly, and shall address them to you. 
You will forward them to the General. I long to 
show you my workshop, and to see you sitting on 
the opposite side of my table. We shall be as 
close packed as two wax figures in an old fash- 
ioned picture frame. I am writing in it now. It 
is the place in which I fabricate all my verse in 



296 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



LET.23L 



summer time. I rose an hour sooner than usual, 
tliia morning, that I might Ihiish my sheet before 
breakfast, for I must write this day to the General. 

The grass under my windows is all bespangled 
•with dewdrops, and the birds are singing in the 
apple trees, among the blossoms. Never poet had 
a more commodious oratory in which to invoke 
his muse. 

I have made your heart ache too often; my 
poor dear coufein, with talking about my fits of de- 
jection. Something has happened that has led 
me to the subject, or I would have mentioned 
them more sparingly. Do not suppose, or suspect 
that I treat you with reserve; there is nothing m 
which I am concerned that you shall not be made 
acquamted with. But the tale is too long for a 
letter. I will only add for your present satisfac- 
tion, that the cause is not exterior, that it is not 
within the reach of human aid, and that yet I 
have a 'hope myself, and Mrs. Unwin a strong 
persuasion of its removal. I am indeed even now, 
and have been for a considerable time, sensible of 
a change for the better, and expect, with good 
reason, a comfortable litl from you. Guess then, 
my beloved cousin, with what wishes I look for- 
ward to the time of your arrival, from whose com- 
ing I promise myself not ordy pleasure, but peace 
of mind, at least an additional share of it. At 
present it is an uncertain and transient guest 
with me, but the joy witii which 1 shall sec and 
converse with you at Olney, may perhaps make 
it an abiding one. W. C. . 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

'Olney, June 4 and 5", 17B6. 
Ah! my cousin, you begin already to fear and 
quake. What a hero am I, compared with you. 
I have no fears of you. On the contrary am as 
bold as a lion. I wish that your carriage were 
even now at thcdoor. You should soon see with 
how much courage I would face you. But what 
cause have you for fearl Am I not your cousin, 
with whom you have wandered in the fields of 
Freemantle, and at Bevis's Mount '? who used to 
read to you, laugh with you, till our sides have 
ached, at any thing, or notiiing 1 And am I in 
these respects at all altered'? You will not find 
me so ; but just as ready to laugh, and to wander, 
a» you ever knew mc. A cloud perhaps may 
come over me now and tlien, for a few hours, but 
from clouds 1 was never exempted. And are not 
you the identical cousin with whom I have per- 
formed all these feats'? The very Harriet whom 
1 saw, for the first time, at De Grey's, in Norfolk- 
street'? (It was on a Sunday, when you came 
with my uncle and aunt to drink lea there, and 1 
had dined there, and was just going back to West- 



minster.) If these things arc so, and I am sure 
that you can not gainsay a syllable of them all, 
then this consequence follows; that I do not pro- 
mise myself more pleasure from your company 
than I shall be sure to find. Then you are my 
cousin, in whom I always delighted, and in whom 
I doubt not that I shall delight even to my latest 
hour. But this wicked coach-maker has sunk 
my spirits. What a miserable thing it is to de- 
pend, in any degree, for the accomplishment of a 
wish, and that wish so fervent, on the punctuality 
of a creature who I suppose was never punctual 
in his life! Do tell him, my dear, in order to 
quicken him, that if he performs his promise, ho 
shall make my coach, when I want one, and that 
if he performs it not, I will most assuredly em- 
ploy some other man. 

The Throckmortons sent a note to invite us to 
dinner — we went, and a very agreeable day we 
had. They made no fiiss with us, which I was 
heartily glad to see, for where I give trouble I am 
sure that I can not be welcome. Themselves, 
and their chaplain, and we, were all the party. 
Alter dinner we had much cheerftil and pleasant 
talk, the particulars of which might not perhaps 
be so entertaining upon paper, therefore all but 
one I will omit, and that I will mention only be- 
cause it will of itself be sufficient to give you an 
insight into their opinion on a very important sub- 
ject — their own religion. I happened to say that 
in all profrssions and trades mankind affected an 
air of mystery. Physicians, I observed, in par- 
ticular, were objects of that remark, who persist 
in prescribing in Latin, many times no doubt to 
the hazard of a patient's life, through the igno- 
rance of an apothecary. Mr. Throckmorton as- 
sented to what I said, and turning to his chaplain, 
to my infinite surprise observed to him, " That is 
just as absurd as our praying in Latin."' I could 
have hugged him for his liberality, and freedom 
from bigotry, but thought it rather more decent to 
let the matter pass without any visible notice. I . 
therefore heard it with pleasure, and kept my 
pleasure to myself The two ladies in the mean 
time were tete-a-tete in the drawing-room. Their 
conversation turned, principally (as I afterwards 
learned from Mrs. Unwin) on a most delightful 
topic, viz. myself. In the first place, Mrs. Throck- 
morton admired my book; from which she quoted 
by heart more than I could repeat, though I so 
lately wrote it. 

In short, my dear, I can not proceed to relate 
what she said of the book, and the book's author, 
for that abominable modesty that I can not even 
yet get rid of Let it suffice to say that you, who 
are disposed to love every body who speaks kindly 
of your cousin, will certainly love Mrs. Throck- 
morton, when you shall be told what she said of 
him, and that you will be told is equally certain, 



Let. 222, 223, 224. 



LETTERS. 



297 



because it (depends on Mrs. Unwin, who will tell 
you many a good long story for me, that I am 
not able to tell for myself. I am however not at 
all in arrear to our neighbours in the matter of 
admiration and esteem, but the more I know 
them, the more I like them, and have nearly an 
affection for them both. I am delighted that the 
Task has so large a share of the approbation of 
your sensible Sufiblk friend. 

I received yesterday from the General another 
letter of T. S. An unknown auxiliary having 
started up in my behalf, I believe I shall leave the 
busmess of answering to him, having no leisure 
myself for controversy. He lies very open to a 
very eflcctual reply. 

My dearest cousin adieu! I hope to write to 
you but once more before we meet.* But oh! this 
coaclmiaker, and oh ! this holyday week ! 
Yours, with impatient desire to see you, 

W. C 



There never was any thing more truly Grecian 
than that triple epithet, and were it possible to 
introduce it into either Iliad or Odyssey, I should 
certainly steal it. I am now flushed with expec- 
tation of Lady Hesketh, who spends the summer 
with us. We hope to sec her next week. We 
have found athirirablc lodgings both for her and 
suite, and a CLuaker in this town, still more ad- 
mirable than they, who, as if he loved her as 
much as I do, furnishes them for her, with real 
elegance. W. C. - 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. ■ 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Olneij, June 9, 1784. 

The little time that I can devote to any other 
purpose than that of poetry is, as you may sup- 
pose, stolen.' Homer is urgent. Much is done, 
but much remains undone, and no schoolboy is 
more attentive to the performance of his daily task 
than I am. You will therefore excuse me if at 
present I am both unfrequent and short. 
. The "paper tells me that the Chancellor has 
elapsed, and I am truly sorry to hear it. The 
first attack was dangerous, but a second must be 
more formidable still. It is not probable that I 
should ever bear from him again if he survive; 
yet of the much that I should have felt for liim, 
had our connexion never been interrupted, I still 
feel much. Every body will feel the loss of a man 
whose abihties have made him . of such general 
importance. 

I correspond again with Colman, and upon the 
most friendly footing, and find in his instance, 
and in some others, that an intimate intercourse, 
which had been only casually suspended, not for- 
feited on either side by outrage, is capable not 
only of revival, but of improvement. 

I had a letter some time since from youi sister 
Fanny, that gave me great pleasure. Such no- 
tices from old friends are always pleasant, and of 
such pleasures I had received many lately. They 
refresh the remembrance of early days, and make 
me young again. The noble institution of the 
Nonsense Club will be forgotten, when we are 
gone who composed it ; but 1 often think of j^our 
most heroic hne, written at one of our meetino-s, 
and especially think of it when I am translatinir 
Homer — 

" To whom replied the Devi! yard-long-tailecl." 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

Olncii, June 19, 1786. 
My dear cousin's arrival has, as it could not 
fail to do, made us happier than we ever were at 
Olney. Her great Idndness in giving us her com- 
pany is a cordial that I shall feel the effect of, not 
only while she is here but while I live. 

' Ohiey will not be much longer the place of our 
habitation. At a village two miles distant we 
have liired a house of Mr. Throckmorton, a much 
better than we occupy at present, and yet not 
more expensive. It is situated very near to our 
most agreeable landlord, and his agreeable plea- 
sure grounds. In him, and in his wife, we shall 
find such companions as will always make the 
time pass pleasantly while they are in the coun- 
try, and his grounds will afford us good 'air, and 
good walking room in the winter; two advantages 
which we have not enjoyed at Olney, where I 
have no neighbour with whom I can converse, 
and where, seven months in tlie year, I have been 
imprisoned by dirty and impassable ways, till 
both my health and Mrs. Unwm's have suffered 
materially. 

Homer is ever importunate, and will not suffer 
me to spend half the time with my distant friends 
that I would gladly give them. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, Olney, July 3, 1784. 

After a long silence I begin again. A day 
given to my friends, is a day taken from Homer, 
but to such an interruption, now and then occur- 
ring, I have no objection. Lady Hesketh is, as 
you observe, arrived, and has been vsdth us near a 
fortnight. She pleases every body, and is pleased 
in her turn with every thing she finds at Olney; is 
always cheerfrd and sweet-tempered, and knows 
no pleasure equal to that of communicating plea- 
sure to us and to all around her. This disposi- 
tion in her is the more comfortable, because it is 
not the humour of the day, a sudden flash of be- 
nevolence and good spirits, occasioned merely by 



298 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let, 225. 



a change of scene, but it is her natural turn, and 
has governed all her conduct ever since I knew 
her first. We are consequently happy in her socie- 
ty, and shall be happier still to have you to partake 
with us in our joy. I am fond of the sound of 
bells, but was never more pleased with those of 
Olncy than when they rang her into her new ha- 
bitation. It is a compliment that our j^erformers 
updn those instruments have never paid to any 
other personage (Lord Dartmouth excepted) since 
we knew the town. In short, she is, as she ever 
was, my pride and my joy, and I am delighted 
with every thing that means to do her honour. 
Her first appearance was too much for me; my 
spirits, instead of being gently raised, as I had in 
advertently supposed they would be, broke down 
with me under the pressure of too much joy, and 
left me flat, or rather melancholy, throughout the 
day, to a degree that was rhortifying to myself, 
and alanning to her. But I have made amends 
for this failure since, and in point of cheerfulness 
have far exceeded her expectations, for she knew 
that sable had been my suit for many years. 

And now I shall communicate news that will 
give you pleasure. When you first contemplated 
the front of our abode, you were shocked. In 
your eyes it had the appearance of a prison, and 
you sighed at the thought that your mother Uvcd 
in it. Tour view of it was not only just, but 
prophetic. It had not only the aspect of a place 
built for the purposes of incarceration, but has ac- 
tually served that purpose through a long, long 
period, and we have been the prisoners. But a 
gaol-delivery is at hand. The bolts and bars are 
to be loosed, and we shall escape. A very diflcr- 
ent mansion, both in point of appearance and ac- 
commodation, expects us, and the expense of liv- 
ing in it not greater than we are subjected to in 
this. It is situated at Weston, one of the pret- 
tiest villages in England, and belongs to Mr. 
Throckmorton. We all three dine with ' him to- 
day by invitation, and shall survey it in the after- 
noon, point out the necessary repairs, and finally 
adjust the treaty. I have my cousin's promise 
that she will never let another year pass without 
a visif; to us ; and the house is large enough to 
take us, and her suite, and her also, with as many 
of hers as she shall choose to bring. The change 
will I hope prove advantageous both to your mo- 
ther and me in all respects. Here we have no 



most impassable dirt to get at them. JBoth your 
mother's constitution and mine have suffered ma- 
terially by such close and long confinement, and 
it is high time, unless we intend to retreat into 
the grave, that we should seek out a more whole- 
some residence. So far is well, the rest is left to 
Heaven. 

I have hardly left myself room for an answer to 
your queries concerning my friend John, and his 
studies. I should recommend the civil war of 
Caesar, because he wrote it, who ranks I believe 
as the best writer, as well as soldier, of his day 
There are books (I know not what they are, bui 
you do, and can easily find them) that will inform 
him clearly of both the civil and military manage- 
ment of the Romans, the several officers, I mean, 
in both departments; and what was the peculiar 
province of each. The study of some such book 
would I should think prove a good introduction 
to that of Livy, unless you have a Livy with 
notes to that effect. A want of intelligence in 
those points has heretofore made the Roman his- 
tory very dark and difficult to me ; therefore I 
thus advise. Yours ever, W. C. 



TO *rHE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

Olney, July 4, 1786. 
I REJOICE, my dear friend, that you have at 
last received my proposals, and most cordially 
thank you for all your labours, in my service. I 
have firiends in the world who, knowing that 1 
am apt to be careless when left to myself, are de- 
termined to watch over me with a jealous eye 
upon this occasion. The consequence will be, 
that the work will be better executed, but more 
tardy in the production. To them I owe it, that 
my translation, as fast as it proceeds, passes under 
a revisal of a most accurate discerner of all ble- 
mishes. I know not whether I told you before, or 
now tell you for the first time, that I am in the 
hands of a very extraordinary person. He is in- 
timate with my bookseller, and voluntarily offered 
his service. I was at first doubtful whether to 
accept it or not ; but finding that my friends 
abovesaid were not to be satisfied on any other 
terms, though myself a perfect stranger to the 
man and his qualifications, except as he was re- 
commended by Johnson, I at length consented, 
neighbourhood, there Ave shall have most agreea- 1 and since found great reason to rejoice that I did. 
ble neighbours in the Throckmortons. Here we 1 called him an extraordinary person, and such he 
have a bad air in winter, impregnated with the is. For he is not only versed in Homer, and accu- 
fishy smelling fumes of the marsh miasma; there rate in his knowledge of the Greek to a degree that 
we shall breathe in an atmosj)here untainted, entitles him to that appellation, but, though a fo- 
Here we are confined from September to March, reigner, is a perfect master of our language, and 
and sometimes longer; there we shall be upon the has exquisite taste in EngUsh poetry. By his 
very verge of pleasure-grounds in which we can assistance I have improved many passages, sup- 
always ramble, and shall not wade tlirough al- phed many oversights, and corrected many mis- 



Let. 226, 227. 



LETTERS. 



299 



takes, such as will of course escape the most dili- 
gent and attentive labourer in such a work. I 
ought to add, because it affords the best assu- 
rance of his zeal and fidelity, that he does not 
toil for hire, nor will accept of any premium, but 
has entered on this business merely for his 
amusement. In the last instance my sheets will 
pass through the hands of our old schoolfellow Col- 
man, who has engaged to correct the press, and 
make any little alterations that he may see expe- 
dient. With all this precaution, little as I in- 
tended it once, I am now well satisfied. Expe- 
rience has convinced me that other eyes than my 
own are necessary, in order that so long and ar- 
duous a task may be finished as it ought, and may 
neither discredit me, nor mortify and disappoint 
my friends. You, who I know interest yourself 
much and deeply in my success, will I dare say 
be satisfied vdth it too. Pope had many aids, and 
he who follows Pope ought not to walk alone. 

Though I announce myself by my very under- 
taking to be one of Homer's most enraptured ad- 
mirers, I am not a bUnd one. Perhaps the speech 
of Achilles given in my specimen is, as you hint, 
rather too much in the moralizing strain, to suit so 
young a man, and of so much fire. But whether 
it be or not, in the course of the close application 
that I am forced to give to my author, I discover 
inadvertencies not a few; some perhaps that have 
escaped even the commentators themselves ; or per- 
haps in the enthusiasm of their idolatry, they re- 
solved that they should pass for beauties. Homer 
however, say what they will, was man, and in all 
the works of man, especially in a work of such 
length and variety, many things will of necessity 
occur, that might have been better. Pope and Ad- 
dison had a Dennis; and Dennis, if I mistake not, 
held up as he has been to scorn and detestation, 
was a sensible fellow, and passed some censures 
upon both those writers that, had they been less 
just, would have hurt them less. Homer had his 
Zoilus ; and perhaps if we knew all that Zoilus 
said, we should be forced to acknowledge that 
sometimes at least he had reason on his side, But 
it is dangerous to find any fault at all with what 
the world is determined to esteem faultless. 

I rejoice, my dear friend, that you enjoy some 
composure, and cheerfulness of spirits : may God 
preserve and increase to you so great a blessing ! 
I am affectionately and truly yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, AugUSt 24, 1786. 

I CATCH a minute by the tail and hold it fast, 
while I write to you. The moment it is fled I must 
go to breakfast. I am still occupied in refining 
and polishing, and shall this morning give the 



finishing hand to the seventh book. Fuseli does 
me the honour to say that the most difficult, and 
most interesting parts of the poem, are admirably 
rendered. But because he did not express him- 
self equally pleased with the more pedestrian parts 
of it, my labour therefore has been principally given 
to the dignification of tliem; not but that I have 
retouched considerably, and made better still the 
best. In short I hope to make it all of a piece, 
and shall exert myself to the utmost to secure that 
desirable point. A storyteller, so very circumstan- 
tial as Homer, must of necessity present us often 
with much matter in itself capable of no other em- 
bellishment than purity of diction, and harmony 
of versification, can give to it. Hie labor, hoc opus 
est. For our language, unless it be very severely 
chastised, has not the terseness, nor our measure 
the music of the Greek. But I shall not fail 
through want of industry. 

We are likely to be very happy in our coimexion 
with the Throckmortons. His reserve and mine 
wear off; and he talks with great pleasure of the 
comfort that he proposes to himself from our win- 
ter-evening conversations. His purpose seems to 
be, that we should spend them alternately with 
each other. Lady Hesketh transcribes for me at 
present. When she is gone, Mrs. Throckmorton 
takes up that business, and vn\\ be my lady of the 
ink-bottle for the rest of the winter. She sohcited 
herself that office. 
Believe me, 

My dear William, truly yours, W. C. 

Mr. Throckmorton will (I doubt not) procure 
Petre's name* if he can, without any hint firom 
me. He could not interest himself more in my 
success, than he seems to do. Could he get the 
pope to subscribe, I should have him; and should 
be glad of him and the whole conclave. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

You are my mahogany box, with a slip in the 
lid of it, to which I commit my productions of the 
lyric kind, in perfect confidence that they are safe, 
and will go no farther. All who are attached to 
the jinghng art have this pecuharity, that they 
would find no pleasure in the exercise,- had they 
not one friend at least to whom they might pub- 
lish what they have composed. If you approve 
my Latin, and your wife and sister my English, 
this, together with the approbation of your mo- 
ther, is fame enough for me. 

Pie who can not look forward with comfort, 
must find what comfort he can in looking back- 
ward. Upon this principle, I the other day sent 
my imagination upon a trip thirty years behind 



300 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 228, 229- 



me. She was very obedient, and very swift of foot, 
presently performed her journey, and at last set 
me down in the sixth form at Westminster. I 
fancied myself once more a school-boy, a period 
of life in wliich, if I had never tasted true happi- 
ness, I was at least equally unacquainted with its 
contrary. No manufacturer of waking dreams 
ever succeeded better in his employment than I 
do. I can weave such a piece of tapestry in a few 
minutes, as not only has all the charms of reality, 
but is embeUished also with a variety of beauties 
which, though they never existed, are more capti- 
vating than any that ever did — accordingly I was 
a schoolboy in high favour with the master, re- 
ceived a silver groat for my exercise, and had the 
pleasure of seeing it sent from form to form, for 
the admiration of all who were able to understand 
it. Do you wish to see this highly applauded per- 
formance! It follows on the other side. 
(torn off.) 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, 

You are- sometimes indebted to bad weather, 
but more frequently to a dejected state of mind, 
for my .punctuality as a correspondent. This was 
the case when I composed that tragi-comic ditty 
ibr which you thank me ; my spirits were exceed- 
ing low, and having no fool or jester at hand, I re- 
solved to be my own. The end was answered; I 
laughed myself, and I made you laugh. Some- 
times I pour out my thoughts in a mournful strain, 
but those sable effusions your mother will not suf- 
fer me to send 5"ou, being resolved that nobody 
shall share with me the burthen of my melancholy 
but herself. In general you may suppose that I 
am remarkably sad when I seem remarkably merry. 
The effort we make to get rid of a load is usually 
violent in proportion to the weight of it. I have 
seen at Sadler's Wells a tight httle fellow dancing 
with a fat man upon his shoulders ; to those who 
looked at him, he seemed insensible of the incum- 
brance, but if a physician had felt his pulse, when 
the feat w£)s over, I suppose he would have found 
the effect of it there. Perhaps you remember the 
undertakers' dance- in the rehearsal, which they 
perform in crape hat-bands and black cloaks, to 
the tunc of " Holi or Nob," one of the sprightlicst 
airs in the world. Such is my fiddling, and such 
is my dancing; but they ser\'e a purpose which at 
some certain times could not be so effectually pro- 
moted by any thing else. 

I have endeavoured to comply with your re- 
quest, though I am not good at writing upon a 
given subject. Your mother however comforts me 
by her approbation, and I steer myself- in all that 
I produce by her judgment. If she does not, un- 



derstand me at the first reading, I am sure the 
lines are obscure, and always alter them; if she 
laughs, I laiow it is not without reason; and if 
she says, " that's well, it will do," I have no fear 
lest any body else should find fault with it. She 
is my lord chamberlain who licenses all I write.* 
If you like it, use it ; if not, you know the re- 
medy. It is serious, yet epigrammatic — like a 
bishop at a ball. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I AM sensibly mortified at finding myself ob- 
liged to disappoint you ; but though I have had 
many thoughts upon the subject you propose to 
my consideration, I have had norie that have been 
favourable to the undertaking. I applaud your 
purpose, for the sake of the principle from which 
it springs; but I look upon the evils you mean to 
animadvert upon, as too obstinate and inveterate 
ever to be expelled by the means you mention. 
The very persons to whom you would address 
your remonstrance, are themselves sufiiciently 
aWare of their enormity: years ago, to my know- 
ledge, they were frequently the topics of conversa- 
tion at polite tables; they have been frequently 
mentioned in both houses of parliament; and I 
suppose there is hardly a member of either, who 
would not immediately assent to the necessity of 
reformation, were it proposed to him in a reasona- 
ble way. But there it stops; and there it will for 
ever stop till the majority are animated with a zeal 
in which they are at present deplorably defective. 
A religious man is unfeignedly shocked, when he 
reflects upon the prevalence of such crimes ; a mo- 
ral man roust needs be so in a degree, and will 
affect to be much more so than he is. But how 
many do you suppose there are among our wor- 
thy representatives, that come under either of these 
descriptions 1 If all were such, yet to new model 
the police of the country, which must be done in 
order to make even unavoidable perjury less fre- 
quent, were a task they would hardly undertake, 
on account of the great diflBculty that would attend 
it. Government is too much interested in the 
consumption of malt liquor, to reduce the nxmiber 
of venders. Such plausible picas may be offered 
in defence ,of travelhng on Sundays, especially by 
the trading part of the world, as the whole bench 
of bishops would find it difficult to overrule. And 
with respect to the violation of oaths, till a certain 
name is more generally respected than it is at 
present, however such persons as yqurself may be 
grieved at it, the legislature are never likely to lay 



* The versos lo Miss C- 
were inserted here. 



- on )ier biitli-day, (vide Poems) 



Let. 230, 231, 233. 



LETTERS. 



301 



it to heart. I do not mean, nor would by any 
means attempt to discourage you in so laudable 
an enterprise ; but suck is the hght in which it 
, appears to me, that I dp not feel the least spark of 
courage qualifying or prompting me to embark in 
it myself An exhortation therefore written by 
me, by hopeless, desponding me, would be flat, in- 
sipid, and uninteresting, and disgrace the cause 
instead of serving it. If after what I have said, 
however you still retain the same sentunents, Made 
esto viriute tucl, there is nobody better qualified 
than yourself, and may your success prove that I 
despaired of it without a reason. 

Adieu, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I WRITE under the impression of a difficulty not 
easily surmounted, the want of something to say. 
Letter-spinning is generally more entertaining to 
the writer than the reader; for your sake therefore 
I would avoid it, but a dearth of materials is very 
apt to betray one into a trifling strain, in spite of 
all our endeavours to be serious. 

I left off on Saturday, this present being Mon- 
day morning, and I renew the attempt, in hopes 
that I may possibly catch some subject by the end, 
and be more successful. 

So have I seen the maids in vain 
Tumble and tease a tangled skein. 
They bite the lip, they scratch the head, 
And cry — ' the deuce is in the thread !' 
They toiture it, and jei-k it round, 
Till the right end at last is found. 
Then wind, and wind, and wind away, 
And what was work is changed to play. 

When I wrote the two first lines, I thpught I 
had engaged in a hazardous enterprise; for, thought 
I, should my poetical vein be as dry as my prosaic, 
I shall spoil the sheet, and send nothing at all; 
for I co^uld on no account endure the thought of 
beginning again. But I think I have succeeded 
to admiration, and am willing to flatter myself that 
I have seen even a worse impromptu in the news- 
papers. 

Though we live in a nook,, and the world is 
quite unconscious that there are any such beings 
in it as ourselves, yet we are not unconcerned 
about what passes in it. The present awful crisis, 
big with the fate of England, engages much of 
our attention. The action is probably over by 
this time, and though we know it not, the grand 
question is decided, whether the war shall roar in 
our once peaceful fields, or whether we shall still 
only hear of it at a distance. I can compare the 
nation to no similitude more apt than that of an 
ancient castle that had been for days assaulted by 



the battcijng ram. It was long before the stroke 
of that engine made any sensible impression, but 
the continual repetition at length communicated a 
slight tremor to the wall, the next, and the next, 
and the next blow increased it. Another shock 
puts the whole mass in motion, from the top to the 
foundation: it bends forward, and is every moment 
driven farther from the perpendicular, till at last 
the decisive blow is given, and down it comes. 
Every million that has been raised within the last 
century has had an effect upon the constitution 
like that of a blow from the aforesaid ram upon 
the aforesaid wall. The impulse becomes more 
and more important, and the impression it makes 
is continually augmented; unless therefore some- 
thing extraordinary intervenes to prevent it — you 
will find the consequence at the end of my simile. 
Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

As I promised you verse, if you would send me 
a frank, I am not willing to return the cover with- 
out some, though I think I have already wearied 
you by the prolixity of my prose.* 

I must refer you to those unaccountable gad- 
dings and caprices of the Inunan mind, for the 
cause of this production; for in general I believe 
there is no man who has less to do with the ladies' 
cheeks than I have. I suppose it would be best 
to antedate it, and to imagine that it was written 
twenty years ago, for my mind was never more in 
a trifling butterfly trim than when I composed it, 
even in the earliest parts of my life. And what is 
worse than all this, I have translated it into Latin. 
But that some other time. Yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, 

How apt we are to deceive ourselves where self 
is in question: you say I am in your debt, and I 
accounted you in mine : a mistake to which you 
must attribute my arrears, if indeed I owe you any, 
for I am not backward to write where the upper- 
most thought is welcome. 

I am obliged to you for all the books you have 
occasionally furnished me with: I did not indeed 
read many of Johnson's Classics — those of esta- 
bhshed reputation are so fresh in my memory, 
though many years have intervened since I made 
them my companions, that it was like reading what 
I read yesterday over again: and as to the minor 
Classics, I did not think them worth reading at 
all — I tasted most of them, and did not like thraa 



Here followed his poem, the Lily and the Rose. 



302 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 233. 



— it is a great thing to be indeed a poet, and does 
not happen to more than one man in a century. 
Churcliill, the great Churchill, deserved the name 
of poet — I have read him twice, and some of liis 
pieces three times over, and the last time with 
more pleasure than the first. The pitiful scribbler 
of his life seems to have undertaken that task, .for 
wliich he was entirely unqualilied, merely because 
it aflbrde J liim an opportunity to traduce him. He 
has inserted in it but one anecdote of consequence, 
for which he refers you to a novel, and introduces 
the stor}^ with doubts about the truth of it. But 
his barrenness as a biographer I could forgive if 
the simpleton had not thought himself a judge of 
his writings, and, under tlie erroneous influence 
of that thought, informed his reader that Gotham, 
Independence, and the Times, were catch-pennies. 
Gotham, unless I am a greater blockhead than he, 
which I am far from believing, is a noble and 
beautiful poem, and a poem with which I make 
no doubt the author took as much pains as with 
any he ever wrote Making allowance (and Dry- 
den in liis Absalom and Achitophel stands in 
need of the same indulgence) for an unwarranta- 
ble use of Scripture, it appears to me to be a mas- 
terly perforjnance. Independence is a most ani- 
mated piece, full of strength and spirit, and mark- 
ed with that bold masculine character which I 
think is the great peculiarity of this writer. And 
the Times (except that the subject is disgusting to 
the last degree) stands equally high in my opin- 
ion. He is indeed a careless writer for the most 
part ; but where shall we find in any of those au- 
thors who finish their works with the exactness 
of a Flemish pencil, those bold and daring strokes 
of fancy, those numbers so hazardously ventured 
upon, and so happily finished, the matter so com- 
pressed, and yet so clear, and the colouring so 
sparingly laid on, and yet with such a beautiful 
eflect 1 In short, it is not his least praise that he 
is never guilty of those faults as a writer which 
he lays to the charge of others. A proof that he 
did n9t judge by a borrowed standard, or from 
rules laid down by critics, but that he was quali- 
fied to do it by his own native powers, and his 
great superiority of genius. For he that wrote so 
much, and so fast, would through inadvertence and 
hurry unavoidably have departed from rules which 
he miffht have found in books, but his own truly 
poetical talent was a guide wliich could not suffer 
iiim to err. A race-horse is graceful in his "swiftest 
pace, and never makes an awkward motion, though 
li<; is pushed to his utmost speed. A cart-horse 
might perhaps be taught to play tricks in the rid- 
ing school, and might prance and curvet like his 
betters, but at some unlucky time would be sure 
to betray the baseness of his original. It is an 
aflliir of very little consequence perhaps to the 
well-being of mankind, but I can not help regret- 



ting that he died so soon. Those words of Virgil, 
upon the immature death of Marcellus, might 
serve for his epitaph. 

" Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata, neque ultra 

Esse sinent ." 

Yours, W.C. 



TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. ■ 

MY DEAR WILLIAM, . 

I Fi ND the Register in all respects an entertaining 
medley, but especially in this, that it has brought 
to my view some long forgotten pieces of my own 
production. I mean by the way two or three. 
Those I have marked with my own initials, and you 
may be sure I found them peculiarly agreeable, as 
they had not only the grace of being mine, but 
that of novelty likewise to recommend them. It 
is at least twenty years since I saw them. You I 
think was never a dabbler in rhyme. I have been 
one ever since I was fourteen years of age, when I 
began with translating an elegy of TibuUus. I have 
no more right to the name of a poet, than a maker 
of mouse-traps has to that of an engineer, but my 
little exploits in this way have at times amused me 
so much, that I have often wished myself a good 
one. Such a talent in verse as mine is like a 
child's rattle, very entertaining to the trifler that 
uses it, and very disagreeable to all beside. But 
it has served to rid me of some melancholy mo- 
ments, for I only take it up as a gentleman per- 
former does his fiddle. 1 have this peculiarity be- 
longing to me as a rhyniist, that though I am 
charmed to a great degree with my own work, 
while it is on the anvil, I can seldom bear to look 
at it when it is once finished. The more I con- 
template it, the more it loses of its value, till I am 
at last disgusted with it. I then throw it by, take 
it up again perhaps ten years after, and am as 
much delighted with it as at the first. 

Few people have the art of being agreeable when 
they talk of themselves ; if you are not weary there- 
fore you pay me a high compliment. 

I dare say Miss S was much diverted 

with the conjecture of her friends. The true key 
to the pleasure she found at Obiey was plain 
enough to be seen, but they chose to overlook it. 
She brought with her a disposition to be pleased, 
which whoever docs is sure to find a visit agreea- 
ble, because they make it so. 

Yours, W. C* 



'This dateless letter, which is probably entitled to a very 
early place in this collection, was reserved to close the cor- 
respondence with Mr. Unwin, from the hope, that belbre the 
press advanced so far, the editor might recoverlhose unknown 
verses of Cowper, to which the letter alludes, but all researches 
for ihis purpose have failed. Hwjley. 



Let. 234, 235, 236. 



LETTERS. 



303 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Olucy, AugUSt 31, 1786. 

I BKGAN to fear for your health, and every day 
said to myself — I must write to Bagot soon, if it 
be only to ask him how he does — a measure that I 
should certainly have pursued long since had I 
been less absorbed in Homer than I am. But such 
are my engagements in that quarter, that they 
make me, I think, good for little else. 

Many thanks, my friend, for the names that 
you have sent me. . The Bagots will make a most 
cdnspicuous figure among my subscribers, and I 
shall not I hope soon forget my obligations- to 
them. 

The unacquaintedness of modern ears with the 
divine harmony of Milton's numbers, and the 
principles upon which he constructed them, is the 
cause of the quarrel that they have with elisions 
in blank verse. But where is the remedy 1 In 
vain should you or I, and a few hundreds more 
perhaps who ha-ve studied his versification, tell 
them of the superior majesty of it, and that for 
that majesty it is greatly indebted to those elisions. 
In their ears, they are discord and dissonance; 
they lengthen- the line beyond its due -limits, and 
are therefore not to be endured. There is a whim- 
sical inconsistence in the judgment of modern 
' readers in this particular. Ask them all round, 
whom do you account the best writer of blank 
verse 1 and they will reply to a man, Milton, to 
be sure ; Milton against the field ! Yet if a writer 
of the present day should construct his numbers 
exactly upon Milton's plan, not one in fifty of 
these professed admirers of Milton would endure 
him. The case standing thus, what is to be done 1 
An author must either be contented to give disgust 
to the generality, or he must humour them by sin- 
ning against his ovm judgment. This latter course, 
so far as elisions are concerned, I have adopted as 
essential to my success. In every other respect I 
give as much variety in my measure as I can, I 
beheve I may say as in ten- syllables it is possible 
to give, shifting perpetually the pause and cadence, 
and accounting myself happy that modem refine- 
ment has not j^et enacted laws against this also. 
If it had, I protest to you I would have dropped 
my design of translatiiig Homer entirely; and 
with what an indignant statehness of reluctance I 
make them the concession that I have mentioned, 
Mrs. Unwin can witness, who hears all my com- 
plaints upon the subject. 

After ha\ing lived twenty years at Olney, we 
are on the point of leavuig it, but shall not migrate 
far. We iiave taken a house in the villao-e of 
Weston. Lady Hesketh is our good angel, by 
whose aid we are enabled to pass into a better air 
and a more walkable country. The imprison- 



ment that wc have suffered here for so many win- 
ters, has hurt us both. That we may suffer it no 
longer, she stoops at Olncy, lifts us from our 
swamp, and sets us down on the elevated grounds 
of Weston Underwood. There, my dear fi-icnd, 
I shall be ha[ipy to see you, and to thank you in 
person' for all your kindness. 

I do not wonder at the judgment that you form 
of a foreigner; but you may assure your- 
self that, foreigner as he is, he has an exquisite 
taste in English verse. The man is all fire, and 
an enthusiast in the highest degree on the subject 
of Homer, and has given me more than once a 
jog, when I have been inclined to nap with my 
author. No cold water is to be feared from him 
that might abate my own fire, rather perhaps too 
much combustible. 

Adieu ! mon ami, yours faithfully, W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

Olney, Oct. 6, 1786. 
Yon have not heard I suppose that the ninth 
book of my translation is at the bottom of the 
Thames. But it is even so. A storm overtook 
it in its way to Kingston, and it sunk, together 
with the whole cargo of the boat in which it was 
a passenger. Not figuratively foreshowing, I hope, 
by its submersion, the fate of all the rest. My 
kind and generous cousin, who leaves nothing un- 
done that she thinks can conduce to my comfort, 
encouragement, or convenience, is my transcriber 
also. She wrote the copy, and she will have to 

write it again Hers therefore is the damage. 

I have a thousand reasons to lament that the time 
approaches when we must lose her. She has 
made a wmterly summer a most delightful one, 
but the winter itself we must spend without her. 

W. C* 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

Weston Underwood, Nov. 17, 1786. 

MY D£AR FRIEND, 

There are some things that do not actually 
shorten the life of man, yet seem to do so, and 
frequent removals from place to place are of that 
number. For my own part at least I am apt to 
think, if I had been more stationary, I should 
seem to myself to have lived longer. My many 
changes of habitation have divided my tune into 
many short periods, and when I look back upon 
them they appear only as the stages in a day's 



* )n this interval, viz. on the 15th of the following month, 
the day on which he completed Iris fifty fifth year (O. S.) Mr. 
Cowper removed to Weston Underwood. 



304 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 237. 



journey, the first of which is at no very great dis- 
tance from the last. 

I Hved longer at Ohiey than any where. The're 
indeed I lived till mouldering walls and a totter- 
ing house warned me to depart. I have accord- 
ingly taken the liint, and two days since arrived 
or rather took up my abode at Weston. You 
perhaps have never made the experiment, but I can 
assure you that the confusion which attends a 
transmigration of this kind is infinite, and has a 
terrible effect in deranging the intellects. I have 
been obhged to renounce my Homer on the occa- 
sion, and though not for many days, I yet feel as 
if study and meditation, so long my confirmed 
habits, were on a sudden become impracticable, 
and that I shall certainly find them so when I at- 
tempt them again. But in a scene so much quiet- 
er and pleasanter than that which I have just 
escaped from, in a house so, much more commo- 
dious, and with furniture about me so much more 
to my taste, I shall hope to recover my literary ten- 
dency again, when once the bustle of the occasion 
shall have subsided. 

How glad I should be to receive you under a 
roof, where you would find me so much more com- 
fortably accommodated than at OIney ! I know 
your warmth of heart towards mc, and am sure 
that you would rrjoice in my joy. At present in- 
deed I have not had time for much self-gratulation, 
but have every reason to hope, nevertheless, that 
in due time 1 shall derive considerable advantage 
both in health and spirits, from the alteration made 
in my whereabout. 

I have now the the twelfth book of the Iliad in 
Jiand, having settled the eleven first books finally, 
as I think, or nearly so. The winter is the time 
when I make the greatest riddance. 

Adieu my dear Walter. Let me hear from you, 
and Believe me ever yours, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Weston Lodge, Nov. 26, 1786. 
It is my birthday, my beloved cousin, and I de- 
termine to employ a part of it, that it may not be 
destitute of festivity, in writing to you. The dark 
thick fog that has ob.scured it, would have been a 
burthen to me at Olney, but here I have hardly 
attended to it, the neatness and snugness of our 
abode compensate all the dreariness of the season, 
and whether the ways are wet or dr}', our house 
at least is always warm and commodious. O ! for 
you, my cousin, to partake these comforts with 
us ! I will not begin already to tease you upon 
that subject, but Mrs. Unwin remembers to have 
heard from your own lips, that you hate London 
in the spring. Perhaps therefore l)y that time, 
you may be glad to cscajie from a scene which 



will be every day growing more disagreeable, that 
you may enjoy the comforts of the lodge. You 
well know that the best house has a desolate ap- 
pearance unfurnished. This house accordingly, 
since it has been occupied by us and our meubles, 
is as much superior to what it was when you sawr 
it, as you can unagine. The parlour is even ele- 
gant. When I say that the parlour is elegant, I 
do not mean to insinuate that the study is not so. 
It is neat, warm, and silent, and a much better 
study than I deserve, if I do not produce in it an 
incomparable translation of Homer. I think every 
day of those lines of Milton, and congratulate my- 
self on having obtained, before I am quite super- 
annuated, what he secnjs not to have hoped for 
sooner. 

"And may at length my weary age 
Find out the peaceful hermitage!" 

For if it is not an hermitage, at least it is a much 
better thing, and you must always understand, my 
dear, that wlicn poets talk of cottages, hermitages, 
and sucli like things, they mean a house with six 
sashes in front, two comfortable parlours, a smart 
staircase, and three bed chambers of convenient 
dimensions; in short, exactly such a house as 
this. 

The Throckmortons continue the most obliging 
neighbours in the world. One morning last week, 
they both went with me to the cliffs — a scene, my 
dear, in which you would delight beyond measure, 
but which you can not visit except in the spring 
or autumn. The heat of summer and the cling- 
ing dirt of winter would destroy you, What is 
called the cliff, is no cliff, nor at all like one, but a 
beautiful terrace, sloping gently down to the Ouse, 
and from the brow of which, though not lofty, 
you have a view of such a valley as makes that 
which you see from the hills near Olney, and 
which I have had the honour to celebrate, an affair 
of -no consideration. 

Wintry as the weather is, do not suspect that it 
confines me. I ramble daily, and every day change 
my ramble. Wherever I go, I find short grass 
under my feet, and when I have travelled perhaps 
five miles, come home with shoes not at all too 
dirty for a drawing room. I was pacing yester- 
day under the elms, that surrounds the field in 
which stands the great alcove, when lifting my 
eyes I saw tvco black genteel figures bolt through 
a hedge into tlie path where I was walking. Yon 
guess already who they were, and that they could 
be nobody but our neighbours. They had seen 
me from a hill at a distance, and had traversed a 
large turnip-field to get at me. You see therefore 
my dear, that I am in some request. Alas ! in 
too much request with some people. The verses 
of Cadwallader have found me at last. 

I am charmed with your account of our little 



Let. 238. 23!). 



LETTERS. 



305 



cousin* at Kensington. If the world does not that he lived the life, and died the death of a Cliria- 



spoil him hereafter, he will be a valuable man. 
Good night, and may God bless thee, W. C, 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, Dec. A, 1786 
I SKNT you, my dear, a melancholy letter, and 
I do not know that I shall now send you one very 
unlike it. Not that any thing occurs in conse- 
quence of our late loss more afflictive than was to 
be expected, but the mind docs not perfectly re- 
cover its tone after a shock like that which has been 
felt so lately. This I observe, that though my ex- 
perience has long since taught me, that this world 
is a world of shadows, and that it is the more 
prudent, as Well as the more Christian course 
to possess the comforts that we find in it, as if we 
jiosscssed them not, it is no easy matter to reduce 
this doctrine into practice. We forget that that 
God who gave them, may, when he pleases, take 
them away; and that perhaps it may please him 
to take them at a time when we least expect, or 
are least disposed to pirt from them. Thus it has 
happened in the present case.- There never was 
a moment in Unwin's life, when there seemed to 
be more urgent want of him than the moment in 
which he died. He had attained to an age when, if 
they are at any time useful, men become useful to 
their families, their friends, and the world. His par- 
ish began to feel, and to be sensible of the advantages 
of his ministry. The clergy around him w-ere 
many of 'them awed by his example. His chil- 
dren were thriving under his own tuition and man 
agement, and his eldest boy is likely to feel his loss 
severely, being by his years in some respect quali- 
fied to understand the value of such a parent ; by 
his literary proficiency too clever for a schoolboy, 
and too young at the same time for the vmiversity. 
The removal of a man in the prime of life of such 
a character, and with such cpnnexions, seems to 
make a void in society that can never be filled. 
God seemed to have made him just what he was, 
that he might be a blessing to others, and when 
the influence of his character and abilities began 
to be felt, removed him. These are mysteries, my 
dear, that we can not contemplate without aston- 
ishment, but which will nevei'thelcss be explained 
hereafter, and must in the mean time be revered 
i:i silence. It is well for his mother, that she has 
spent her life in the practice of an habitual ac- 
quiescence in the dispensations of Providence, else 
I know that this stroke- would have been heavier, 
after all that she has suffered upon anothei* ac- 
count, than she could have borne. She derives, 
as she well may, great consolation fi'om the thought 



tian. The consequence is, if possible, more una- 
voidable than the most mathematical conclusion, 
that therefore he is happy. So farewell my friend 
Unwin ! The first man for whom I conceived a 
friendship after my removal from St. Alban's, and 
for whom I can not but still continue to feel a friend- ' 
ship, though I shall see thee with these eyes no 
more. W. C. 



Lord Cowpor. 



TO ROBERT SMITH, ESa. 

Weston Underwood, near Olney, 
MY DEAR SIR, Dec. 9, 1786. 

We have indeed suffered a great loss by the 
death of our friend Unv^in ; and the shock that 
attended it was the more severe, as till within a 
few hours of Ms decease there seemed to be no 
very alarming symptoms. All the account that 
we received from Mr. Henry Thornton, who act- 
ed like a true friend on the occasion, and with a 
tenderness toward .all concerned, that docs him 
great honour, encouraged our hopes of his recove- 
ry-; and Mrs. Unwin herself found him on her ar- 
rival at Winchester so cheerful, and in appearance 
so likely to live, that her letter also seemed to pro- 
mise us all that we could wish on the subject. But 
an unexpected turn in his distemper, which sud- 
denly seized his bowels, dashed all o\jr hopes, and 
deprived us almost immediately of a man whom we 
must ever regret. His mind having been from his 
infancy deeply tinctured with religious sentiments, 
he was alwa3's impressed wdth a sense of the im- 
portance of the great change of all ; and on for- 
mer occasions, when at any time he found himself 
indisposed, was consequently subject to distressing 
alarms and apprehensions. But in this last in- 
stance, his mind was from the first composed and 
easy; his fears were taken away, and succeeded 
by such a resignation as warrants us in saying, 
" that God made all his bed in his sickness." I 
believe it is always thus, where the heart, though 
upright toward God, as Unwin's assuredly was, is 
yet troubled -with the fear of death. When death 
indeed comes, he is either welcome, or at least has 
lost his sting. 

I have known many such instances, and his mo- 
ther, from the moment that she learned with what 
tranquillity he was favoured in his illness, for that 
very reason expected that it would be his last. Yet 
not with so much certainty, but that the favoura- 
ble accounts of him at length, in a great measure, 
superseded that persuasion. 

She begs me to assure you, my dear sir, how 
sensible she is, as well as myself, of the kindness 
of your inquiries. She suffers this stroke, not with 
more patience than submission than I expected, for 
I never knew her hurried by any affliction into the 



30G 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 240, 341. 



loss of cither, but in appearance, at least, and at 
present, with less injury to her health than I ap- 
prehended. She observed to me, after reading 
your kind letter, that though it was a proof of the 
greatness of her loss, it yet afforded her pleasure, 
though a melancholy one, to see how much her 
son had been loved and valued by such a person 
as yourself. 

Mrs. Unwin wrote to her daughter-in-law, to 
invite her and the family hither, hoping that a 
change of scene, and a situation so pleasant as 
this, may be of service to her, but we have not yet 
received her answer. I have good hope however 
that, great as her affliction must be, she will yet 
be able to support it, for she well knows whither 
to resort for consolation. 

The virtues and amiable qualities of our friends 
are the tilings for which we most wish to keep them, 
but they are on the other hand the very things, 
that in particular ought to reconcile us to their de- 
parture. We find ourselves sometimes connected 
with, and engaged in affection too, to a person of 
whose readiness and fitness for another life we can 
not have the highest opinion. The death of such 
men has a bitterness in it, both to themselves and 
survivors, which, thank God ! is not to be found in 
the death of Unwin. 

I know, my dear sir, how much you valued him, 
and I know also how much he valued you. With 
respect to hiig, all is well ; and of you, if I should 
survive you, which perhaps is not very probable, I 
shall say the same. 

In the mean time, believe me with the warmest 
wishes for your health and happiness, and with 
Mrs. Unwin's affectionate respects, 
Yours, my dear sir, 

Most faithfully, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Weston, Dec. 9, 1786. 
I AM perfectly sure that you are mistaken, though 
I do not wonder at it, considering the singular na- 
ture of the event, in the judgment that you form 
of poor Unwin's death, as it affects the interest of 
his intended pupil. When a tutor \yas wanted for 
him, you sought out the wisest and best man for 
the office within the circle of your connexions. It 
pleased God to take him home to himself Men 
eminently wise and good are very apt to die, be- 
cause they are fit to do so. You found in Unwin 
a man worthy to succeed him ; and He, in whose 
hands are the issues of life and death, seeing no 
doubt that Unwin was ripe for a removal into a 
better state, removed hun also. The matter view- 
ed in this light seems not so wonderful as to refuse 
all explanation, except such as in a melancholy 
moment you have given to it. And I am so con- 



vinced that the little boy's destiny had no influence 
at all in hastening the death of his tutors elect, 
that were it not impossible on more accounts than 
one that I should be able to serve him in that ca- 
pacity, I would without the least fear of dying a 
moment the sooner, offer myself to that office ; I 
would even do it, were I conscious of the same fit- 
ness for another and a better state, that I believe 
them to have been both endowed with. In that 
case, I perhaps might die too, but if I should, it 
would not be on account of that connexion. Nei- 
ther, my dear, had your interference in the business 
any thing to do with the catastrophe. Your whole 
conduct in it must have been acceptable in the sight 
of God, as it was directed by principles of the pur- 
est benevolence. 

I have not touched Homer to-day. Yesterday 
was one of my terrible seasons, and when I arose 
this morning I found that I had not sufficiently re- 
covered myself to engage in such an occupation. 
Having letters to write, I the more willingly gave 
myself a dispensation. — Good night. 

Yours ever, W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, WestoTi, Dec. 9, 17S6. 

We had just begun to employ the pleasantness 
of our new situation, to find at least as much com- 
fort in it as the season of the year would permit, 
when affliction found us out in our retreat, and 
the news reached us of the death of Mr. Unwm, 
He had taken a western tour with Mr. Henry 
Thornton, and in his return, al Winchester, was 
seized with a putrid fever, which sent him to his 
grave. He is gone to it, however, though young, 
as fit for it as age itself could have made him. Re- 
gretted indeed, and always to be regretted by those 
who knew him, for he had every thing that makes 
a man valuable both in his principles and in his 
manners, but leaving still this consolation to his 
surviving friends, that he was desirable in this 
world chiefly because he was so well prepared for 
abetter. 

I find myself here situated exactly to my mind. 
Weston is one of the prettiest villages in England, 
and the walks about it at all seasons of the year 
delightful. I know that you will rejoice with me 
in the change that we have made, aud for which 1 
am altogether indebted to Lady Hesketh. It is a 
change as great as (to compare metropolitan things 
with rural) from St. Giles's to Grosvcnor-square. 
Our house is in all respects commodious, and in 
some degree elegant ; and I can not give you a 
better idea of that which we have left, than by tell- 
ing you the present candidates for it are a pubU- 
can and a shoemaker. 

W. C. 



Let. 242, 243, 244. 



LETTERS. 



307 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Westun, Dec. 2l, 1786. 

Your welcome letter, my beloved cousin, which 
ought by the date to have arrived on Sunday, 
being by some untoward accident delayed, came 
not till yesterday. It came, however, and has re- 
lieved me from a thousand distressing apprehen- 
sions on your account. 

The dew of your intelligence has refreshed my 
poetical laurels. A little praise now and then is 
very good for your hard-working poet, who is apt 
to grow languid, and perhaps careless without it. 
Praise I find affects us as money does. The 
more a man gets of it, with the more vigilance he 
watches over and preserves it. Such at least is 
its effect on me, and you may assure yourself that 
I will niJver lose a mite of it for want of care. 

I have already invited the good Padre in gene- 
ral terms, and he shall positively dine here next 
week, whether he will or not. I do not at all 
suspect that his kindness to Protestants has any 
thing insidious in it, any more than I suspect that 
He transcribes Homer for me with a view for my 
conversion. He would find me a tough piece of 
business I can tell him ; for when I had no reli- 
gion at all, I had yet a terrible dread of the Pope. 
How much more now ! • 

I should have sent you a longer letter, but was 
obliged to devote ray last evening to the melan- 
choly employment of composing a Latin inscrip- 
tion for the tomb-stone of poor William, two co- 
pies of which I wrote out and enclosed, one to 
Henry Thornton, and one to Mr. Newton. Ho- 
mer stands by me biting his thumbs, and swears 
that if I do not leave off directly, he will choak 
me with bristly Greek, that shall stick in my 
throat for ever. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, WestoTi, Jan. 3, 1787. 

You wish to hear from me at any calm inter- 
val of epic frenzy'. An interval presents itself, 
but whether calm or not, is perhaps doubtfid. Is 
it possible for a man to be calm, who for three 
weeks past has been perpetually occupied in 
slaughter; letting out one man's bowels, smiting 
another througli the gullet, transfixing the liver 
of another, and lodging an arrow in the buttock 
of a fourth ] Read the thirteenth book of the Iliad, 
and you will find such amusing incidents as these 
the subject of it, the sole subject. In order to in- 
terest myself in it, and to catch the spirit of it, 
I had need discard all humanity.- It is woful 
work ; and were the best poet in the world to give 
us at this day such a list of killed and \;oundcd, 



he would not escape universal censure, to the 
l)raisc of a more enlightened age be it spoken. 1 
have waded tinough nmch blood, and through 
much more I must wade before 1 sha,ll have finish- 
ed. 1 determine in the mean time to account it 
all very sublime, and for two reasons. — First, be- 
cause, all the learned think so, and secondly, be- 
cause I am to translate it. But were I an indif- 
ferent by-stander, perhaps I should venture to 
wish, that Homer had applied his wonderful 
powers to a less disgusting subject. He has in 
the Odyssey, and I long to get at it. 

I have not the good fortune to meet with any 
of these fine things, that you say are printed in 
my praise. But 1 learn from certain advertise- 
ments in the Morning Herald, that 1 make a con- 
spicuous figure in the entertainments of Free- 
Mason's Hall. I learn also that my volumes are 
out of print, and that a third edition is soon to be 
published. But if I am not gratified with the 
sight of odes composed to my honour and glory, I 
have at least been tickled with some douceurs of a 
very flattering nature by the post. A lady un- 
known addresses the best of men — an unknown 
gentleman has read my inimitable poems, and in- 
vites me to his seat in Hampshire — another incog- 
nito gives me hopes of a memorial in his garden, 
and a Welsh attorney sends me his verses to re-: 
vise, and obligingly asks, 

" Say, shall my little bark attendant sail. 
Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale? 

If you find me a little vain hereafter, my friend, 
you must excuse it, in consideration of these pow- 
erful incentives, especially the latter; for surely 
the poet who can charm an attorney, especially a 
Welsh one, must be at least an Orpheus, if not 
sometliing greater. 

Mrs. Unwin is as much delighted as myself 
with our present situation. But it is a sort of 
April weather lile that we lead in this world. A 
little sunshine is generally the prelude to a storm. 
Hardly had we begun to enjoy the change, when 
the death of her son cast a gloom upon every 
thing. He was a most exemplary man ; of your 
order; learned, polite, and amiable. The father 
of lovely children, and the husband of a wife (very 
much like dear Mrs. Bagot) who adored him. 

Adieu, my friend ! Your affectionate W- C 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, Jan. 8, 1787. 
I HAVE had a little nervous fever lately, my 
dear, that had somewhat abridged my sleep ; and 
though I find myself better to-day than I have 
been since it seized me. yet I feel my head lightish, 
and not in the best order for writing. You will 



308 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 245. 



find me therefore jicrliaps not only less alert in 
my manner than I usually am when my spirits 
are good, but rather shorter. I will however pro- 
ceed to scribble till I iind that it fatigues me, and 
then will do as I know you would bid me do were 
you here, shut up my desk, and take a walk. 

The good General tells me that in the eight 
first books which I have sent him, ho still finds 
alterations and amendments necessary, of which 
I myself am equally persuaded ; and he asks my 
leave to lay them before an mtimate friend of his, 
of whom he gives a character that bespeaks him 
highly deserving such a trust. To tliis I have no 
objection, desiring only to malce the translation as 
perfect as I can make it. If God grant me hfe 
and health, I would spare no labour to secure that 
point. The general's letter is extremely kind 
and both for manner and matter hke all the rest 
of his dealings with his cousin the poet. 

I had a letter also yesterday from Mr. Smith, 
member for Nottingham. Though we never saw 
each other, he writes to me in the most friendly 
terms, and interests himself much in my Homer, 
and in the success of my subscription. Speaking 
on this latter subject, he says that my poems are 
read by hundreds, who know nothing of my pro- 
posals, and makes no doubt that they would sub- 
scribe, if they did. I have myself always thought 
them imperfectly, or rather inefficiently an- 
nounced. 

I could pity the poor woman, who has been 
weak enough to claim my song. Such pilferings 
are sure to be detected. I wrote it, I know not 
how long, hut I suppose four years ago. The 
rose in question was a rose given to Lady Austen 
by Mrs. Unwin, and the incident that suggested 
the subject occurred in the room in which you 
slept at the vicarage, which Lady Austen made 
her dining room. Some time since, Mr. Bull 
going to London, I gave him a copy of it, which 
he undertook to convey to Nichols, the printer of 
the Gentleman's Magazine. He showed it to 
Mrs. C , who begged to copy it, and pro- 
mised to send it to the printer's by heir servant. 
Three or four months afterwards, and when I 
had concluded it was lost, I saw it in the Gentle- 
man's Magazine, with my signature, W. C. 
Poor simpleton ! She will find now perhaps that 
the rose had a thorn, and that she has pricked her 
fincrers with it. Adieu! my beloved cousin. 

W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, Jan. 18, 1787. 
I HAVE been so much indisposed with the fever 
that 'I told you had seized me, my nights during 
the whole week may be said to have been almost 



sleepless. The consequence has been, that ex- 
Icept the translation of about thirty lines at the 
conclusion of the thirteenth book, I have been 
forced to abandon Homer entu'ely. This was a 
• sensible mortification to me, as you may suppose, 
and felt the more because, my spirits of course 
failing with my strength, I seemed to have pecu- 
liar need of my old amusement. It seemed hard 
I therefore to be forced to resign it just when I 
j wanted it most. But Homer's battles can not be. 
I fought by a man who docs not ' sleep well, and 
who has not some Uttle degree of animation in the 
day time. Last night, however, quite contrary to 
my expectations, the fever left me entirely, and I 
slept quietly, soundly, and long. If it please God 
that it return not, I shall soon find myself in a 
condition to proceed. I walk constant^, that is 
to say, Mrs-. Unwin and I together: for at these 
times I keep her continually employed, and never 
suffer her to be absent from me many minutes. 
She gives me all her tune, and all her attention, 
and forgets that there is another object in the 
world. 

Mrs. Carter thinks on the subject of dreams as 
every body else does, that is to say, according to 
her own experience. She has had no extraordina- 
ry ones, and therefore accomits them only the or- 
dinary operations of the fancy. Mine are of a 
texture that will not suflTer me to ascrilje them to 
so inadequate a cause, of to any cause but the 
operation of an exterior agency. I have a mind, 
my dear, (and to you I will venture to boast of it) 
as free from superstition as any man hving, neither 
do I give heed to dreams in general as predictive, 
though particular dreams I believe to be so. Some 
very sensible persons, and I suppose Mrs. Carter 
among them, will acknowledge that in old times 
God spoke by dreams, but affirm with much bold- 
ness that he has since ceased to do so. If you ask 
them why'? They answer, because he has now 
revealed his will in the Scripture, and there is no 
longer any need that he should instruct or admonish 
us by dreams. I grant that with respect to doc- 
trines and precepts he has lefti us in want of no- 
thing; but has he thereby precluded himself in 
any of the operations of his Providence 1 Surely 
not. It is perfectly a different consideration ; and 
the same need that there ever was of his inter- 
ference in this way, there is still, and ever must 
be, while man continues bhnd and fallible, and a 
creature beset with dangers which he can neither 
foresee nor obviate. His operations however of 
tliis kind are, I allow, very rare; and as to the 
generality of dreams, they are ma;de of such stuff, 
and are in themselves so insignificant, that though 
I believe them all to be the manufacture of others, 
not our own, I account it not a farthing-matter 
who manufactures them. So much for dreams ! 

My fever is not yet gone, but sometimes seems 



Let. 246, 247. 



LETTERS. 



800 



to leave m& It is altogether of the nervous kind, 
and attended, nov? and then, with much dejection. 
A young gentleman called here yesterday, who 
came six miles out of his way to see me. He was 
on a journey to London from Glasgow, having 
just left the university there. He came I suppose 
partly to satisfy his own curiosity, but chiefly, as 
it seemed, to bring mo the thanks of some of the 
Scotch professors for my two volumes. His name 
is Rose, an Englishman. Your spirits being good, 
you will derive mare pleasure from this incident 
than I can at present, therefore I send it. 

Adieu, very aflfectionately, W. C* 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

DEAR SIR, Weston, July 24, 1787. 

This is the first time I have written these six 
months, and nothing but the constraint of obliga- 
tion could induce me to write now. I can not be 
so wanting to myself as not to endeavour at least 
to thank you both for the visits with which you 
have favoured me, and the poems that you sent 
me • in my present state of mind 1 taste nothing, 
nevertheless I read, partly from habit, and partly 
because it is the only thing that I am capable of 

I have therefore read Burns's poems, and have 
read them twice ; and though they be written in 
a language that is new to me, and many of them 
on subjects much inferior to the author's ability, I 
thiidi them on the whole a very extraordinary pro- 
duction. He is I believe the only poet these king- 
doms have produced in the lower rank of life, since 
Shakspeare, (I should rather say since Prior) who 
need not be indebted for any part of liis praise to 
a charitable consideration of his origin, and the 
disadvantages under which he has laboured. It 
will be pity if he should not hereafter divest him- 
self of barbarism, and content himself with writing 
pure English, in which he appears perfectly quali- 
fied to excel. He who can command admiration, 
dishonours himself if he aims no higher than to 
raise a laugh. 

I am, dear sir, with my best wishes for yoxir pros- 
perity, and with Mrs. Unwin's respects, 

Your obliged and affectionate humble servant, 

. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

DEAR SIR, Weston, Aug. 27, 1787. 

1 HAVE not yet taken up the pen again, except 



* The illness mentioned in tli is letter interrupted the wri- 
ter's translation of Homer diu'ing eight months. 



to write to you. The little taste that I have had 
of your company, and your kindness in finding nic 
out, make me wish that we were nearer neigh- 
bours, and that there were not so great a disparity 
in our years. That is to say, not that you were 
older, but that 1 were younger. Could we have 
met in earlier Ufe, I flatter myscll' that we might 
have been more intimate than now we are likely 
to be. But you shall not find me slow to cultivate 
such a measure of your regard, as your friends of 
your own age can spare me. When your route 
shall lie through this country, I shall hope that 
the same kindness which has prompted you twice 
to call on me, will prompt you again, and I shall 
be happy if, on a future occasion, I may be able 
to give you a more cheerful reception than can be 
expected from an invalid. My health and spirits 
are considerably improved, and I once more asso- 
ciate with my neighbours. My head however has 
been the worst part of me, and still continues so ; 
is subject to giddiness and pain, maladies very un- 
favourable to poetical employment ; but a prepara- 
tion of the bark, which I take regularly, has so 
far been o%service to me in those respects, as to 
encourage ia me a hope that by perseverance in 
the use of it, I may possibly find myself qualified 
to resume the translation of Homer 

When I can not walk, I read, and read perhaps 
more than is good for me. But I can not be idle. 
The only mercy that I show myself in this respect 
is, that I read nothing that requires much close- 
ness of application, I lately finished the perusal 
of a book, which in former years I have more than 
once attacked, but never till now conquered ; some 
other book always interfered, before I could finish 
it. The work I mean is Barclay's Argenis: and, 
if ever you allow yourself to read for mere amuse- 
ment, I can recommend it to you (provided you 
have not already perused it) as the most amusing 
romance that ever was written. It is the only 
one indeed of an old date that I ever had the pa- 
tience to go through with. It is interesting in a 
high degree; richer in incident than can be ima- 
gined, full of surprises, which the reader never 
forestalls, and yet free from all entanglement and 
confusion. The style too appears to me to be such 
as would not dishonour Tacitus himself. 

Poor Burns loses much of his deserved praise 
in this country, through our ignorance of his lan- 
guage. I despair of meetihg with any English- 
man who will take the pains that I have taken to 
understand him. His candle is bright, but shut 
up in a dark lantern. I lent him to a very sensi- 
ble neighbour of mine: but his uncouth dialect 
spoiled all; and before he had half read him 
through, he was quite ram-feezled. 

w. c. 



310 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 248, 249, 250, 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, Aug. 30, 1787. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, 

Though it cost me something to write, it would 
cost me more to be silent. My intercourse with 
my neighbours being renewed, I can no longer 
seem to forget how many reasons there are, why 
you especially should not be neglected ; no neigh- 
bour indeed, but the kindness of ray friends, and 
ere long, I hope, an inmate. 

My health and spirits seem to be mending daily. 
To what end I know not, neither will conjecture, 
but endeavour, as far as I can, to be content that 
they do so. I use exercise, and take the air in 
the park and wilderness. I read much, but as yet 
write not. Our friends at the Hall make them- 
selves more and more amiable in our account, 
by treating us rather as old friends, than as friends 
newly acquired. There are few days in which 
we do not meet, and I am now almost as much 
at home in their house as in our own. Mr. 
Throckmorton, having long since pi* me m pos- 
session of all his ground, has now given me posses- 
sion of liis library ; an acquisition of great value 
to me, who never have been able to live without 
books, smce I first knew my letters, and who have 
no books of my own. By his means I have been 
so well supplied that I have not yet even looked 
at the Lovmger, for which however I do not for- 
get that I am obliged to you. His turn comes 
next, and I shall probably begin him to-morrow. 

Mr. George Throckmorton is at the Hall. I 
thought I had known these brothers long enough 
to have found out all their tal6nts and accomplish- 
ments. But I was mistaken. The day before 
yesterday, after having walked vnth us, they car- 
ried us up to the Ubrary (a more accurate writer 
would have said conducted us) and then they 
showed me the contents of an immense port-foUo, 
the work of their own hands. It was furnished 
with drawings of the architectural kind, executed 
in a most masterly manner, and among others, con- 
tained outside and inside views of the Pantheon, 
I mean the Roman one. They were all, I believe, 
made at Rome. Some men inay be estimated at 
a first interview, but the Throckmortons must be 
seen often, and known long, before one can un- 
derstand all their value. 

They often inquire after you, and ask mc 
whether you visit Weston this autumn. I an- 
swer yes, and I charge you, my dearest cousin, to 
authenticate my information. Write to me, and 
tell us when we may expect to see you. We 
were disappointed that we had no letter from you 
this morning. You will find me coated and but- 
toned according to your recommendation. 



I write but little, because writing is become new 
to me ; but I shall corpe on by degrees. Mrs. 
Unwin begs to be affectionately remembered to 
you. She is in tolerable health, which is the chief 
comfort here that I have to boast of 

Yours, my dearest cousin, as ever, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST COZ, 

The Lodge, Sept. 4, 1787. 

Come when thou canst come, secure of being 
always welcome ! All that is here is thine, to- 
gether wjth the hearts of those who dwell here. I 
am only sorry, that your journey hither is necessa- 
rily postponed beyond the time when I did hope 
to have seen you ; sorry too that my uncle's in- 
firmities are the occasion of it. But years will 
have their course, and their effect : they are hap- 
piest, so far as this hfe is concerned, who like him 
escape those effects the longest, and who do not 
grow old before their time. Trouble and anguish 
do that for some, which only longevity does for 
others. A few months since I was older than 
your father is now, and though I have lately re- 
covered, as Falstaff says, sovie smatch of my 
youth, I have but little confidence, in truth none, 
in so flattering a change, but expect, when I least 
expect it, to wither ' again. The past is a pledge 
for the future. 

Mr. G. is here, Mrs. Throckmorton's uncle. 
He is lately arrived from Italy, where he has re- 
sided several years, and is so much the gentleman, 
that it is impossible to be more so. Sensible, po- 
lite, obhging ; slender in his figure, and in man- 
ners most engaging — every way worthy to be re- 
lated to the Throckmortons. 

I have read Savary's travels into Egypt ; Me- 
moirs du Baron de Tott ; Fenn's original letters ; 
the letters of Frederick of Bohemia, and am now 
reading Memoirs d' Henri de Lorraine, Due de 
Guise. I have also read Barclay's Argenis, a 
Latin Romance, and the best Romance that ever 
was written. All these, together with Madan's 
letters to Priestley, and several pamphlets, within 
these two months. So I am a great reader. 

w'. c. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, Sept. 15, 1787. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, 

On Monday last I was invited to meet your 

friend Miss J at the Hall, and there we found 

her. Her good nature, her humorous manner, 
and her good sense, are charming; insomuch that 



Let. 251, 252. 



LETTERS. 



311 



even I, who was never much adJicted to speech- 
makiiig, and who at present find myself particu 
larly indisposed to it, could not help saying at part- 
ing, I am glad that 1 have seen you, and sorry 
that I have seen so little of you. We were some- 
times many in company ; on Thiu'sday we were 
fifteen, but we had not altogether so much vivacity 

and cleverness as Miss J , whose talent at 

mirth-making has this rare property to recommend 
it, that nobody sufifers by it. 

I am making a gravel walk for winter use, un- 
der a warm hedge in the orchard. It shall be fur- 
nished with a low seat for your accommodation, 
and if you do but Uke it I sh»J^ be satisfied. In 
wet weather, or rather after Wet weather, when 
the street is dirty, it will suit you well, for laying 
on an easy declivity through its whole length, it 
must of course be immediately dry. 
' You are very much wished for by our friends 
at the Hall — how much by me I will not tell you 
till the second week in October 

Yours, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAR coz, The Lodge, Sept. 29, 1787. 

I THANK you for your poUtical intelligence ; re- 
tired as we are, and seemingly excluded from the 
world, we are not indifferent to what passes in it ; 
on the contrary, the arrival oif a newspaper, at the 
present juncture, never fails to furnish us with a 
theme for discussion, short indeed, but satisfactory, 
for we seldom difler in opinion. 

I have received such an impression of the Turks 
from the memoirs of Baron de Tott, which I read 
lately, that I can hardly help presaging the con- 
quest of that empire by the Russians. The disci- 
ples of Mahomet are such babies in modern tac 
tics, and so enervated iDy the use of their favourite 
drug; so fatally secure in their predestinanan 
dream,'and so prone to a spirit of mutiny against 
their leaders, that liothing less can be expected. 
In fact, they had not been their own masters at 
this day, had but the Russians known the weak- 
ness of their eneinies half so well as they un- 
doubtedly knov7 it now. Add to this, that there 
is a popular prophecy current in both countries, 
that Turkey is one day to fall under the Russian 
sceptre. A prophecy which, from whatever au- 
thority it be derived, as it will naturally encourage 
the Russians, and dispirit the Turks in exact pro- 
portion to the degree of credit it has obtained on 
both sides, has a direct tendency to effect its own 
accomplishment. In the mean time, if I wish 
them conquered, it is only because I think it will 
be a blessing to them to be governed by any other 
hand than their own. For under Heaven has 
21 



there never been a throne so execrably tyrannical 
as theirs. The heads of the innocent that have 
been cut off" to gratify the humour or caprice of 
their tyrants, could they be all collected and dis- 
charged against the walls of their city, vi^ould not 
leave one stone on another. 

O that you were here this bealitiful day ! It is 
too fine by half to be spent in London. I have a 
perpetual din in my head, and though I am not 
deaf, hear nothing aright, neither my own voice, 
nor that of others. I am under a tub, from which 
tub accept my best love. Yours, W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

DEAR SIR, Weston, Oct. 19, 1787. 

A sununons from Johnson, which I received 
yesterday, calls my attention once more to the busi- 
ness of translation. Before I begin I am willing 
to catch though but a short opportunity to ac- 
knowledge your last favour. The necessity of 
applying myself with all diUgence to a long work 
that has been but too long interrupted, will make 
my opportunities of writing rare in fiiture. 

Air and exercise are necessary to all men, but 
particularly so to the man whose mind labours ; 
and to him who has been all his life accustomed to 
much of both, they are necessary in the extreme. 
My time since we parted has been devoted entirely 
to the recovery of health and strength for this ser- 
vice, and I am willing to hope with good effect. 
Ten months have passed since 1 discontinued my 
poetical efforts ; I do iiot expect to find the same 
readiness as before, till exercise of the neglected 
faculty,' such as it is, shall have restored it to me. 
You find yourself, I hope, by this time as com- 
fortably situated in your new abode as in a new 
abode one can be. I enter perfectly into all your 
feelings on occasion of the change. A sensible 
mind can not do violence even to a local attach- 
ment without much pain. When my father died 
I was young, too young to have reflected much. 
He was Rector of Berkhamstead, and there I was 
born. It had never occurred to me that a parson 
has no fee-sunple in the house and glebe he occu- 
pies. There was neither tree, nor gate, nor stile, 
in all that country, to which I did not feel a rela- 
tion, and the house itself I preferred to a palace. 
I was sent for from London to attend him in his 
last illness, and he died just before I arrived. Then, 
and not tUl then, I felt for the first time that I and 
my native place were disunited for ever. I sighed 
a long adieu to fields and woods, from which I 
once thought I should never be parted, and was at 
no time so sensible of their beauties, as just when 
I left them all behind me, to return no more. 

W.O. 



312 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 253,254,255. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, Nov. 10, 1787. 

The Parliament, my dearest Cousin, prorogued 
continually, is a meteor dancing before my eyes, 
promising me my v\'isli only to disappoint me, and 
none but the king and his ministers can tell when 
you and I shall come together. I hope however 
that the period, though so often postponed, is not 
far ilistant, and that once more I shall behold you, 
and experience your power to make winter gay 
and sprightly. 

I have a kitten, my dear, the drollest of all crea- 
tures that ever wore a cat's skin. Her gambols 
are not to be described, and would be incredible 
if they could. ' In point of size she is likely to be 
a kitten always, beiaig extremely small of her age, 
but time I suppose, that spoils every thing, will 
make her also a cat. You will see her I hope be- 
fore that melancholy period shall arrive, for no 
wisdom that she may gain by experience and re- 
flection hereafter, vnll compensate the loss of her 
present hilarity. She is dressed in a tortoise-shell 
suit, and I know that you will delight in her. 

Mrs. Throclimorton carries us to-morrow in her 
chaise to Chicheley. The event however must be 
suppose<l to depend on elements, at least on the 
state of the atmosphere, which is turbulent beyond 
measure. Yesterday it thundered, last iiight it 
lightened, and at three this moriiing I saw the sky 
as red as a city in flames could have made it. I 
have a leech in a bottle that foretels all these pro- 
digies and convulsions of nature. No, not as you 
will naturally conjecture by articulate utterance 
of oracular notices, but by a variety of gesticula- 
tions, which here 1 have not room to give an ac- 
count of Suffice it to say, that no phange of 
weather surprises him, and that in point of the 
earliest and most accurate intelligence, he is worth 
all the barometers in the world. None of them 
all indeed can make the least pretence to foretell 
thunder — a species of capacity of which he has 
given the most unequivocal evidence. I gave but 
sixpence for him, which is a groat more than the 
market price, though he is in fact, or rather would 
be if leeches were not found in every ditch, an in- 
valuable acquisition. W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, filSCl. 

■ • Nov. 16, 1787. 

I THANK you for the solicitude that you express 
on the subject of my present studies. The work 
is undoubtedly long and laborious, but it has an 
end, and, proceeding leisurely, with a due attention 
to the use of air and exercise, it is possible that I 
may live to finish it. Assure yourself of one thing, 



that though to a bystander it may seem an occu- 
pation surpassing the powers of a constitution ne- 
ver very atliletic, and, at present, not a liftle the 
worse for wear, I can invent for myself no employ- 
ment that does not exhaust my spirits more. I 
will not pretend to account for this ; I will only say 
that it is not the language of predilection for a fa- 
vourite amusement, but that the fact is really so. 
I have even found that those plaything avocations 
which one may execute almost without any atten- 
tion, fatigue me, and wear me away, while such as 
engage me much and attach me closely, are rather 
serviceable, to me than otherwise, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, Nov. 27, 1787. 

It is the part of wisdom, my dearest Cousin, to 
sit down contented under the demands of neces- 
sity, because they are such. I am sensible that 
you can not, in my uncle's present infirm state, and 
of wliich-it is not possible to expect any conside- 
rable amendment, indulge either us, or yourself, 
with a journey to Weston. Yourself I say, both 
because I know it will give you pleasure to see 
Causidice mi* once more, especially in the com- 
fortable abode where you have placed him, and 
because, after so long an unprisomnent in London, 
you, who love the country, and have a taste for 
it, would of course be glad to return to it. For my 
own part, to me it is ever new, and though I have 
now been- an inhabitant of this village a twelve- 
month, and have during the half of that time been 
at libei-ty to expatiate, and to make discoveries, I 
am daily fijiding out fresh scenes and walks, which 
.you would never be satisfied with enjoying: some 
of them are unapproachable by you either on foot 
or in your carriage. Had you twenty toes (where- 
as I suppose you have but ten) you could not reach 
them ; and coach wheels have never been seen there 
since the flood. Before it indeed, (as Burnet says 
that the earth was then perfectly free from all ine- 
qualities in its surface) they might have been seen 
there every day. We have other walks both upon 
liill tops, and in valleys beneath, some of which by 
the help of your carriage, and many of them with- 
out its help, would be always at your command. 

On Monday morning last, Sam brought me 
word that there was a man in the kitchen who de- 
sired to speak vpith me. I ordered him in. A plain, 
decent, elderly figure made its appearance, and 
being desired to sit, spoke as follows: " Sir, I am 
cleric of the parish of All-saints in Northampton; 
brother of Mr. C. the upholsterer. It is customary 
for the person in my office to annex to a bill of 

* The appellation which Sir Thomas Hesketh used to give 
liim in jest, when he was of the Temple. 



Let. 250,257. 



LETTERS. 



31J 



mortality, which he pubUshes .at Christmas, a 
copy of verses. You would do me a great favour, 
sir, if you would furnish mc with one." To this 
I replied, "• Mr. C. you have several men of genius 
in your town, why liavc you not applied to some 
of them 1 There is a namesake of yours in parti- 
cular, C , the statuary, who, every body knows, 

is a first-rate maker of verses. Ho surely is the 
man of all the world for your purpose." — "Alas! 
Sir, I have heretofore borrowed help from hiiu, 
but he is a gentleman of so much reading, that 
the people of our town can not understand him." 
I confess to you, my dear, I felt all the force 6f the 
complmient implied in this speech, and was al- 
most ready to answer. Perhaps, my good friend, 
they may find me unintelligible too for the same 
reason. But on asking liim whether he had walked 
over to Weston on purpose to implore the assist- 
ance of my muse, and on his rcplj-ing in the af- 
firmative, I felt my mortified vanity a Uttle con- 
soled, and pitying the poor man's distress, which 
appeared to be considerable, promised to supply 
him. The wagon has accordingly gone this day 
to Northampton loaded in part with my .effusions 
in the nlortuary style. A' fig for poets who write 
epitaphs upon individuals! I have written one 
that serves two hundred persons. 

A few days since I received a second very ob- 
liging letter from Mr. M— — . He tells ,me that 
his own papers,, which are by far, he is sorry to 
say it, the most numerous, are marked V.I.Z. 
Accordingly, my dear, I am happy to find that I 
am engaged in a correspondence with Mr. Viz, a 
centleman for whom I have, always' entertained 
the profoundest veneration: But the serious fact 
is, that the papers distinguished by those signatures 
have ever pleased me most, and struck me as the 
work of a sensible man, who knows the world well, 
and has more of Addison's delicate humour than 
any body. 

A poor man begged food at the Hall lately. 
The cook gave him some vermicelli soup. He 
Jadled it about some time with the spoon, and then 
returned it to her saying, " I am a poor man it is 
true, and I am very hungry, but yet I can not eat 
broth with maggots in it." Once more, my dear, 
a thousand thanks for j'our box full of good things, 
useful things, and beautiful things. 

Yours ever, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, Dec. 4, 1787. 
I AM glad, my dearest coz, that my last letter 
proved so diver-ting. You may assure yourself of 
the Uteral truth of the whole narration, and that 
however droll, it was not in the least indebted to 
any embellishments of mine. 



You say well, my dear, that in Mr. Throck- 
morton we have a peerless neighbour; we have so. 
In point of information upon all important subjects, 
in respect too of expression and address, and in 
short, every thing that enters into the idea of a gen- 
tleman, I have not found his equal, not often, any 
where. Were I asked who in my judgment ap- 
proaches nearest to him, in all his amiable quali- 
ties, and qualifications, I should certainly answer 
his brother George, who if he be not his exact 
counterpart, endued with precisely the same mea- 
sure of the same accomplishments, is nevertheless 
deficient in none of them, and is of a character 
singularly agreeable, in respect of a certain manly, 
I had almost said, heroic frankness, with which 
his air strikes one ahnost immediately. So far as 
his opportunities have' gone, he has ever been as 
friendly and obliging to us, as we could wish him, 
and were he lord of the Hall to-morrow, would I 
dare say conduct liimself toward us in such a man- 
ner, as to leave us as httle sensible as possible 
of the removal of its present owners. But all this 
I say, my dear; merely for the sake of stating the 
matter as it is ; not in ordet to obviate, or to prove 
the inexpedience of any future plans of yours, 
concerning the place of our residence.^ Providence 
and time shape every thing; I should- rather say 
Providence alone, for time has often no hand in 
the wonderful changes that we experience; they 
take place in a moment. It is not therefore worth 
while perhaps to consider much what we will, or 
will not do in years to come, concerning which all 
that I can say with certainty at present is, that 
those years will be to me the most welcome, in 
which I can see the most of you. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Dec. 6, 1787. 

A SHORT time since, by the help of Mrs. Throck- 
morton's chaise, Mrs. Unwin and I reached 
Chicheley. "Now," said I to Mrs. Chester, " I 
shall write boldly to your brother Walter, and 
will do it immediately. I have passed the gulf 
that parted us, and he will be glad to hear it." 
But let not the man who translates Homer be so 
presumptuous as to have a will of his own, or to 
promise any thing. A fortnight, I suppose, has 
elapsed since I paid this \isit, and I am only now 
beginning to fulfil what I then undertook to ac- 
complish without delay. The old Grecian must 
answer for it. 

I spent my morning there so agreeably, that I 
have ever since regretted more sensibly, that there 
are five aules of a dirty country interposed between 
us. For the increase of my pleasure, I had the 
good fortune to find your brother the bishop there. 
We had much talk about many things, but most. 



314 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 258, 259. 



I believe, about Homer; and great satisfaction it 
gave me to find, that on the most important points 
of that subject his lordsliip and I were exactly 
of one mind. In the course of our conversation 
he produced from his pocket-book a translation 
of the first ten or twelve Unes of the Iliad, and in 
order to leave my judgment free, informed me 
kindly at the same time that they were not his 
own. I read them, and according to the best 
of my recollection of the original, found them well 
executed. The bishop indeed acknowledged that 
they were not faultless, neither did I find them 
so. Had they been such, I should have felt their 
perfection as a discouragement hardly to be sur- 
mounted; for at that passage I have laboured 
more abundantly than at any other, and hitherto 
with the least success. I am convinced that Ho- 
mer placed it at the threshold of his work as a 
scarecrow to all translators. Now, Walter, if thou 
knowest the author of this version, and it be not 
treason against thy brother's confidence in thy se- 
crecy, declare him to me. Had I been so happy 
as to have seen the bishop again before he left this 
country, I shoidd certainly have asked him the 
question, having a curiosity upon the matter that 
is extremely troublesome. 

The awkward situation in which you found 
yourself on receiving a visit from an authoress, 
whose works, though presented to you long be- 
fore, you had never read, made me laugh, and it 
was no sin against my friendship for you to do so. 
It was a ridiculous distress, and I can laugh at it 
even now. I hope she catechised you well. How 
did you extricate yourself? — Now laugh at me. 
The clerk of the parish of All Saints, in the town 
of Northampton, having occasion for a poet, has 
appointed me to the office. I found myself obliged 
to comply. The bellman comes next, and then, I 
think, though even borne upon your swan's quill, 
I can soar no liigher! 

I am, my dear friend, faithfully yours, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. . 

The Lodge, Dec. 10, 1787. 

I THANK you for the snip of cloth, commonly 
caUed a pattern. 'At present I have two coats, 
and but one back. If at any time hereafter I 
should find myself possessed of fewer coa^s, or more 
backs, it will be of use to me. 

Even as you suspect, my dear, so it proved. 
The ball was prepared for, the ball was held, and 
the ball passed, and we had nothing to do with it. 
Mrs. Throckmorton, knowing our trim, did not 
give us the pain of an invitation, for a pain it 
would have been. And why *? as Sternhold says, — 



because, as Ho(>kins answers, we must have re- 
fused it. But it fell out singularly enough, that 
this ball was held, of all days in the year, on ray 
birth day — and teo I told them — but not till it was 
all over. 

Though I have thought proper never to • take 
any notice of the arrival of my MSS. together 
with the other good things in the box, yet certain 
it is, that I received them. I have furbished up 
the tenth book till it is as bright as silver, and am 
now occupied in bestowing the same labour upon 
the eleventh. The twelfth and thirteenth are in 
the hands of ^, and the fourteenth and fif- 
teenth are ready to succeed them. This notable 
job is the delight of my heart, and how sorry shall 
I be when it is ended. 

The smith and the carpenter, my dear, are both, 
in the room, hanging a bell ; if I therefore make a 
thousand blunders, let the said intruders answer 
for them all. 

I thank you, my dear, for your history of the 
G — s. What changes in that family ! And how 
many thousand families have in the same time ex- 
perienced, changes as violent as theirs ! The course 
of a rapid liver is the justest of all emblems, to ex- 
press the variableness of our scene below. Shak- 
speare says, none ever bathed himself twice in the 
same stream, and it is equally true that the world 
upon which we close our eyes at night is never the 
same with that on which we open them in the 
morning. 

. I do not always say, give my love to my uncle,. 
because he knows that I always love him. I do 
•not always present Mrs. Unwin's love to you, 
partly for the same reason (Deuce take the smith 
and the carpentfer,) and partly because I forget it. 
But to present my own I forget never, for I always 
have to finish my letter, wliich I luiow not how 
to do, my dearest coz, withoiit- telling you that I 
am ever yours, W. C. 



TO SAMUEL rose; ESa. 

DEAR SIR, Weston, Dec. 13, 1787. 

Unless my memory deceives me, I 'forewarned 
you that I should prove a very unpunctual corres- 
pondent. The work that lies before me engages 
unavoidably my whole attention. The length of 
it, the spirit of it, and the exactness that is requi- 
site m its due performance, are so many most in- 
teresting subjects of consideration to me, who find 
that my best attempts are only introductory to 
others, and that what to day I suppose finished, 
to-morrow I must begin again. Thus it fares 
with a translator of Homer. To exliibit the ma- 
jesty of such a poet in a modern language is a 



Let. 260, 261. 



LETTERS, 



315 



task that no man can estimate the difficulty of till 
he attempts it. To paraphrase him loosely, to 
hang him with trappings that do not belong to him, 
all this is comparatively easy. But to represent 
him with only liis own ornaments, and still to pre- 
serve his dignity, is a labour that, if I hope in any 
measure to achieve it, I am sensible can only be 
achieved by the most assiduous, and most unre- 
mitting attention. Our studies, however different 
in themselves, in respect of the means by which 
they are to be successfully carried on, bear some 
resemblance to each other. A perseverance that 
nothing can discourage, a minuteness of observa- 
tion that suffers nothijig to escape, and a determi- 
nation not to be seduced from the straight line that 
lies before us, by any images with which fancy 
may present us, are essentials that should be com- 
mon to us both. There are perhaps few arduous 
undertakings, that are not in fact more arduous 
than we at first supposed them. As we proceed, 
difficulties increase upon us, but our hopes gather 
strength also, and we conquer difficulties which, 
could we have foreseen them, we should never have 
had the boldness to encounter. May this be your 
experience, as 1 doubt not that .it will. You pos- 
sess by nature all that is necessary to success in 
the profession that you have chosen. What re- 
mains is in j'our own power. They say of poets 
that they must be born such: so must mathemati- 
cians, so must great generals, and so must law- 
yers, and so indeed must men of all denominations, 
or it is not po'ssible that they should excel. But 
with whatever faculties we are born, and to what 
ever studies, our genius may direct us, studies they 
must still be. I am persuaded, that Milton did 
not write his Paradise Lost, nor Homer his Iliad, 
nor Newton his Principia, without immense la- 
bour. Nature gave them a bias to their respective 
pursuits, and that strong propensity, I suppose, is 
what We mean by genius. The rest they gave 
themselves. "Macte esto," therefore, have no 
. fears for the issue ! 

I have had a second kind letter from your friend 

Mr. , wliich I have just answered. I must 

not I find hope to see him here, at least I must 
not much expect it. He has a family that does 
not permit him to fly southward. I have also a 
notion, that we three cotild spend a few days com- 
fortably together, especially in a country like this, 
abounding in scenes with which I am sure you 
would both be delighted. Having lived till lately 
at some distance from the spot that I now inhabit, 
and having never been master of any sort of ve- 
hicle whatever, it is- but just now that 1 begin my- 
self to be acquainted with the beauties of our situ- 
ation. To you I may hope, one time or other, to 
show them, and shall be happy to do it, when an 
opportunity offers. 

Yours, most affectionately^ W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge., Jan. 1, 1788. 

Now for another story almost incredible! A 
story that would be quite such, if it was not cer- 
tain that you give me credit for any thing. I 
have read the poem for the sake of which you 
sent the paper, and was much entertained by it. 
You think it perhaps, as very well you may, the 
only piece of that kind that was ever produced. 
Ik is indeed- original, for I dare say Mr. Merry 
never saw mine; but certainly it is not unique. 
For most true it is, my dear, that ten years since, 
having a letter to write to a friend of mine, to 
whom I could write any thing, I filled a whole 
sheet with a composition, both in measure and 
in mariner precisely similar. I have in vain 
searched for it. It is either burnt or lost. Could 
I have found it, you would have had double post- 
age to pay. For that one man in Italy, and ano- 
ther in England, who never saw each other, 
should stumble on a' species of verse, in which no 
other man ever wrote (and I believe that to be the 
case) and upon a style and manner too, of which, 
I suppose, that neither of them had ever seen an 
example, appears to me so extraordinary a fact, 
that I must have sent you mine, whatever it had 
cost you, and am really vexed that I can not au- 
thenticate the story by producing a voucher. 
The measure I recollect to have been perfectly 
the same, and as to the manner I am equally sure 
of that, and from this circurnstance, that Mrs. 
Unwin and I never laughed more at any produc- 
tion of mine; perhaps not even at John Gilpin. 
But for all this, my dear, you must, as I said, 
give me credit; for the thing itself is gone to thai 
limbo of vanity, where alone, says Milton, things 
lost on earth are to be mej with. Said- limbo is, 
as you know, in the moon, whither I could not at 
present convey myself without a good deal of dif- 
ficulty and inconvenience. 

This morning being the morning of new year's 
day, I sent to the hall a copy of verses, addressed 
to Mrs. Throckmorton, entitled, the Wish, or the 
Poet's New Year's Gift. We dine there to-mor- 
row, when, I suppose, I shall hear news of them. 
Their kindness is so gre&,t, and they seize with 
such eagerness every opportunity of doing all 
they think will please us, that I held myself al- 
most in duty bound to treat them with this stroke 
of my profession. 

The small pox has done, I believe, all that it 
has to do at Weston. Old folks, and even women 
with child, have been inoculated. We talk of 
our freedom, and some of us are free enough, but 
not the poor. Dependant as they are upon parish 
bounty, they are sometimes obliged to submit to 
impositions, which perhaps in France itself could 
hardly be paralleled. Can mart or woman be said 



31G 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 261, 262. 



to be free, who is commanded to take a distemper, 
sometimes at least mortal, and in circumstances 
most likely to make it so 1 No circumstance what- 
ever was permitted to exempt the inhabitants of 
Weston. The old as well as the young, and the 
pregnant as well' as they who had only themselves 
within them, have been inoculated. Were I ask- 
ed who is the most arbitrary sovereign on earth 1 
I should answer, neither the king of France, nor 
the grand signor, but an overseer of the poor in 
England. . _ 

I am as heretofore occupied with Homer: my 
present occupation is the revisal of all I have 
done, viz. of the first fifteen books. I stand 
amazed at my own increasing dexterity in the 
business, being verily persuaded that, as far as I 
have gone, I have improved the work to double 
its former value. 

That you may begin tlie new year and end it 
in all health and happiness, and majiy more when 
the present shall have been long an old one, 
is the ardent wish of Mrs. Unwin, and of yours, 
my dearest coz, most cordially, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT, 

MY DEAR FRIEND, WestoTi, Jan 5, 1788. 

1 THANK you for your information concerning 
the author of the translation of those lines. Had 
a man of less note and ability than Lord Bagot 
produced it, 1 should have been discouraged. As 
it is, I comfort myself with the thought, that even 
he accounted it an achievement worthy of his 
powers, and that even he found it difficult. 
Though I never had the honour to be knovra to 
his lordship, I remember hun well . at Westmin- 
ster, and the reputation in which he stood there. 
Since that time I have never seen Mm, except 
once, many years ago, in the House of Commons, 
when I heard him speak on the subject of a drain- 
age bill better than any member there. 

My first thirteen books have been criticised in 
London ; have been by me accommodated to those 
criticisms, returned to London in their improved 
state, and sent back to Weston with an impri- 
mantur, This would satisfy some poets less anxi- 
ous than myself about what they expose in public ; 
but it has not satisfied me. 1 am now revising 
them agam by the light of my own critical taper, 
and make more alterations than at the first. But 
are they improvements % you will ask — Is not the 
spirit of the work endangered by all this attention 
to correctness! I think and hope that it is not. 
Being well aware of the possibility of such a ca- 
tastrophe, 1 guard particularly against it. Where 
I find that a servile adherence to the original would 
render the passage less animated than it should 
be, I still, as at the first, allow myself a liberty. 



On all other occasions I prune with an unsparing 
hand, determined that there shall not be found in 
the whole translation an idea that is not Homer's, 
My ambition is to produce the closest copy possi- 
ble, and at the same time as harmonious as I 
know how to make it. This being my object, you 
will no longer think, if indeed j^ou have thought 
it at all, that I am unnecessarily and over much 
industrious. The original surpasses every thing ; 
it is of an immense length, is composed in the 
best language ever used upon earth, and deserves, 
indeed demands all the labour that any translator, 
be he who he may, can possibly bestow on it. Of 
this I am sure, and your brother the good bishop 
is of tlie same mind, that, at present, mere Eng- 
lish readers know no more of Homer in reality, 
than if he had never been translated. That con- ■ 
sideration indeed it was, wliich mainly induced 
me to the undertaking ; and if after all, either 
through idleness, or dotage upon what I have al- 
ready done, I leave it chargeable with the same 
incorrectness as my predecessors, or indeed with 
any other that I may be able to amend, I had 
better have amused myself otherwise. And you I 
know are of my opinion. . 

I send you the clerk's verses, of which I told 
you. They are very clerklike, as you will per- 
ceive. But plain truth in plain words seemed to 
me to be the ne plus ultra of composition on such 
an occasion. I might have attempted something 
very fine, but then the persons principally concern- 
ed, viz. my readers, would not have understood me. 
If it puts them in mind that they are mortal, its 
best end is answered. My dear Walter, adieu! 
Yours faithfiilly, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, Jan. 19, 1788. 

When I have prose enough to fill my paper, 
which is always the case when I write to you, I 
can not find in my heart to give a third part of it 
to verse. • Yet this I must do, or I must make my 
pacquets more costly than worshipful, by doubling 
the postage upon you, which I should hold to be 
unreasonable. See then .the true reason why I did 
not send you that same scriliblemeht till you de- 
sired it. The thought whicji naturally presents 
itself to me on all such occasions is this — Is not 
your cousin coming 1 Why are you mipatient 1 
Will it not be time enough to show her your fine 
things when she arrives % 

Fine things indeed I have few. He who has 
Homer to transcribe may well be contented to do 
little else. As when an ass, being harnessed with 
ropes to a sand cart, drags with hanging ears hi.s 
heavy burthen, neither filling the long echoing 
streets with his harmonious bray, nor throvsdng up 



Let. 263,264. 



LETTERS. 



317 



his heels behind, frohclwome and airy, as asses less 
engaged are wont to do ; so I, satisfied to find my- 
self indispensably obliged to render into the best 
possible English metre eight and forty Greek books, 
of which the two finest poems in the world consist, 
account it quite sufficient if I may at last achieve 
that labour ; and seldom allow myself those pretty 
little vagaries, in which I should otherwise delight, 
and of which, if I should hve long enough, I in- 
tend hereafter to enjoy my fill. 

This is the reason, my dear cousin, if I may be 
permitted to call you so in the same breath with 
which I have uttered this truly heroic comparison, 
this is the reason why I produce at present but few 
occasional poems, and the preceding reason is that 
which may account satisfactorily enough for my 
withholding the very few that I do produce. A 
thought sometimes strikes me before I rise ; if it 
runs readily into verse, and I can finish it before 
breakfast, it is well ; otherwise it dies, and is for- 
gotten; for all the subsequent hours are devoted to 
Homer. ■ 

The day before yesterday, I saw for the first 
time Bunbury's new print, the Propagation of a 
Lie. Mr. Throckmortpn sent it for the amuse- 
ment of our party. Bunbury sells humour by the 
yard, and is, I suppose, the first vender of it who 
ever did so. He can not, therefore, be said to have 
humour without measure (pardon .a pun, my dear, 
from a man who has not made one before these 
forty years) though he may certainly be said to be 
immeasurably droll. 

The original thought isgood-, and the exemplifi 
cation of it, in those very expressive figures, admi- 
rable. A poem on the same subject, displaying all 
that is displayed in those attitudes, and in those 
features, (for faces they can hardly be called) would 
be most excellent. The affinity of the two arts, 
viz. verse and painting,' has been observed ; possi- 
bly the happiest illustration of it would be found, 
if some poet would ally himself to some draughts- 
man, as Bunbury, and undertake to write tevery 
thing he should draw. Then let a musician be 
admitted of the party. He should compose the 
said poem, adapting notes to it exactly accommo- 
dated to the theme ; so should the sister arts be 
proved to be indeed sisters, and the world die of 
laugloing. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, The Lodge, Jan. 30, 1788. 
It is a fortnight since 1 heard from you, that is 
to say, a week longer than you have accustomed 
me to wait for a letter. I do not forget that you 
have recommended it to me, on occasions somewhat 
similar, to banish all anxiety, and to ascribe your 
eilence only to the interruptions of company. Good 



advice, my dear, but not easily taken by a man 
circumstanced as I am. I have learned in the 
school of adversity, a school from which I have no 
expectation that I shall ever be dismissed, to ap- 
jirehend the worst, and have ever found it the on- 
ly course in which I can indulge myself without 
the least danger of incurring a disappointment. 
This land of experience, continued through 
many years, has given me such an habitual bias to 
the gloomy side of every thing, that I never have 
a moment's ease on any subject to which 1 am not 
inditfercnt. How then can I be easy, when I am 
left afloat upon a sea of endless conjectures of 
which you furnish the occasion 1 Write I beseech 
you, and do not forget that I am now a battered' 
actor upon this turbulent stage ; that what little 
vigour of mind I ever had, of the self-supporting 
kmd I mean, has long since been broken ; and that 
though I can bear nothing well, yet any thing bet- 
ter than a state of ignorance concerning your wel- 
fare. I have spent hours in the night leaning up- 
on my elbow and wondering what your silence 
means. I entreat you once more to put an end to 
these speculations, which cost me more animal spi- 
rits than I can spare ; if you can not without great 
trouble to yourself, which in your situation may 
verj^ possibly be the case, contrive opportunities of 
writing so frequently as usual, only say it, and I 
am content. I will wait, if you desire it, as long 
for every letter, but then let them arrive at the pe- 
riod once fixed, exactly at the time, for my patience 
will not hold out an hour beyond it. W. C 



TO LADY HESKETH. • 

The Lodge, Feb. I, rm. 

Pardon me, my dearest cousin, the mournfial 
ditty that I sent you last. There are times when 
I see every thmg through a mediiun that distress- 
es me to an insupportable degree, and that letter 
was written in one of them. A fog that had for 
three days obliterated all the beauties of Weston, 
and a north-east wind, might possibly contribute 
not a Httle to the melancholy that indited it. But 
my mind is now easy, your letter has made it so, 
and I feel myself as blithe as a bird in comparison. 
I love you, my cousin, and can not suspect, either 
with or without cause, the least evil in which you 
may be concerned, without being greatly troubled ! 
Oh trouble ! the portion of all mortals — but mine 
in particular. Would I had never known thee, or 
could bid thee farewell for ever ; for I meet thee at 
every turn, my pillows are stuffed with thee, my 
very roses smell of thee, and even my cousin, who 
would cure me of all trouble if she could, is some- 
times innocently the cause of trouble to me. 

I now see the unreasonableness of my late trou- 
ble, and would, if I could tmst myself so far, pro- 



318 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 265. 



mise never again to trouble either myself or you in 
the same manner, unless warranted by some more 
substantial ground of appreliension. 

What I said concerning Homer, my dear, was 
spoken, or rather written, merely under the influ- 
ence of a certain jocularity, that I felt at that mo- 
ment. I am in reality so far from thinking myself 
an ass, and. my translation a sand-cart, that 1 ra- 
ther seem, in my own account of the matter, one 
of tliose flaming steeds harnessed to the chariot of 
Apollo, of which we read in the works of the an- 
cients. I have lately, I know not how, acquired a 
certain superiority to myself in this business, and 
in this last revisal have elevated the expression to 
a degree far surpassing its former boast. A few 
evenings since I had an opportunity to try how far 
I might venture to expect such success of my la- 
bours as can alone repay them, by reading the first 
book of my Iliad to a friend of oui's. He dined 
with you once at Olney. His name is Greatheed, 
a man of letters and of taste. He dined with us, 
and the evening proving dark and dirty, we per- 
suaded him to take a bed. I entertained him as 
I tell you. • He heard me with great attention, and 
with evident symptoms of the highest satisfaction, 
which, when I had finished the exhibition, he put 
out of all doubt by expressions which I can not 
repeat. Only tins he said to Mrs. Unwin while 
I was in another room, that he had never entered 
into the spirit of Homer before, nor had any thing 
lilie a due conception of his manner. This I have 
said, knowing that it will please you, and will now 
say no more. 

Adieu ! my dear, will you never speak of coming 
to Weston morel W. C 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

DEAR SIR, The Lodge, Feb. 14, 1788. 

Though it be long since I received your last, I 
have not yet forgotten the impression it madi. upon 
me, nor how sensibly I felt myself obliged by your 
unreserved and friendly commmiications. I will 
not apologize for my silence in the interim, be- 
cause, apprised as you are of my present occupa- 
tion, the excuse that I might allege will present 
itself to you of coiirse, and to dilate upon it woidd 
therefore be waste of paper. 

You are in possession of the best security ima- 
ginable for the due improvement of your time, 
which is a just sense of its value. Had I been, 
when at your age, as much affected by that im- 
portant consideration as I am at present, 1 should 
not have devoted, as I did, all the earliest parts of 
my life to amusement only. I am now in the pre- 
dicament into which the thoughtlessness of youth 
betrays nine-tenths of mankind, who never disco- 
ver that the health and good spirits, which gene- 
rally accompany it, are in reality blessings oidy 



according to the use we make of them, till ad- 
vanced years begin to threaten them with the loss 
of both. How much wiser would thousands have 
been, than now they ever will be, had a puny con- 
stitution, or some occasional infirmity, constrained 
tlrcm to devote those hours to gtudy and 1-eflection, 
which for want of some such check they have given 
entirely to dissipation! I, therefore, account you 
happy, who, young as you are, need not be in- 
formed that you can not always be so; and who 
already know that the materials, upon which age 
can alone build its comfort, should be brought to- 
gether at an earlier period. You have indeed, in 
losing a father, lost a friend, but you have not lost 
his instructions. His example was not buried 
with hmi, but happily for you (happily because 
you are desirous to avail yourself of it) still lives 
in your remembrance, and is cherished in your 
best aflfections. 

Your last letter was dated from the house of a 
gentleman, who was, I believe, my schoolfellow. 

For the Mr. C , who Uved at Watford, 

wliile I had any connexion with Hertfordshire, 
must have been the father of the present, and ac- 
cording to his age, and the state of his health, 
when I saw hini last, must have been long dead. I 
never was acquainted with the family farther thart 
by report, which always spoke honourably of them, 
though in all my journeys to and from my father's 
I must have passed the door. The circumstance 
however reminds me of the beautiful reflection of 
Glaucus in the sixth lUad; beautiful as well for 
the affecting nature of the observation, as for the 
justness of the comparison, and the incomparable 
simplicity of the expression. I feel that I shall 
not be satisfied without transcribing it, and yet 
perhaps my Greek may be difficult to decipher. 
0/« Ttig <^uKKuy yivi», Totni'i x.cii a.vJ'gaiv, 
^uKKu TO. /U.IV t' avijuoc ^(^UfAuS't; ■^nt, clkkh. Si 6' v\» 

'P.i uvJ'fimv yivtn, >i ^sv <f usi, « </"' ctTrojiyti. 

Excuse this piece of pedantry in a man whose 
Homer is always before him ! What would I give 
that he were living now, and within my reach ! I, 
of all men living, have the best exciise for indulg- 
ing such a wish, unreasonable as it may seem, for 
I have no doubt that the fire of his eye, and the 
smile of his lips, would put me now and then in 
possession of his full meaning more efiectually than 
any commentator. I return you many thanks for 
the elegies which you sent me, both which I think 
deser\'ing of much commendation. I should re- 
quite you but ill by sending you my mortuary 
verses, neither at present can 1 prevail on myself 
to do it, having no frank, and being conscious that 
they are not worth carriage ■vyithout one. I have 
one copy left, and that copy I will keep for you. 

W. C. 



Let. 266. 267. 



LETTERS. 



319 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, Feb. 16, 1788. 

I HAVE now three letters of yours, my dearest 
cousin, before nic, all written in the space of a 
•week, and must be indeed insensible of kindness, 
did I not feel yours on this occasion. I can not 
describe to you, neither could you comprehend it 
if I should, the manner in which my mind is some- 
times impressed with melancholy on particular 
subjects. Your late silence was such' a subject. 
I heard, saw, and felt, a thousand terrible things, 
which had no real existence, and was haunted by 
them night and day, till they at last extorted from 
me the doleful epistle, which I have since wished 
had been burned before I sent it. But the cloud 
was passed, and as far as you are concerned, my 
heart is once more at rest. 

Before you .gave me the hint, I had once or 
twice, as I lay on my bed, watching the break of 
day, ruminated on the subject wliich, in your last 
but one, you recommended to me. 

Slavery, .or a 'release from slavery, such as the 
poor negroes have endured, or perhaps both these 
topics together, appeared to me a theme so impor- 
tant at the present juncture, and at the same time 
so susceptible of poetical management, that I more 
than once perceived myself ready to starf in that 
career, could I have allowed myself to desert Ho- 
mer for so long a time as it would have cost me to 
do them justice. 

While I was pondering these things, the public 
prints infornied me that Miss More was on the 
point of publication, having actually finished what 
I had not yet begun. 

The sight of her advertisement convinced me 
that my best coarse would be that to which I felt 
myself most inclined, to persevere, without turn- 
ing aside to attend to any other call, however al- 
luring, in the busiliess I have in hand. 

It occurred to me likewise, that I have already 
borne my testimony in favour of my black brethren ; 
and that I was one of the earliest, if not the first, 
of those who have in the present day expressed 
their detestation of the diabolical traffic in ques- 
tion. 

On all these accounts I judged it best to be si- 
lent, and especially because I can not doubt that 
some effectual measures will now be taken to alle- 
viate the miseries of their condition, the whole na- 
tion being in possession of the case, and it being 
impossible also to allege an argument in behalf of 
man-merchandize, that can deserve a hearing. I 
shall be glad to see Hannah More's poem ; she i^ 
a favourite writer with me, and, has more nerve 
and energy both in her thoughts and language 
than half the he-rhymers in the kingdom. The 
Thoughts on the Maimers of the Great will like- 



wise be most acceptable. I want to learn as much 
of the wjirld as I can, but to acquire that learning 
at a distance, and a book with sucli a title pro- 
mises fair to serve the purpose ellectually. 

I recommend it to you, my dear, by all means 
to embrace the fair occasion, and to put yourself 
in the way of being squeezed and incommoded a 
few hours, for the sake of hearing and seeing what 
you will never have an opportunity to see and 
hear hcreal'ter, the trial of a man who has been 
greater, and more feared than the great Mogul 
himself Whatever we are at home, we certainly 
have .been tyrants in the East; and if these men 
have, as they are charged, rioted in the miseries 
of the innocent, and dealt death to the guiltless, 
with an unspt^ring hand, may they receive a re- 
tribution that shall in future make all governors 
and judges of ours, in those distant regions, trem- 
ble. While I speak thus, I equally wish them ac- 
quitted. They were both my schoolfellows, and 
for Hastings I had a particular value. Farewell. 

W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

TJie Lodge, Feb. 22, 1788. 

I DO not wonder that your ears and feelings 
were hurt by Mr. Burke's severe invective. But 
you are to know, my dear, or prohably you know 
it already, that the prosecution of public delin- 
quents has always, and in all countries, been thus 
conducted. The style of a criminal charge of this 
kind has been an affair settled among orators from 
the days of Tully to the present, and like all other 
practices tliat have obtained for ages, this in 
particular seems to have been founded originally 
in reason, and in the necessity of the case. 

He who accuses another to the state, must not 
appear himself unmoved by the 'view Of crunes 
with which he charges him,' le§t he should be sus- 
pected of fiction, or of precipitancy, or of a con- 
sciousness that after all he shall not be able to 
prove his allegations. On the contrary, in order 
to impress the minds of his hearers with a persua- 
sion that he himself at least is convinced of the 
criminality of the prisoner, he must be vehement, 
energetic, rapid ; must call hun tyrant and traitor, 
and every thing else that is odious, and all this to 
his face, because all this, bad as it is, is no more 
than he undertakes to prove in the sequel ; and if 
he can not prove it he mlist himself appear in a 
light little more desirable, and at the best to have 
trifled with the tribunal to which he haa siun- 
moned him. 

Thus Tully, in the very first instance of his 
oration against Catiline, calls him a monster; a 
manner of address in which he persisted till said 
I monster, vmable to support the fury of his accu- 



320 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 268, 269, 



ser's eloqupncc any longer, rose from bis seat, el- 
bowed for liiinself a passage through the crowd, 
and at last burst from the senate house in an 
agony, as if the furies themselves had followed 
him. 

And now, my dear, though I have thus spoken, 
and have seemed to plead the cause of that spe- 
cies of eloquence which you, and every creature 
wlio has your sentiments must necessarily dislike, 
perhaps I am not altogetlier convinced of its pro- 
priety. Perhaps, at the bottom, I am much more 
of opinion that if the charge, unaccompanied by 
any inflammatory matter, and simply detailed, be- 
ing once delivered into the court, and read aloud ; 
the witnesses were immediately examined, and 
sentence pronounced according to the evidence ; 
not only the process would be shbrtened, much 
time and much expense saved, but. justice would 
have at least as fair play as now she has. Preju- 
dice is of no use in weighing the question — guilty 
or not guilty — and the principal aim, end, and 
effect of such introductory^ harangues is to create 
as much prejudice as possible. When you and I 
therefore shall have the sole management of such 
a business entrusted to us," we will order it other- 
wise. 

I was glad to learn from the papers that our 
cousin Henry shone as he did in reading the charge, 
Tliis must have given mucli pleasure to the Gen- 
eral. Thy ever affectionate, W. C. . 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, March 3, 1788. 
One day last week, Mrs. Unwin and I, having 
taken our morning walk, and returning homeward 
through the wilderness, met the Throckmortons. 
A minute after we had met them, we heard t]ie 
cry of hounds at no great distance, and raountuig 
the broad stump of jm elm, which had been felled, 
and by the aid of which we were enabled to look 
over the wall, we saw them. They were aU at 
that time in our orchard ; presently we lieard a 
terrier belonging to Mrs. Throckmorton, which 
you may remember l)y the name of Furj'', yelping 
with much vehemence, and saw her running 
through the thickets within a few yards of us at 
her utmost speed, as if in pursuit of something 
which we doul)tcd not was the fox. Before we 
could reach the other end of the wilderness, the 
hounds entered also ; and when we arrived at the 
gate which opens into the grove, there we found 
the whole weary cavalcade assembled. The hunts- 
man dismounting begged leave to follow his hounds 
on foot, for he was sure, he said, that they had 
killed him. A conclusion which I suppose he 
drew from their profound silence. He was ac- 
cordingly admitted, and with a sagacity that would 



not liave dishonoured the best hound in the world, 
pursuing precisely the same track which the fox 
and the dogs had taken, though he had never had 
a glimpse of either after their first entrance through 
the rails, arrived where he found the slaughtered 
prey. He soon produced dead reynard, and re- 
joined us in the grove with all his dogs about him. 
Flaving an opportunity to see a ceremony, wliich 
I was pretty sure would never fall in my way again, 
I determined to stay, and to notice all that passed 
witli the most minute attention. The huntsman 
ha\ing, by the aid of a pitchfork, lodged reynard 
on the arm of an elm, at the height of about nine 
feet from the ground, there left liim for a consid- 
erable time. The gentlemen sat on their horses 
contemplating the fox, for which they had toiled .so 
hard ; and the hounds assembled at the foot of the 
tree, with faces not less expressive of the most ra- 
tional delight, contemplated the same object. The 
huntsman remounted ; cut off a fogt and threw it 
to the hounds — one of them swaUowed it whole 
like a bolus. He then once more alighted, and 
drawing down the fox by the hinder legs, desired 
the people, who were by this tune rather numer- 
ous, to open a lane for him to the right and left. 
He was instantly obeyed, when throwing the fox 
to the distance of some yards, and screaming like 
a fiend, "tear him to pieces" — at least six times 
repeatedly, he consigned him over absolutely to 
the pack, who in a few minutes devoured him com- 
pletely. Thus, my dear, as Virgil says, what none 
of the gods could have ventured to promise me, 
time itself, pursuing its accustomed course, has of 
its own accord presented me with. I have been 
in at the death of a fox, and you now know as 
much of the matter as I, who am as well informed 
as any sportsman in England. 

Yours, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, March 12, 1788. 

Slavery, and the Mamiers of the Great, I have 
read. The fonlic;r I admired, as I do all that Miss 
More writes, as well for energy of expression, as 
for the teniiency of tlie design. I have never yet 
seen any production of her pen j that has not re- 
commended itself by both these qualifications. 
There is likewise much good sense in her manner 
of treating every subject, and no mere poetic cant 
(which is the thing that I abhor,) in her manner 
of treating any. And this I say, not because you 
now know and visit her, but it has long been my 
opinion of her works, wliich I have both spoken 
and written, as often as I have had occasion to 
mention them. 

Mr. Wilberforce's little book (if he was the au- 
thor of it) has also charmed me. It must, I should 



Let. 270, 271. 



LETTERS. 



321 



imagine, engage the notice of those to whom it is 
addressed. In that case one may say to them, 
either answer it, or be set down by it- They will 
do neither. They will approve, commend, and for- 
get it. Such has been the fate of all exhortations 
to reform, whether in verse or prose, and however 
closely pressed upon the conscience, in all ages. 
Here and there a happy individual, to whom God 
gives grace and wisdom to profit by the admonition, 
is the better for it. But the aggregate body (as 
Gilbert Cooper used to call the multitude) remain, 
though with a very good un,derstanding of the 
matter, like horse and mule that have none. 

We shall now soon lose our neighbours at the 
Hall. We shall truly miss them, and long for 
their return.- Mr. Throckmorton said to me last 
night, with sparkling eyes, and a face expressive 
of the highest pleasure — " We compared you this 
morning with Pope ; we read your fourth Iliad, 
and his, and I verily think we shall beat hun. 
He has many superfluous lines, and does not in- 
terest one. When I read your translation, I am 
deeply afiected. I see plainly your advantage, and 



tunity should occur, send them also, If this amuses 
you. I shall be glad.* W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, .March 19, 1788. 

The spring is come, but xiot I suppose that 
spring which our poets have celebrated. So I 
judge at least by the extreme severity of the season, 
sunless skies, and freezing blasts, surpassing all 
that we experienced in the depth of winter. How 
do you dispose of yourself in this howling month 
of JMarchl As for me, I walk daily, be the wea- 
ther what it may, take bark, and write verses. 
By the aid of such means as these, I combat the 
north-east wind with some measure of success, and 
look forward, with the hope' of enjoymg it, to the 
warmth of summer. 

Ha:v6 you seen a, little volume lately published, 
entitled The Manners of the Great 7 It is said to 
have been written by Mr. Wilberforce, but whe- 
ther actually written by hiiii or not, is undoubtedly 



am convinced that Pope spoiled all by attempting i the work of some man intimately acquainted with 
the work in rhyme." His brother George, who is the subject, a gentleman, and a man of letters. If 



my most active amanuensis, and who indeed first 
introduced the subject, seconded all he said. More 
would have passed, but Mrs. Throckmorton hav- 
ing seated herself at the harpsichord, and for my 
amusement merely, my attention was of course 
turned to her. The new vicar of OIney is ar- 



it makes the impression on those to whom it is 
addressed, that may be in some degree expected 
from his arguments, and from his manner of press- 
ing them, it will be well. But you and I have lived 
long enough in the world to know that the hope 
of a general reformation in any class of men what- 



rived, and we have exchanged visits. He is -a ever, or of womeo either, may easily be too san- 

plain, sensible man, and pleases me much. A o-mne. 

treasure for Olney, if Ohiey can understand his I have now given the last revisal to as much 

"vahie. W. C. of my translation as was ready for it, and do not 

know, that I shall bestow another single stroke 
of my pen on that part of it before I send it to the 
press. My business at present is with the six- 
teenth book, in which I have made some progress, 
but have not yet actually sent forth Patrocles to 
the battle. My first translation lies always before 
me, line by Une I examine it as I proceed, and line 
by line reject it. I do not however hold myself 
altogether indebted to my critics for the better 
judgment, that I seem to exercise in this matter 
now than in the first instance. By long study 
of hun, I am in fact become much more familiar 
with Homer than at any time heretofore, and 
have possessed myself of such a taste of his man- 
ner, as is not to be attained by mere cursory read- 
ing for amusement. But, alas! 'tis after all a 
mortifying consideration that the majority of my 
judges hereafter will be no judges of this. Grmcum 
est, non potest Tegi, is a motto that would suit 
nine in ten of those who will give themselves airs 
about it, and pretend to Uke or to disUke. No mat- 



TO GENERAL COWPER. 

MY DEAR GENERAL, Weston, 1788. 

A LETTER is not pleasant which excites curiosi- 
ty, but does not gratify it. Such a letter was my 
last, the defects of which I therefore take the first 
opportmaity to supply. When the condition of our 
negroes in the islands was first presented to me as 
a subject for songs, I felt m^^self not at all allured 
to the undertaking : it seemed to offer only images 
of horror, which could by no means be accommo- 
dated to the style of that sort of composition. But 
having a desire to comply, if possible, with the re- 
quest made to me, after turning the matter in my 
mind as many ways as I could, I at last, as I told 
you, produced three, and that which appears to 
myself the best of those three, I have sent you. Of 
the Other two, one is serious, in a strain of thouo-ht 
perhaps rather too serious, and I could not help 
it. The other, of which the slave-trader is himself 
the subject, is somewhat ludicrous. If I could 
think them worth your seeing, I would, as oppor- ter, 



* The Morning Dream (see Poenis) accompanied this Let- 



322 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 272, 273. 



ter. I know I shall please yon, because I know 
■what pleases you, and am sure that I have done 
it. Adieu! my good friend. 

Ever affectionately yours, W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, WestoTi, March 29, 1788. 

I REJOICE that you have so successfully perform- 
ed so long a journey without the aid of hoofs or 
wheels. ■ I do not know that a journey on foot 
exposes a man to rtiore disasters than a carriage 
or a horse ; perhaps it may be the safer way of tra- 
veling, but the noveltjr of it impressed me with 
some anxiety on your account. 

It seems almost incredible to myself, that my 
company should be at all desirable to you, or to 
any man. I know so little of the world as it goes 
at present, and labour generally under such a de- 
pression of spirits, especially at those times when 
I could wish to be most cheerfulj that my own 
share in every conversation appears to me to be 
the most insipid thing imaginable. But you say 
you found it otherwise, and I will not for my, own 
sake doubt your sincerity, de gusHbiis non est 
disputandum, and since such is yours, I shall 
leave j^pu in quiet possession of it, wishing indeed 
both its continuance and increase. I shall not find 
a properer place in which to say, accept of Mrs. 
Unwin's acknowledgments, as. well as mine^ for 
the kindness of your expressions on this subject, 
and be assured of an undissemblmg welcome at 
all times, when it shall suit you tp give us your 
company at Weston. As to her, she is one of the 
sincerest of the human race, and if she receives 
you with the appearance of pleasure, it is because 
she feels it. Her behaviour on such occasions is 
with her an affair of conscience, and she dares no 
more look a falsehood than utter one. 

It is almost time to tell you that I have received 
the books safe, they have not suffered the least 
detriment by the way, and I am much obliged to 
you for them. If my translation should be a httle 
delayed in consequence of this favour of yoiirs, 
you must take the blame on yourself It is impos- 
sible not to read the notes of a commentator so 
learned, so judicious, and of so fine a taste as Dr. 
Clarke, having him at one's elbow. Though he 
has been but a few hours under my roof, I have 
already peeped at him, and find that lie will be 
instar omnium to me. They arc such notes ex- 
actly as I wanted. A tra.nslator of Homer should 
ever have somebody at hand to say, "that's a 
beauty,'.' lest he should slumber where his author 
does not; not only depreciating, by such inadver- 
tency, the work of his original, but depriviiig per- 



haps his own of an embellishment which wanted 
only to be noticed. 

If you hear ballads sung in the streets on the 
hardships of the negroes in the islands, they are 
probably mine. It must be an honour to any man 
to have given a stroke to that chain, however fee- 
ble. I fear however that the attempt will fail. The 
tidings which have lately reached me from Lon- 
don concerning it, are not the most encouraging. 
While the matter slept, or was but slightly ad- 
verted to, the English only had their share of 
shame in common with other nations on account 
of it. But since it has been canvassed and search- 
ed to the bottom, since the public attention has 
been riveted to the horrible scheme, we can no 
longer plead either that we did not know it, or 
did not think of it. Wo be to us if we refuse- the 
poor captives the redress to which they had so 
clear a right, and prove ourselves in the sight of 
God and men indiflerent to all considerations but 
those of gain! ~ Adieu. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, MarchSl, 1788. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, 

Mrs. Throckmorton has promised to write to 
me. I beg that as often as you shall see her you 
will give her a smart pinch, and say, " Have you 
written to my cousin"? I build all my hopes of her 
performance on this expedient, and for so doing 
these my letters, not patent, shall be your sufficient 
warrant. You are thus to give her the' question 
till she shall answer, " Yes." I have written one 
moire song, and Sent it. It is called the Morning 
Dream, and may be sung to the tune of Tweed- 
side, or any other tune that will suit, for I am not 
nice on that subject. I would have copied it for 
you, had I not almost filled my sheet without, it, 
but now, my dear, you must stay till the sweet 
syrens of London shall bring it to you^ or if that 
happy day should never arrive, I hereby acknow- 
ledge myself your debtor to that amount. I shall 
now probably cease t# sing of tortured negroes, a 
theme which never pleased me, but which in the 
hope of doing them some little service, I was not 
miwilling to handle. " 

If any tiling could have raised Miss More to a 
higher place in my opinion than she possessed 
before, it could only be your information that, 
after all, she, and not Mr. Wilberforce, is author 
of that volmnc. How comes it lo pass, tliat she, 
being a woman, writes with a fsrce, and energy, 
and a correctness hitherto arrogated by the men, 
and not very frequently disptayed even by the 
men themselves. Adieu, W. C. 



Let. 274, 275, 276. 



LETTERS. 



3-23 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, May 6, 1788. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, 

You ask me how I like Smollett's Don Cluix- 
otc'? I answer, well, perhaps better than any 
body's. But having no skill in the original, some 
diffidence becomes me. That' is to say, I da not 
know whether I ought to prefer it or not. Yet 
there is so little deviation from other versions of it 
which 1 have seen, that I do not much hesitate. 
It has made me laugh I know immoderately, and 
in- such a case ca siiffit. 

A thousand thanks, my dear, for the new con- 
venience in the way of stowage which you are so 
kind as to intend me.' There is nothing in which 
I am so deficient as repositories for letters, papers, 
and Utter of all sorts. Your last present has help- 
ed me somewhat; but not with respect to such 
things as require lock and key, which are niune- 
rous. A box therefore so secured will be to me 
an invaluable acquisition. And since you leave 
me to my option, what shall be the size thereof, I 
of course prefer a foho. On the back of the book- 
seeming box some artist, expert in those matters, 
may inscribe these words, 

Collectanea curiosa. 

The English of which is, a collection of curiosi- 
ties. A title wliich I prefer to all others, because 
if I live, 1 shall takecare that the box shall merit 
it, and because it wiU operate as an incentive to 
open thatj which being locked can hot be opened. 
For in these cases the greater the balk, the more 
wit is discovered by the ingenious contriver of it, 
viz. myself. 

The General 1 understand by his last letter is 
in town. In my last to him, I told him news ; 
possibly it wUl give you pleasure, and ought for 
that reason to be made known to you as soon as 
possible. My friend Rowley, who I told you has 
after twenty-five years' silence renewed his cor- 
respondence with me, and who now hves in Ire- 
land, where he has many and considerable con- 
nexions, has sent to me for thirty subscription 
papers. Rowley is one of the most benevolent 
and friendly creatures in the world, and will, I 
dare say, do all in his power to serve me. 

I am just recovered from a violent cold, attend- 
ed by a cough, which spht my head while it last- 
ed. I escaped these tortures all the winter, hut 
whose constitution, or what skin, can possibly be 
proof against our vernal breezes in England? 
Mine never were, nor will be. 

When people are intimate, we say they are as 
great as two irikle-weavers, on which expression 
I have to remark in the first place, that the word 
great is here used in a sense wliich the corres- 
ponding term has not, so far as I know, in any 



other language — and secorldly, that inkle-weavers 
contract intimacies with each other sooner than 
other people on account of their juxtaposition in 
weaving of inkle. Hence it is that Mr. Grcgson 
and I emulate those happy weavers in the close- 
ness of our cormexion. Wo Uve near to each 
other, and while the Hall is empty are each 
others' only cxtraforaneous comfort. 

Most truly tliine, W. C- 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

Weston, May 8, 1788. 

Alas ! my. library ! — I must now give it up for 
a lost thing for ever. The only consolation be- 
longing to the circumstance is, or seems to be, 
that no such loss did ei'er befall any other man, or 
can ever befall me again. As far as books are 
concerned I am 

Totus teres atque rotundus, 
and may set fortune at defiance. The books 
which had been my father's had most of them his 
arms on the inside cover, but the rest no mark, 
neither liis name nor mine. I could mourn for 
them hke Sancho for his Dapple, but it would 
avail me nothing. 

You will oblige me much by sending me Crazy 
Kate. A gentleman last mnter promised me 
both her and the Lace-maker, but he went to 
London, that place in which, as in the grave, 
" all things are forgotten," and I have never seen 
either of them, 

L begin to find some prospect of a conclusion, 
of the Iliad at least, now opening upon me, hav- 
ing reached the eighteenth book. Your letter 
found me yesterday in the very fact of dispersing 
the whole host of Troy by the voice only of Acliil- 
leSi There is nothing extravagant in the idea, for 
you have witnessed a similar effect attending even 
such a voice as mine at midnight, from a gan-et 
window, on the dogs of a whole parish, whom I 
have put to flight in a moment. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, May 12, 1788. 

It is probable, my dearest coz; that I shall not 
be able to write much, but as much as I can I 
will. The time between rising and breakfast is 
all that I can at present find, and this morning I 
lay longer than usual. 

In the style' of the lady's note to you I can easi- 
ly perceive a snatch of her- character. Neither 
men nor women write with such neatness of ex- 
pression, who have not given a good deal of at- 
tention to language, and qualified themselves by 
study. At the same time it gave me much more 



324 



* COWPER'S WbRKS. 



Let.-ST?, 278. 



pleasure to observe thafmy coz, though not stand- 
ing on the pinnacle of renown quite so elevated, 
as that .which lilts Mrs. Montagu to the clouds^ 
falls in no degree siiort of her in this particular; 
so that should she make you a member of her aca- 
demy, she will do it honour. Suspect mc not of 
flatteriucr you, for I abhor the thought; neither 
uill vou suspect it. Recollect that it is an invaria- 
ble rule with me, never to pay compliments to 
those I love. 

Two days, en suite, I have walked to Gayhurst; 
a longer journey than I have walked on foot these 
seventeen years. The first day I went alone, de- 
signing merely to make the experiment, and 
choosing to be at hberty to return at whatsoever 
point of my pilgrimage I should find myself fa- 
tigued. For I was not without suspicion that 
years, and some other things no less injurious 
than years, viz. melancholy and distress of niind, 
might by this time have unfitted me for such 
achievements. But I found it otherwise. I reach- 
ed the church, which stands, as you know, in the 
garden, in fifty-five minutes, and returned in ditto 
time to Weston. The next day I took the same 
walk with Mr. Powley, having a desire to show 
him the prettiest place in the country. I not only 
performed these two excursions without injury to 
my health, but have by means of them gained in- 
disputable proof that my ambulatory faculty is not 
yet impaired ; a discovery which, considering that 
to my feet alone I am likely, as I have ever been, 
to be indebted always for my transportation from 
place to place, I find very delectable. 

You will find in the Gentleman's Magazine a 
sonnet addressed to Henry Gowper, signed T. H. 
I am the writer of it. No creature knows tliis but 
yourself; you will make what use of the intelh- 
gence you shall see good. . W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, May 24, 1788. 

For two excellent prints I return you my sin- 
cere acknowledgments. I can not say that poor 
Kate remembles much the original, who was nei- 
ther so young nor so handsome as the pencil has 
represented her; but she was a figure well suited 
to the account given of her in the Task, and has 
a face exceedingly expressive of despairing me- 
lanchofy. The lace-maker is accidentally a good 
likeness of a yoiuig woman, once our neighbour, 
who was hardly less handsome than the picture 
twenty years ago; but the loss of one husband, 
and the acquisition of another, have, since that 
time, impaired her much ; yet she might still be 
supposed to have sat to the artist. 

We dined yesterday with your friend and mine, 
the most companionable and domestic Mr. C . 



The whole kingdom can hardly furnish a specta- 
cle more pleasing to a man who has a taste for 
true happiness, than himself, Mrs. C — — , and 
their multitudinous family. Seven long miles are 
Interposed between us, or perhaps I should oftener 
have an opportunity of declaiming on this subject. 

I am now in the nineteenth book of the Iliad, 
and on the point of .displaying such feats of hero- 
ism performed by Achilles, as make all other 
achievements trivial. I may well exclaim, O ! for 
a muse of fire ! especially having not only a great 
host to cope with, but a great river also; much 
however may be done, when Homer leads the way. 
I should not have chosen to have been the original 
author of such a business, even though all the nine 
had stood at my, elbow. Time has wonderful ef- 
fects. We admire that in an ancient, for which 
we should send a modern bard to Bedlam. 

I saw at Mr. C— — 's a great curiosity; an an- 
tique bust of Paris in Parian marble. You will 
conclude that it interested me exceedingly, I 
pleased myself with supposing that it once stood 
in Helen's chamber. It was in fact brought from 
the Levant, and though not wdl mended (for it 
had suffered much by time) is an admirable per- 
formance. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH 

MT DEAR COZ, The Lodge, 3Iay21, 1788. 

The General, in a letter which came yesterday, 
sent me enclosed a copy of my sonnet; thus intro- 
ducing it. 

" I send a copy of verses somebody has written 
in the Gentleman's Magazine for April last. In- 
dependent of my partiality towards the subject, I 
think the lines themselves are good." 

Thus it appears that my poetical adventure has 
succeeded to my vrish, and I wiite to him by this 
post, on purpose to inform him that the somebody 
in question is myself. 

I no longer wonder that Mrs. Montagu stands 
at the head of all that is called learned, , and that 
every critic veils his bonnet to her superior judg' 
ment. I am now reading, and have reached the 
middle of her Essay on the Genius of Shakspeare, 
a book of wlrich, strangers it may seem, though I 
must have read it formerly, I had absolutely forgot 
the existence. 

The learning, the good sense, tjie sound judg- 
ment, and the wit displayed in it, fully justify not 
only my compliment, but all compliments that 
I'itiier have been already paid to her talents, or 
shall bo paid hereafter. Voltaire, I doubt not, 
rejoiced that his antagonist wrote in English, and 
that his countrymen could not possibly be judges 
of the dispute. Could they have known how much 
she was in the right, and by how majiy thousand 



LET; 279, 280,281. 



LETTERS. 



32.5 



miles the bard of Avon is superior to all their 
dramatists, the French critic would have lost half 
his fame among them. 

I saw at Mr. C 's a head of Paris; an an- 
tique of Parian marble. His uncle, who left him 
the estate, brought it, as I understand, from the 
Levant : you may suppose I viewed it with all the 
enthusiasm that belongs to a translator of Homer. 
It is in reahty a great curiosity, and lughly valua- 
ble. 

Our friend Sephus has sent me two prints,- the 
Lacemaker and Crazy Kate. These also I have 
contemplated with pleasure, having as you know, 
a particular interest in them. The former of them 
is iiot more beautiful than a lace-maker, once our 
neighbour at Olney; though the artist has a,ssem- 
bled as many charms in her countenance as I ever 
saw in any covmtcnance, one excepted. Kate is 
both younger and handsomer than the original 
from which I drew, but she is in a good style, and 
as mad as need be. 

How does this hot weather suit thee, my dear, 
in London 1 as for me, with all my colonnades and 
bowers, I am quite oppressed by it. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. , 

The Lodge, June 3, 1188. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, 

The excessive heat of these last few days was 
indeed oppressive; but excepting the languor that 
it occasioned both in my mind and body, it was far 
from being prejudicial to me. It opened ten thou- 
sand pores, by which as many mischiefs, the ef- 
fects of, long obstruction, began to breathe them- 
selves forth abundantly. Then came an east 
wind, baneful to me at all times, but following so 
closely such a sultry season, uncommonly noxious. 
To speak in the seaman's phrase, not entirely 
strange to you, Iwas taken all aback; and the hu- 
mours which would have escaped, if old Eurus 
would have given them leave, finding every door 
shut, have fallen into my eyes. But in a country 
like this, poor miserable mortals must be content 
to suffer all that sudden and violent changes can 
inflict; and if they are quit for about half the 
plagues that Caliban calls down on Prospero, they 
may say we are well off", and dance for joy, if the 
rhemnatism or cramp will let them. 

Did you ever see an advertisement by one 
Fowle, a dancing-master of Newport, PagneH If 
not, I wUl contrive to send it to you for your 
amusement. It is the most extravagantly ludi- 
crous affair of the kind I ever saw. The author 
of it had the good hap to be crazed, or he had 
never produced any thing half so clever; for you 
will ever obser\'e, that they who are said to have 
lost their wits, have more than other people. It is 



therefore only a slander, with which envy prompts 
the malignity of persons in their senses to asperse 
wittier than themselves. But there are countries 
in the world, where the mad have justice done 
them, where they are revered as the subjects of in- 
spiration, and consulted as oracles. Poor Fowle 
would have made a figure there. W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Wcston, June 8, 1788. 

Your letter brought me the very first intelligence 
of the event it mentions. My last letter from La- 
dy Hesketh gave me reason enough to expect it, 
biit the certainty of it was unknown to me till I 
learned it by your information. If gradual de- 
cline, the consequence of great age, be a sufficient 
preparation of the mind to encounter such a loss, 
our minds were certainly prepared to meet it : yet 
to you I need not say that no preparation can su- 
persede the feelings of the heart on such occasions. 
While our friends yet live inhabitants of the same 
world with ourselves, they seem still to live to tis; 
we are sure that they sometimes think of us ; and 
however improbable it may seem, it is never im- 
possible that we may see each other once again. 
But the grave, like a- great gulf, swallow^s all such 
expectation, and in the moment when a beloved 
friend sinks into it, a thousand tender recollections 
awaken a regretj that will be felt in spite of all 
reasonings, and let our warnings have been what 
they may. Thus it is I take my last leave of poor 
Ashley, whose heart towards me was ever truly 
parental, and to whose memory I owe a tenderness 
and respect that will never leave me; W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, June 10, 1788. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, 

Your kind letter of precaution to Mr. Gregson 
sent him hither as soon as chapel-service was ended 
in the evening. But he found me already apprized 
of the event that occasioned it, by a fine firom Se- 
phus, received a few hours before. My dear un- 
cle's death awakened m me many reflections which 
for a time sunk my spirits . A man like him would 
have been mourned, had he doubled the age he 
reached. At any age hiS death would have been 
felt as a loss, that no survivor could repair. And 
though it w^as not probable that for my ovra part 
I should «ver see him more, yet the consciousness 
that he still lived, was a comfort to me. Let it 
comfort us now, that we have lost him only at a 
time when nature . could afford him to us no longer ; 
that as his life was blameless, so was his death 
without anguish ; and that he is gone to Heaven. 



326 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 282, 283, 



I know not, that human Hfc, in its most prosper- 
ous state, can present any thing to our wishes 
half so desirable, as such a dose of it. 

Not to niinjjle this subject with others that would 
ill suit with it, I will add no more at present, than 
a warm hope, that you and your sister will be able 
effectually to avail yourselves of all the consolatory 
matter with wliich it abounds! You gave yourselves, 
while he hved, to a father, whose life was doubtless 
prolonged by your attentions, and whose tender- 
ness of disposition made him always deeply sensi- 
ble of j'our kindness in this respect, as well as in 
many others. His old age was the happiest that 
I have ever known, and I give you both joy of 
having had so fair an opportunity, and of having 
so well used it, to approve yourselves equal to the 
calls of such a duty in the sight of God and man. 
. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, June 15, 1788. 
Althocgh I knew that you must be very much 
occupied on the present most affecting occasion, 
yet, not hearing from you, I began to be very un- 
easy on your account, and to fear that yOur health 
might have suffered by the fatigue both of body 
and spirits, that you must have undergone, till a 
letter, that reached me yesterday from the Gene- 
ral, set my heart at. rest, so far as that cause of 
anxiety was in question. He speaks of my uncle 
in the tenderest terms, such as show how truly 
sensible he was of the amiableness and excellence 
of his character, and how deeply he regrets his 
loss. We have indeed lost one, who has not left 
his like in the present generation of our family, 
and whose equal, in all respects, no future of it 
will probably produce. My memory retains so 
perfect an impression of liim, that, had I been 
painter instead of poet, I could from those faithful 
traces have perpetuated his face and form with 
the most minute exactness; and this I the rather 
wonder at, because some, with whom I was equal- 
ly conversant live and twenty years ago, have al- 
most faded out of all recollection with me. But 
he made impression not soon to be efiaced, and 
was in figure, in temper, and manner, and in nu- 
merous other respects, such as I shall never behold 
again. I often think what a joyful interview 
there has been between Inm and some of his con- 
temporaries, who went before him. The truth 
of the matter is, my dear, that they arc the happy 
ones, and that we shall never be such ourselves, 
till we have joined the party. Can there be any 
thing so worthy of our warmest wishes as to enter 
on an eternal, unchangeable state, in blessed fel- 
lowship and communion with those whose society 
we valued most, and for the best reasons, while 
they continued with us 1 A few steps more through 



a vain foolish world, and this happiness will be 
yours. But be not liasty, my dear, to accomplish 
thy journey ! For of all that live, thou art one 
whom I can least spare; for thou also art one, 
who shalt not leave thy equal behind thee. 

W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOt. 



MY DEAR WALTER, Westou, Juue 17, 1788. 

You think me, no doubt, a tardy correspondent, 
and such 1 am, but not willingly. Many hin- 
drances have intervened, and the most difficult to 
surmount have been those which the east and 
north-west winds have occasioned, breathing win- 
ter upon the roses of June, and inflaming my eyes, 
ten times more sensible of the inconvenience than 
they. The vegetables of England seem, like our 
anilnals, of a hardier and bolder nature than those 
of other countries. In France and Italy flowers 
blow, because it is warm, but here, in spite of the 
cold. The season however is somewhat mended 
at present, and my eyes with it. Finding myself 
this morning in perfect ease of body, I seize the 
welcome opportunity to do something at least to- 
wards the discharge of my arrears to you. 

1 am glad that you Uked my song, and, if 1 
hked the others myself so well as that I sent you, 
I would transcribe for you them also. But I sent 
that, because I accounted it the best. Slavery, 
and especially negro-slavery, because the cruellest, 
is an odious and disgusting subject. Twice or 
thrice I have been assailed with entreaties to write 
a poem on that theme. But besides that it would 
be in some sort treason against Homer to abandon 
him for other matter, I felt myself so much hurt 
in my spirits the moment I entered on the con- 
templation of it, that I have at last determined 
absolutely to have nothing more to do with it. 
There are some scenes of horror, on which my 
imagination can dwell, not without some compla- 
cence. But then they are such scenes as God, not 
man produces. In earthquakes, high winds, tem- 
pestuous seas, there is the grand as well as the 
terrible. But when man is active to disturb, there 
is such meanness in the design, and such cruelty 
in the execution, that I both hate and despise the 
whole operation, and feel it a degradation of poetry 
to employ her in the description of it. I hope also 
that the generality of my countrymen have more 
generosity in their nature than to want the fiddle 
of verse to go before them in the performance of 
an act, to which they are invited by the loudest 
calls of humanity. 

Breakfast calls, and then Homer. 

Ever yours, W. C. 

Erratum. — Instead of Mr. Wilberforce as author 
of Manners of the Great, read Hannah More. 



Let. 384, 285. 



LETTERS. 



327 



My paper mourns, and my seal. It is for the 
death of a venerable uncle, Ashley Cowper, at the 
age of eighty-seven. 



vvinter also. The summer indeed is leaving us at 
a rapid rate, as do all the seasons, and though I 
have marked their flight so often, I know not 
which is the sweetest. Man is never so deluded 
as when he* dreams of his own duration. The 
answer of the old Patriarch to Pharaoh may be 
adopted by every man at the close of the longest 
Hfc—" Few and evil have been the days of the 
years of my pilgrimage." "Whether we look back 
from fifty, or from twice fifty, the past appears 
equally a dream ; and we can only be said truly 
to have lived, while we have been profitably em- 
ployed. Alas, then ! making the necessarydcduc- 
■tions, how short is life ! Were men in general to 
save themselves all the steps they take to no pur- 
pose, or to a bad one, what numbers, who are now 
active, would, become sedentary! 

Thus I hav& sermonized through my paper. 
Living where yoii live, you can bear with me the 
better. I always follow the leading of my uncon- 
strained thoughts, when I write to a friend, be they 
grave or otherwise. Homer reminds me of you 
every day. I am now in the twenty-first Iliad. 
Adieu. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

Weston, June 23, 1788. 
When I tell you that an unanswered latter 
troubles my conscience in some degree like a crime, 
you vfiW think me endued with most heroic pa- 
tience, who have so long submitted to that trouble 
on account of yours not answered yet. But the 
truth is, that I have been much engaged. Homer 
(you know) affords me constant employment ; be- 
sides wliich I have rather what may be called, con- 
sidering the privacy in which I have long lived, a 
numerous correspondence ; to one of my friends in 
particular, a near and much-loved relation, I write 
weekly, and sometimes twdce in the week; nor 
are these my only excuses ; the sudden changes* 
of the weather have much affected me, and espe- 
cially with a disorder most unfavourable to letter- 
writing, an inflammation in my eyes. With all 
these apologies I approach you once more, not al 
together despairing of forgiveness. 

It has pleased God to give us rain, without 
which this part of our country at least must soon 
have become a desert. The meadows have been 
parched to a January brown, and we have fod- 
dered our cattle for some time, as in the vdnter. 
The goodness and power of God are never (I be- 
lieve) so universally acknowledged as at the end 
of a long drought. Man is naturally a self-suffi- 
cient animal, and in all concerns that seem to he 
within the sphere of his owm ability, thinks little 
or not at all of the need he always has of protec- 
tion and furtherance from above. But he is sen- 
sible that the clouds will not assemble at his bid- 
ding, and that, though the clouds assemble, they 
win not fall in showers because he commands 
them. When therefore at last the blessing de- 
scends, you shall hear even in the streets the most 
irreligious and thoughtless with one voice ex- 
claim — " Thank God 1" — confessing themselves in- 
debted to his favour, and vdlling, at least so far as 
words go, to give him the glory. I can hardly 
doubt therefore that the earth is sometimes parched, 
and the crops endangered, m order that the multi- 
tude may not want a memente to whom they owe 
them, nor absolutely forget the power on which all 
depend for all things. 

Our solitary part of the year is over. Mrs. Un-' 
wiii's daiighter and son-in-law have lately spent 

some time with us. We shall shortly receive from | say (and no doubt you have particular reasons for 
London our old friends theNewtons (he was once ! thinking so,) and repented to that degree of his 
minister of Olney); and, when they leave us, we hasty exertions in favour of the present occupant, 
expect that Lady Hesketh will succeed them, per- < who can tein he wants neither means nor man- 
haps to spend the summer here, and possibly the agement, but can easily at some future period re- 
22 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, June 27, 1788.' 
For the sake of a longer visit, my dearest coz, 
I can be well content to wait. The country, tliis 
country at least, is pleasant at all times, and when 
winter is come, or near at hand, we shall have the 
better chance for being snug. I know your pas- 
sion for retirement indeed, or for what we call 
deedy retirement, and the F s intending to re- 
turn to Bath with, their mother, when her visit at 
the Hall is over, you vdll then find here exactly 
the retirement in question. I have made in the 
orchard the best winter-walk in all the parish, 
sheltered from the east, and from the north-east, 
and open to the sun, except at his rising, all the 
day. Then we will have Homer and Don duix- 
ote : and then we will have saunter and chat, and 
one laugh more before we die. Our orchard is 
alive with creatures of all kinds : poultry of every 
denomination swarms in it, and pigs, the drollest 
in the world ! 

I rejoice that we have a cousin Charles also, as 
well as a cousin Henry, who has had the address 
to win the good-likings of the Chancellor. May 
he fare the better for it ! As to myself, I have long 
since ceased to have any expectations from that 
quarter. Yet, if he were indeed mortified as you 



328 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 286, 287. 



dress the evil, if he chooses to do it. But in the 
mean time life steals away, and shortly neither he 
will be in circmnstanccs to do me a kindness, nor 
I to receive one at his hands. Let him make haste, 
therefore, or he will die a promise ih my debt, 
which he will never be able to perform. Your 
communications on this subject are as, safe as you 
can wish them. We divulge nothing but what 
might appear in the magazine, nor that without 
great consideration. 

I must tell you a feat of my dog Beau. Walk- 
ing by the river side, I observed some water-Ulies 
floating .at a little distance from the bank. They 
are a large white flower, with an orange coloured 
eye, very beautifiil. I had a desire to gather one, 
and, having your long cane in my hand, by the 
help of it endeavoured to bring one of them with- 
in my reach. But the attempt proved Tain, and I 
walked forward. Beau had all the while observed 
me very attentively. Returning soon after toward the 
same place, I observed him plunge into the river, 
while I was about forty yards .distant from him;' 
and when I had nearly reached the spot, he swam 
to land with a Uly in his mouth, which he came 
and laid at my foot. 

Mr. Rose, whom I have mentioned to you as a 
visiter of mine for the first time soon after you left 
us, writes me word that he has seen my ballads 
against the slave- mongers, but not in print. Where 
he met with them, I know not. Mr. Bull begged 
hard for leave to print them at Newport-Pagncl, 
and I refused, thinking that it would be wrong, to 
anticipate the nobility, gentry, and others, at whose 
pressing instance I composed them, in their design 
to print them. But perhaps I need not have been 
so squeamish ; for the opportunity to publish them 
in London seems now not only ripe, but rotten. I 
am well content. There is but one of them with 
which I am myself satisfied, though I have heard 
them all well spoken of But there are very few 
things of my own composition, that I can endure 
to read, when they have been written a month, 
though at first they seem to me to be all perfection. 

Mrs. Unwin, who has been much the happier 
since the tune of your return hither has been in 
some sort settled, begs me to make her kindest re 
membrance. Yours, my dear, most truly, W. C 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, July 28, 1788 
It is in vain that you tell me you have no talent 
at description, while in fact you describe better 
tlian any body. You have given me a most com- 
plete idea of your mansion and its situation ; and 
I doubt not that with your letter in my hand by 
way of map, could I be set down on the spot in a 
moment, I should find myself qualified to take ray 



walks and my pastime in whatever quarter of your 
paradise it should please me the most to visit. We 
also, as you know, have scenes at Weston worthy 
of description ; but because you know them well, 
I will only say that one of them has, within these 
few days, been much improved ; I mean the lime 
walk. By the "help of the axe and the Woodbill, 
which have of late been constantly employed in 
cutting out all straggling branches that intercept- 
ed the arch, Mr. Throckmorton has now. defined 
it with such exactness, that no cathedral in the 
world can show one of more magnificence or beau- 
ty. I bless myself that I Uve so near it ; for were 
it distant several miles, it would be well worth 
while to visit it, merely as an object of taste ; not 
to mention the refreshment of such a gloom both 
to the eyes and spirits. And these are the things 
which our modern unprovers of parks and pleasure 
grounds have displaced without mercy ; because, 
forsooth, they are rectilinear. It is a wopder they 
do not quarrel with the sunbeams for the same 
reason. 

Have you seen the account of five hundred' ce- 
lebrated authors now living'? I am one of them; 
but stand charged with the high crime and misde- 
meanour of totally neglecting method ; an accusa- 
tion which, if the gentleman v/ould take the pains 
to read me, he would .find sufficiently refuted. I 
anr conscious at least myself of having laboured 
much in the arrangement of my matter, and of 
having given to the several parts of my book of 
the Task, as well as to each poem in the first vo- 
lume, that sort of shght connexion, which poetry 
demands ; for in poetry, (except professedly of the 
didactic kind) a logical precision would be stifi' 
pedantic, and ridiculous. But there is no pleasing 
some critics ; the comfort is, that I am contented, 
whether they be pleased or not. At the same 
time, to my honour be it spoken, the chronicler, of 
us five hundred prodigies bestows on me, for aught 
I know, more commendations than on any other 
of my confraternity. May he live to write the 
histories of as many thousand poets, and find me 
the very best among them ; Amen ! 

I join with you, my dearest coz, in wishing that 
I owned the fee simple of all the beautiful scenes 
around you, but such emoluments were never de- 
signed for poets. Am I not happier than ever poet 
was, in having thee for my cousin, and in the ex- 
pectation of thy arrival here whenever Strawber- 
ry-hill shall lose thee'7 Ever thine, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, August 9, 1788. 
The Newtons are still here, and continue with 
us I believe until the 15th of the month. Here is 
also my friend Mr. Rose, a valuable young man, 



Let. 288, 289. 



LETTERS. 



329 



who, attracted by the effluvia of my genius, found 
me out in my retirement last January twelvemonth. 
I have not permitted him to be idle, but have made 
him transcribe for me the twelfth book of the Iliad. 
He brings me the comiilihients of several of the 
literati, with whom he is acquainted in town, and 
tells me, that from Dr. Maclain, whom he saw 
lately, he learns that my book is in the hands of 
sixty different persons at the Hague, who are all 
enchanted with it, not forgetting the said Dr. Mac- 
Iain himself, who tells him that he reads it every 
day, and is always the better for it. O rare we ! 

I have been employed this morning in compos- 
ing a Latin motto for the lung's clock ; the embel- 
lishments of which are by Mr. Bacon. That 
gentleman breakfasted with us on Wednesday, 
having come thirty-seven miles out of his way 
on purpose to see your cousin. At his request I 
have done it, and have made two ; he will choose 
that which liketh him best. Mr. Bacon is a most 
excellent man, and a most agreeable companion : 
I would that he lived not so remote, or that he had 
more opportunity of traveling. 

There is not, so far as I know, a syllable of the 
rhyming correspondence ■ between me and my 
poor brother left, save and except the six lines of 
it quoted in yours. I had the whole of it, but 
it perished in the wreck of a thousand other things, 
when I left the Temple. Breakfast calls. Adieu ! 

W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Aug. 18, 1788. 

I LEFT you with a sensible regret, alleviated 
only by the consideration that I shall see you again 
in October. 1 was under some concern also, lest 
not being able to give you any certain directions 
nOr knowing where you might find a guide, you 
should wander and fatigue yourself, good walker 
as you are, before you could reach Northampton 
Perhaps you heard me whistle just after our sepa- 
ration ; it was to call back Beau, who was run- 
ning after-you with all speed, to intreat you to re- 
turn with me. For my part, I took my own time 
to return, and did not reach home till after one ; 
and then so weary, that I was glad of my great 
chair, to the comforts of which I added a crust 
and a glass of rum and water, not without great 
occasion. Such a foot-traveller am' I. 

I am writing on Monday, but whether I shall 
finish my letter this morning depends on Mrs. 
Unwin's coming sooner or later down to breakfast 
Something tells me that you set ofl" to-day for Bir- 
mingham ; and though it be a sort of Iricism to 
say here, I beseech you take care of yourself, for 
the day threatens great heat, I can not help it ; the 
weather may he cold enough at the tune when 



that good advice shall reach you : but be it hot, or 
be it cold, to a man that travels as you travel, take 
care of yourself, can never be an unseasonable 
caution. 1 am sometimes distressed on this Re- 
count ; for though you are young, and well made 
for such exploits, those very circumstances are 
more hkely than any thing to betray you into dan- 
ger. 

Consule quid valeantptento, quid ferro rccasent. 

The Newtons left us on Friday. We frequent- 
ly talked about you after your departure, and every 
thing that was spoken was to your advantage. 1 
know they will be glad to see you in London, and 
perhaps when your smnmer and autumn rambles 
are over, you will afford them that pleasure. The 
Throckmortons are equally well disposed to you, 
and them also I recommend to you as a valuable 
connexion, the rather because you can only culti- 
vate it at Weston. 

I have not been idle since you went, having not 
only laboured as usual at the Iliad, but composed 
&. spick and span new piece, called "The Dog 
and the Water-Lily," which you shall see when 
we meet again. I believe I related to you the in- 
cident which is the' subject of it. 1 have also read 
most of Lavater's Aphorisms ; they appear to me 
some of them wise, many of them whimsical, a 
few of them false, and not a few of them extrava- 
gant. Nil illi medium. If he finds in a man the 
feature or quality that he approves, he deifies him ; 
if the contrary, he is a devU. His verdict is in 
neither case, I suppose, a just one. W. C 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Westou, Sept. 11, 1788. 

Since your departure I have "twice visited the 
oak, and with my intention to push my inquiries 
a mile beyond it, where it seems I should have 
foimd another oak, much larger, and much more 
respectable than the former, but once I was hin- 
dered by the rain, and once by the sultriness of 
the day. This latter oak has been knowm by the 
name of Judith many ages, and is said to have 
beefi an oak at the time of the conquest. If I 
have not an opportunity to reach it before your ar- 
rival here, we will attempt that exploit together ; 
and even if I should "have beeii able to visit it ere 
you come, I shall yet be glad to .do so ; for the 
pleasure of extraordinary sights, hke all other 
pleasures, is doubled by the participation of a 
friend. 

You tvish for a copy of my little dog's eulo- 
gium, which I will therefore transcribe: but by 
so doing, I shall leave myself but scanty room tor 
prose. 

I shall be sorry if our neighbours at the hall 



330 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 290, 391. 



should have left it, when we have the pleasure of 
seeing you. I want you to see them soon again, 
that a Uttle consuetudo may wear off restraint ; 
and you may be able to improve the advantage you 
have already gained in that quarter. I pitied you 
for the lears which deprived you of your uncle's com- 
pany, and the more having suffered so much by 
those fears myself. Fight against that vicious fear 
for such it is, as strenuously as you can. It is the 
worst enemy that can attack a man destined to 
the forum — it ruined me. To associate as much 
as possible with the most respectable company, for 
good sense and good breeding, is, I beUeve, the 
only, at least I am sure it is the best remedy. The 
society of men of pleasure will not cure it, but 
rather leaves us more exposed to its influience in 
company of better persons. 
Now for the Dog and the Waier-Lily.* 

W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Sept. 25, 1787. 

Say what is the thing by my Riddle design'd 
Which you carried to London, and yet left behind. 

I EXPECT your answer and without a fee. — The 
half hour next before breakfast I devote to you. 
The moment Mrs. Unwin arrives in the study, 
be what I have written njuch or little, I shall make 
my bow, and take leave. If you live to be a judge, 
as if I augur right you will, I shall expect to hear 
of a walking circuit. 

I was shocked at what you tell me of 



Superior talents, it seems, give no security for pro- 
priety of conduct ; on the contrary, having a nat- 
ural tendency to nourish pride, they often betray 
the possessor into such mistakes, as men more 
moderately gifted never commit. AbiUty there- 
fore is not wisdom, and an ounce of grace is a bet- 
ter guard against gross absurdity than the bright- 
est talents in the world. 

I rejoice that you are prepared for transcript 
work : here wLU be plenty for you. The day on 
which you shall receive this, I beg you will re- 
member to drink one glass at least to the success 
of the Iliad, which I finished the day before yes- 
terday, and yesterday began the Odyssey. It will 
be some time before I shall perceive myself travel- 
ing in another road; the objects around me are 



Weston has not been without its tragedies since 
you left us ; Mrs. Throckmorton's piping bull-finch 
has been eaten by a rat, and the villain left nothing 
but poor Bully's beak behind him. It will be a 
wonder if this event does not, at some convenient 
time, employ my versifying passion. Did ever 
fair lady, from the Lesbia of Catullus to the pre- 
sent day, lose her bird and find no poet to com- 
memorate the loss 1 W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Wcston, Not). 30, 1788. 

Your letter, accompanying the books with which 
you have favoured me, and for which I return 
you a thousand thanks, did not arrive till yester- 
day. I shall have great pleasure in taking now 
and then a peep at my old friend Vincent Bourne ; 
the neatest of all men in his versification, though 
when I was under his ushership, at Westminster, 
the most slovenly in his person. He was so in- 
attentive to his boys, and so indifferent whethet 
they brought him good or bad exercises, or none 
at all, that he seemed determined, as he was the 
best, so to be the last Latin poet of the Westminster 
line ; a plot which, I believe, he executed very suc- 
cessfully ; for I have not heard of any who has at 
all desej^fed to be compared with him. 

We have had hardly any rain or snow since 
you left us ; the roads are accordingly £is dry as in 
the middle of summer, and the opportunity of 
walking much more favourable. We have no 
season in my inind so pleasant as such a winter: 
and I account it particularly fortunate that such 
it proves, my cousin being with us. She is in 
good health, and cheerful, so are we all; and this 
I say, knowing you will be glad to hear it, for you 
have seen the time when this could not be said of 
all your friends at Weston. We shall rejoice to 
see you here at Christmas; but I recollected when 
I hinted such an excursion by word of mouth, you 
gave me no great encouragement to expect you. 
Minds alter, and yours may be of the number of 
those that do so ; and if it should, you will be en- 
tirely welcome to us all. Were there no other 
reason for your coming than merely the pleasure 
it will afford to us, that reason alone would be 
sufficient; but after so many toils, and with so 
many more in prospect, it seems essential to your 
well-being that you should allow yourself a respite, 
at present so much the same ; Olympus, and a which perhaps you can take as comfortably (I am 
council of gods, meet me at my first entrance. To sure as quietly) here as any where, 
tell you the truth, I am Aweary of heroes and dci- The ladies beg to be remembered to you with 
ties, and, with reverence be it spoken, shall be glad all possible esteem and regard ; they are just come 
for variety's sake, to exchange their company fori down to breakfast, and being at this moment ex- 
that of a Cyclops. | tremely talkative, oblige me to put an end to my 

. 'letter. Adieu. W. C. 

' Cowper's Foems. 



Let. 292, 293, 294, 295. 



LETTERS. 



331 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

Weston- Vnderwood, Dec. 2, 1788. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I TOLD you lately that I had an ambition to in- 
troduce to your acquaintance my valuable friend, 
Mr. Rose. He is now before you. You will find 
him a person of genteel manners and agreeable 
conversation. As to his other virtues and good 
qualities, which are many, and not often found in 
men of his years, I consign them over to your o\yn 
discernment, perfectly sure that none vrall escape 
you. I give you joy of each other, and remain, 
ray dear old friend, most truly yours, W. C. 



TO ROBERT SMITH, ESa. 

Westorir Underwood, Dec. 20, 1788. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

Mrs. Unwin is in tolerable health, and adds 
her warmest thanks to mine for yOur favour, and 
for your obliging inquiries. My own health is 
better than it has been for many j^ears. Long 
time I had a stomach that would digest nothing, 
and now nothing disagrees with it; an amend- 
ment for which I am, under God, indebted to the 
daily use of soluble tartar, which I have never 
omitted these two years. I am still, as you may 
suppose," occupied in my long labour. The Iliad 
has nearly received its last polish. And I have 
advanced in a rough copy as far as to the ninth 
book of the Odyssey. My friends are some of 
them in haste to see the work printed, and my 
answer to them is — " I do nothing else, and this 
I do day and night — it must in time be finished." 

My thoughts, however, are not engaged to 
Homer only. 1 can not be so much a poet as not 
to feel greatly for the King, the dueen, and the 
coxmtry. My speculations on these subjects are 
indeed inelancholy, for no such tragedy has be- 
fallen in my day. We are forbidden to trust in 
man; I will not therefore say I trust in Mr. Pitt : 
— but in his counsels, under the blessing of Provi- 
dence, the remedy is, I believe, to be found, if a 
remedy there be. His integrity, firmness, and 
sagacity, are the only human means that seem 
adequate to the great emergence. 

You say ndtliing of your own health, of ^vhich 
I should have been happy to have heard favoura- 
bly. May you long enjoy the best. Neither Mrs. 
Unwin nor myself have a sincerer, or a warmer 
wish, thai! for your felicity. 

I am, ray dear sir, 
Your most obliged and affectionate 

W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR SIR, TIic Lodgc, Jan. 19, 1789. 

• I HAVE taken, since you went away, many of 
the walks which we have taken together; and 
none of them, 1 believe, without thoughts of you. 
1 have, though not a good memory, in general, 
yet a good local memory, and can recollect, by 
the help of a tree or a stile, what you said on that 
particular spot. For this reason I purpose, when 
the summer is come, to walk with a book in my 
pocket; what I read at my fireside I forget, but 
what I read under a hedge, or at the side of a 
pond, that pond and that hedge will always bring 
to my remembrance ; and this is a sort of memoria 
fechnica, which I would recommend to you if I 
did not know that you have no occasion for it. 

I am reading Sir John Hawkins, and still hold 
the same opinion of his book, as when you were 
here. There are in it, undoubtedly, some awk- 
wardnesses of phrase, and, which is worse, here 
and there some unequivocal indications of a vanity 
not easily pardonable in a man of his years; but 
on the whole 1 find it amusing, and to me at least, 
to whom every thing that has passed in the lite- 
rary world vnthin these five-and-twenty years is 
new, sufficiently .replete with information. Mr. 
Throckmorton told me about three days since, 
that it was lately recommended to him by a sen- 
sible man, as a book that would give him great 
insight into the history of modern literature, and 
modern men of letters, a commendation which I 
really think it merits. Fifty years hence, per- 
haps, the world will feel itself obliged to him. . 

W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR SIR, The Lodge, Jan. 24, 1789. 

We have heard from my cousin in Norfolk- 
street ; she reached home safely, and in good time. 
An observation suggests itself, which, though I 
have but little time for observation making, I 
must allo.w myself time to mention. Accidents, 
as we call them, generally occur when there seems 
least reason to expect them; if a friend of ours tra- 
vels far in different roads, and at an unfavourable 
season, we are reasonably alarmed for the safety 
of one in whom we take so much interest; yet 
how seldom do we hear a tragical account of such 
a journey! It is, on the contrary, at home, in our 
yard or garden, perhaps in our parlour, that dis- 
aster finds us; in any place, in short, where we 
seem perfectly out of the reach of danger. The 
lesson inculcated by such a procedure on the part 
of Providence towards us seems to be that of per- 
petual dependence. 



332 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 296, 297, 298. 



Having preached this sermon, I must hasten to 
a close; you know that I am not idle, nor 'can I 
afford to be so. I would gladly spend more time 
with you, but by some means or other this day 
»■ has hitherto proved a day of hindrance and con- 
fusion. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Westou, Jan. 29, 1789.- 

I SHALL be a better, at least a more frequent 
correspondent, when I have done with Homer. I 
am not forgetful of any letters thtit I owe, and 
least of all forgetful of my debts in that way to 
you; on the contrary, I Uve in a continual state 
of self-reproach for not writing more punctually ; 
but the old Grecian, whom I charge myself never 
to neglect, lest 1 should never finish him, has at 
present a voice that seems to drown all other de- 
mands, and many to which I could listen with 
more pleasure than even to his Os rotundum. I 
am now in the eleventh book of the Odyssey, con- 
versing with the dead. Invoke the Muse in my 
behalf, that I may roll the stone of Sisyphus with 
some success. To do it as Homer has done it is, 
T suppose, in our verse and language, impossible ; 
but I will hope not to labour altogether to as little 
plumose as Sisyphus himself did. 

Though I meddle little with politics, and can 
find but little leisure to do so, the present state of 
tilings unavoidably engages a share of my atten 
tion. But as they say, Archimedes, when Syra 
cuse was taken, was found busied in the solution 
of a problem, so come what may, I shall be found 
translating Homer. 

Sincerely yours, W. C. 



know not: but imagine that any time after the 
month of June you will be sure to find her with 
us, which I mention, knowing that to meet you 
will add a rehsh to all the pleasures she can find 
at Weston. 

When I wrote those lines on the CLueen's visit, 
I thought I had performed well ; but it belongs to 
me, as 1 have told you before, to dislike whatever 
I write when it has been written a month. The 
performance was therefore sinking in my esteem, 
when your approbation of it, arriving in good time, 
buoyed it up again. It will now keep possession 
of the place it holds in my good opinion, because 
it has been favoured with yours ; and a copy vvill 
certainly be at your service whenever you choose 
to have one. 

Nothing is more certain than that when I wrote 
the fine, 

God made the country, and man made the town, 

I had not the least recollection of that very si- 
milar one, which you quote fi'om Hawkins Brown. 
It convinces. me that critics (and none more than 
Warton, in his notes on Milton's minor poems), 
have often charged" authors with borrovvdng what 
they drew from their own fiind. Brown was an 
entertaining companion when he had drunk his 
bottle, but not before ; this proved a snare to him, 
and he would sometimes drink too much ; but I 
know not that he was chargeabla with any other 
irregularities. He had those among his mtimatos 
who would not have been such had he been other- 
wise viciously incUned; the Duncombes, in parti- 
cular, father and son, who were of unblemished 
morals. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ,. 

MY DEAR SIR, The Lodge, May 20, 1789. 

Finding myself, between twelve and one, at the 
end of the seventeenth book of the Odyssey, I give 
the interval between the present moment and the 
time of walking, to you. If I "write letters before 
I sit down to Homer, I feel my spirits too flat for 
poetry; and too flat for letter writing if I address 
myself to Homer first; but the last I choose as the 
least evil, because my friends will pardon my dull 
ness, but the public will not. 

I had been some days uneasy on your account, 
when yours arrived. We should have rejoiced to 
have seen you, would your engagements have per- 
mitted: but in the autumn I hope, if not before, we 
shall have the pleasure to receive you. At what 
time wc may expect Lady Hesketh, at present I 



. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, The Lodge, June 5, 1789. 

I AM going to give you a deal of trouble, but 
London folks must be content to be troubled by 
country folks; for m London only can. our strange 
necessities be suppUed. You must buy for mcj 
if you please, a cuckoo clock; and now I will tell 
you where they arc sold, which, Londoner as you 
are, it is possible you may not know. They are 
sold, I am informed, at more houses than one, in 
that narrow part of Holborn vvhich leads into 
Broad St. Giles. It seems they are well going 
clocks, and cheap, which are the two best recom- 
mendations of any clock. They are made in Ger- 
many, and such numbers of them are annually 
imported, that they are become even a considerable 
article of commerce. 

I return you many thanks for Boswell's Tour. 
I read it to Mrs. Unwin after supper, and we find 
it amusing. There is much trash in it, as there 



Let. ^299, 300,301. 



LETTERS. 



333 



must always be in every narrative that relates in- 
discritiiinatcly all that passed. But now and then 
the Doctor speaks like an oracle, and that makes 
amends for all. Sir John was a coxcomb, and 
Boswell is not less a coxcomb, though of another 
kind. I fancy Johnson made coxcombs of all liis 
friends, and they in return made him a coxcomb,-* 
for with reverence be it spoken, such he certainly 
was, and. flattered as he was, he was sure to be 
so.' 

Thanks for your invitation to London, but im- 
less London can come to me, I fear we shall never 
meet. I was sure that you would love my friend, 
when you should once be well acquainted with 
him ; and equally sure that he would take kindly 
to you. 

Now for Homer. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRiEko, Weston, Juue 16, 1789. 

You will naturally suppose that the letter in 
which you announced your marriage occasioned 
me some concern, though in my answer I had the 
wisdom to conceal it. The account you gave me 
of the object of your choice was such as left me 
at liberty to form conjectures not very comfortable 
to mysel:^ if my friendship for you were indeed 
sincere. I have since however been sufficiently 
consoled. Your brother Chester has informed mc, 
that you have married riot only one of the luost 
agreeable, but one of the most accompUshed wo- 
men in the kingdom. . It is an old maxim, that it 
is better to exceed expectation than to disappoint 
it, and with this maxim in your view it was, no 
doijbt, that you dwelt only on circumstances of dis- 
advantage, and would not treat me with a recital 
of others which abundantly overweigh them. I now 
congratulate not you only, but myself, and truly 
rejoice that my friend has chosen for his fellow- 
traveller through the remaining stages of liis jour- 
ney, a companion who will do honour to his dis- 
cernment, and make his way, so far as it can de- 
pend on a wife to do so, pleasant to the last. 

My verses on the Glueen's visit to London either 
have been printed, or soon will be, in the World. 
The finishing to which you objected I have alter- 
ed, and have substituted two new stanzas instead 
of it. Two others also I have struck out, another 
critic having objected to them. I think I am a 
very tractable sort of a poet. Most of my frater- 
nity would .as soon shorten the noses of their chil- 
dren because they were said to be too long, as thus 
dock their .compositions in compliance with the 
opinion of others. I beg that when my Ufe shall 
be written hereafter, my authorship's ductability 
of temper may not be forgotten ! 

I am, my dear friend, ever yours, W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

AMico Mip, The Lodge, Jmie 20, 1789. 

I AM truly sorry that it must be so long before 
we can have an opportunity to meet. My cousin, 
in her last letter but one, inspired me witli other 
expectations, expressing a purpose, if the matter 
could be so contrived, of bringing you with her: 
I was willing to believe that you liAd consulted 
together on the subject, and found it feasible. A 
month was formerly a trifle in my account, but at 
my present a^e I give it all its importance, and 
grudge that so many months should yet pass, in 
wliich I have not even a ghmpse of those I love, 
and of whom, the course of nature considered, I 
must ere long take leave forever — but I shall live 
till August. 

Many thanks for the cuckoo, which arrived per- 
fectly safe, and goes well, to the amusement and 
amazement of all who hear it. Hannah lies awake 
to hear it, and 1 am not sure that we have not 
others in the house that admire his music as much 
as she. , 

Having read both Hawkins and Boswell, I now 
think myself almost as much a master of John- 
son's character as if I had known him personally, 
and can not but regret that our bards of other times- 
found no such biographers as these. They have 
both been ridiculed, and the wits have had their 
laugh; but slich an history of Milton or Shak- 
speare, as they have given of Johnson — O, how 
desirable ! 



TO MRS. THROCKMORTON, 

July 18, 1789. 

Many thanks, my dear madam, for your extract 
from George's letter. I retain but little Italian, 
5'et that little was so forcibly mustered by the con- 
sciousness that I was myself the subject, that I 
presently became master of it. I have always said 
that George is a poet, and I am never in his com- 
pany but I discover proofs of it ; and the delicate 
address by which he has managed his complimen- 
tary mention of me, convinces me of it still more 
than ever. Here are a thousand poets of us, who 
have impudence enough to vrate for the public ; 
but amongst the modest men who are by diffidence 
restrained fi'om such an enterprise are those who 
would eclipse us all. I wish that George would 
make the experiment; 1 would bind on his laiorels 
with my own hand. 

Your gardener has gone after his wife, but hav- 
ing neglected to take his lyre, alias fiddle, with 
him, has not yet brought home his Eurydice. Your 
clock in the hall has stopped, and (strange to tell !) 
it stopped at the sight of the- watch-maker. For 
he only looked at it, and it has been motionless 



334 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 302, 303, 304. 



ever since. Mr. Gregson is gone, and the Hall is 
a desolation. Pray don't think any place pleasant 
that you may find in your rambles, that we may 
see you the sooner. " Your aviary is all in good 
health. I pass it every day, and often inquire at 
the lattice; the inhabitants of it send their duty, 
and wish for your return. I took notice of the 
inscription on your seal, and had we an artist 
here capable' of furnishing me with another, you 
should read on mine, " Encore une lettre." 

Adieu, 'W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa 

The Lodge, July 23, 1789. 
You do well, my dear sir, to hnprove your op- 
portunity; to speak in the rural phrase, this is 
your sowing time, and the sheaves you look for can 
never be yours unless you make that use of it. 
The colour of our whole life is generally such as 
the three or four first years, in which we are our 
own masters, make it. Then it is that we may 
be said to shape our own destiny, and to treasure 
up for ourselves a series of future successes or dis- 
appointments. Had I employed my time as wis.e- 
ly as you, in a situation very similar to yours, I 
had never been a poet perhaps, but I might by 
this time have acquired a character of more im- 
portance in society ; and a situation in which my 
friends would have been better pleased to see me. 
But three years misspent in an attorney's office 
were almost of course followed by several more 
equally misspent in the Temple, and the conse- 
quence has been,' as the Italian epitaph says, " Sio 
qui." — The only use I can make of myself now 
at least the best, is to serve in terrorem to others 
whenoccasion may happen to offer, that they may 
escape (so far as my admonitions can have any 
weight with them) my folly and my fate. 'When 
you feel yourself tempted to relax a little of the 
strictness of your present discipline, and to indulge 
in amusement incompatible with your future in- 
terests, think on your friend at Weston. 

Having said this, I shall next with my whole 
heart invite you liither, and assure you that I look 
forward to approaching 'August with great plea- 
sure, because it promise's me your company. Af- 
ter a little time (which we shall wish longer) spent 
with us, you will return invigorated to your stu- 
dies, and pursue them with the more advantage. 
In the mean time you have lost little, in point of 
season, by being confined to London. Incessant 
rains, and meadows under water, have given to the 
summer the air of winter, and the country has 
been deprived of half its beauties. 

It is time to tell you that we are well, and often 
make you our subject. This is the third meeting 
that my cousin and we have had in this country ; 



and a great instance of good fortune I account it 
in such a world as this, to have expected such a 
pleasure thrice without being once disappointed. 
Add to this wonder as soon as you can by making 
yourself of the party. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa, 

MT DEAR FRIEND, WestOU, Aug. 8, 1789. 

Come when you will, or when you can, you can 
not come at a wrong time, but we shall expect 
you on the day mentiiDned. 

If you have any book, that you think will make 
pleasant evening reading, ■ bring it with you. I 
now read Mrs. Piozzi's Travels to the ladies after 
supper, and shall probably have finished them be- 
fore we shall have the pleasure of seeing you. It 
is the fashion, I understand, to condemn them. 
But we who malie books ourselves are more mer- 
ciful to book-makers. I would that every fastidi- 
ous judge of authors were himself obliged to write ; 
there goes more to the composition, of a volume 
than many critics imagine. I have often wondered 
that the same poet who wrote the Dvinciad should 
have written these lines. 

The mercy I to others show, 
That mercy show to me. 
Alas ! for Pope, if the mercy he showed to others 
was the measure of the mercy he received ! he was 
the less pardonable too, because experienced in all 
the difficulties of composition, 

I scratch this between dinner and tea ; a time 
when I can not write much without disordering 
my noddle, and bringing a flush into my face. 
You will excuse me therefore if, through respect 
for the two important considerations of health and 
beauty, I conclude myself. 

Ever yours, W. C 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Wcston, Sept. 24, 1789. 

You left us exactly at the wrong time. Had 
you -staid till now, you would have had the plea- 
sure of hearing even my cousin say — " I am cold." 
— And the still greater pleasure of being warm 
yourself; for I have had a fire in the study ever 
since you went.' It is the fault of our summers, 
that they are hardly ever warm or cold enough. 
Were they warmer, we should not want a fire; 
and were they colder, we should have one. 

I have twice seen and conversed with Mr. J . 

He is witty, intelligent, and agreeable beyond the 
common measure of men who are so. But it is 
the constant effect of a spirit of party to make 
those hateful to each other, who are truly amiable 
in themselves. 



Let. 305, 306, 307. 



LETTERS. 



335 



Beau sends his love ; he was melancholy the 



whole day after your departure. 



W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, ]Veston, Oct. 4, 1789. 

The hamper is come, and come .safe : and the 
contents 1 can aflirm on my own knowledge ■ are 
excellent. It chanced that another hamper and a 
box came by the same conveyance, all which I un- 
packed and expounded in the hall; my cousin 
sitting, mean time, on the stairs, spectatress of the 
business. We diverted ourselves With imagining 
the manner in which Homer would have described 
the scene. Detailed in his circumstantial way, it 
would have furnished materials for a paragraph 
of considerable length in an Odyssey. 

The straw-stufF'd hamper with his ruthless steel 
He open'd, cutting sheer th' inserted cords, 
Which bound the lid and lip secure. Forth came 
The rustling package first, bright straw of wheat,. 
Or oats, or barley ; next a bottle green 
Throat-full, clear spirits the contents, distiU'd 
Drop after drop odorous, by the art 
Of the fair motlier of his friend — the Rose. 

And so on. 
I should rejoice to be the hero of such a tale in. the 
hands of Homer. . ♦ ■ 

You will remember, I trust, that when the state 
of your health or spirits calls for rural walks and 
fresh air, you have always a retreat at Weston. 

We are all well, all love you, down to the very 
dog; and shall be glad to hear that, you have ex- 
changed langour for alacrity, and the debility that' 
you mentioned for indefatigable vigour. 

Mr. Throckmorton has made me a handsome 
present; Villoison's edition of the Ihad, elegantly 
bound by Edwards. If I live long enough, ' by 
the contributions of my friends I shall once more 
be possessed of a library. Adieu, W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Westou, Dec. 18, 1789. 

The present appears to me a wonderful period 
in the history of mankind. That natigns so long 
contentedly slaves should on a sudden become ena- 
moured of liberty, and understand, as suddenly, 
their own natural right to it, feehng themselves at 
the same time inspired with resolution to assert it, 
seems difficult to account for from natural causes. 
With respect to the final issue of all this, :I can 
only say, that if, having discovered the value of 
liberty, they should next discover the value of 
peace, and lastly the value of the word of God, 
they will' be happier than they ever were since 



the rebellion of the first pair, and as happy as it is 
possible they should be in the present life. 

Most sincerely yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEARWALTER, 

I KNOW that you are too reasonable a man to 
expect 'any thing like punctuality of correspond- 
ence from atranslator of Homer, especially from one 
who is a doer also of many other things at the same 
time ; for I labour hard not only to acquire a little 
fame for myself, .but to win it also for others, men 
of whom I know nothing, not even their names, 
wlio send me thefr poetry, that by translating it 
out of. prose into verse, I may make it more like 
poetry than it was. Having heard all this, you 
will feel yourself not only inclined to pardon my 
long silence, but to pity me also for the cause of it. 
You may if you please believe likewise, for it is 
true, that I have a faculty of remembering my 
friends even when I do not write to them, and of 
loving them not one jot the less, though I leave 
them to starve for want of a letter from me. 
And now I think you have an apology both as to 
style, matter, and manner, altogether unexcep- 
tionable. 

Why is the winter like a backbiter 1 Because 
Solomon says that a backbiter separates between 
chief friendSj and so does the winter ; to this.dirty 
season it is owing, that I see nothing of the valua- 
ble Chesters, whom indeed I see less at all times 
than serves at all to content me. I hear of them 
indeed occasionally from my neighbours at the 
Hall, but even of that comfort I have lately en- 
joyed less than usual, Mr. Throckmorton having 
been hindered- by his first fit' of the gout from his 
usual visits to Chichely. The gout however 
has not prevented his making me a handsome 
present of a folio edition of the Iliad, pubhshed 
about a year since at Venice, by a hterato, who 
calls himself VUloison. It is possible that you 
have seen it, and that if you have if not yourself, 
it has at least found its way into Lord Bagot's 
library. • If neither should be the case, when I 
write next (for sooner or later I shall certainly 
write to you again if I live) I will send you some 
pretty stories out of his Prolegomena, which will 
make your hair stand on end, as mine has stood 
on end already, they so horribly affect, in point of 
authenticity, the credit of the works of the im- 
mortal Homer. 

Wishing you and Mrs. Bagot all the happiness 
that a new year can possibly bring with it, I re- 
main with Mrs. TJnvvin's best respects, yours, my 
dear friend, with all sincerity, W. C. 

My paper" mourns for the death of Lord Cow- 
per, my valuable cousin and much my benefactor. 



336 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 308, 309, 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I AM a terrible creature for not writing soon- 
er, but the old excuse must serve, at least I will 
not occupy paper with the addition of others un- 
less you should insist on it, in wliich case I can 
assure you that I have them ready. Now to bu- 
siness. 

From Villoison I learn that it was the avowed 
opinion and persuasion of Callimachus (whose 
hymns we both studied at Westminster) that Ho- 
mer was very imperfectly understood even in his 
day : that his admirers, deceived by the perspicuity 
of his style, fancied themselves masters of his 
meaning, when in truth they knew httle about it. 

Now we know that Callimachus, as I have liint- 
cd, was himself a poet, and a good one ; he was 
also esteemed a good critic ; he almost, if not ac- 
tually, adored Homer, and iniitatcd him as nearly 
as he could. 

What shall we say to this 1 I will tell you what 
I say to it. Calhmachus meant, and he could 
mean nothing more by this assertion, than that 
tire poems of Homer were in fact an allegory ; 
that under the obvious import of his stories lay 
concealed a mystic sense, sometimes philosophical, 
sometimes religious, sometimes moral, and that 
the generality cither wanted penetration or indus- 
try, or had not been properly qualified by their 
.studies, to discover it. This I can readily believe, 
for I am myself an ignoramus in these points, and 
except here and there^ discern nothing more than 
the letter. But if Callimachus will tell me that 
even of that I am ignorant, I hope soon by two 
great volumes to convince him of the contrary. 

I learn also from the same Villoison, that Pisis- 
tratus, who was a sort of Mecffinas in Athens, 
where he gave great encouragement to literature, 
and built and furnished a public library, regretting 
that there was no complete copyof Homer's works 
in the world, resolved to make one. For this pur- 
pose he advertised rewards in all the newspapers 
to thase, who, being possessed memoriter of any 
part or parcels of the poems of that bard, would 
resort to his house, and repeat them to his secre- 
taries, that they might write them. Now it hap- 
pened that more were desirous of the reward, than 
quahfied to deserve it. The consequence was that 
the nonqualified persons having, many of them, 
a pretty knack at versification, imposed on the 
generous Athenian most egregiously, giving him, 
instead of Homer's verses, which they had not to 
give, verses of their own invention. He, good 
creature, suspecting no such fraud, took them all 
for gospel, and entered them into his volume ac- 
cordingly. 

Now let him believe the story who can. That 
Homer's works were in this manner corrected I 



can believe; but that a learned Athenian could 
be so imposed upon, with sufficient means of de- 
tection at hand, I can not. Would he not be on 
liis guard 1 Would not a diiference of style and 
maimer have occurred 1 Would not that differ- 
ence have excited a suspicion 1 Would not that 
suspicion have led to inquiry, and would not that 
inquiry have issued in detection "? For how easy was 
it in the multitude of Homer-conners to find two, 
ten, twenty, possessed of the questionable pas- 
sage, and by confronting thein with the impudent 
unpostor, to convict himl 'Abeas ergo in malam 
rem cum istis tuis hallucinationibus, Villoisonel 
Faithfully yours, W. C. 

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 
MY DEAR SIR, The Lodge, Jan. 3, 1790. 

I HAVE been long silent, but you have had the 
charity, I hope and beUeve, not to ascribe my si- 
lence to a wrong cause. The truth is, I have been 
too busy to write to any body, having been obliged 
to give my mornings to the revisal and correction 
of a httle volume of Hpnns lor children written 
by I know not whom. This task I finished but 
yesterday, and while it was in hand wrote only 
to my cousin, and to her rarely. From her how- 
ever I knew that you. would liear of my well be- 
ing, which made mei less anxious about my debts 
to you, than I could have been btherwise. 

I am almost the only person at Weston, known 
to 3'ou, who have enjoyed tolerable health tliis win- 
ter. In your next letter give us some account of 
your own state of health, for I have had many 
anxieties about you. ' The winter has been mild ; 
but our winters are in general such that when a 
friend leaves us in the beginning of that season, I 
always feel in my heart a perhaps importing that 
probably we have met for the last time, and that 
the robins may whistle on the grave of one of us 
before the return of smmner. 

I am still thrumming Homer's lyre ; that is to 
say, I am still employed in my last revisal ; and 
to give you some idea of the intenseness of my 
toils, I will inform you that it cost me all the morn- 
ing yesterday, and all the evening, to translate a 
single simile to my mind. The transitions from 
one member of the subject to another,- though easy 
and natural in the Greek, turn out often so intol- 
erably awkward in an English version, that almost 
endless labour, and no little address, are requisite 
to give them grace and elegance. 1 forget if I told 
you that your German Clavis has been of consid- 
erable use to me. I am indebted to it for a right 
understanding of the manner in which Achilles 
prepared pork, mutton, and goat's flesh for the 
entertainment of his friends, in the night when 
they came deputed by Agamemnon to negotiate a 
reconciliation. A passage of wliich nobody in 



Let. 310, 311, 31-2. 



LETTERS. 



337 



the world is perfectly master, myself only and 
Schaulfelbergerus excepted, nor ever was, ex- 
cept when Greek was a lice language. 

I do not know whether my cousin lijts told you 
or not how 1 brag in my letters to her concerning 
my translation ; perhaps her modesty feels more 
for me than mine for myself, and she would blush 
to let even you know the degree of my self-conceit 
on that subjcet. I will tell you, however, express- 
ing myself as decently as vanity will permit, that 
it has undergone such a change for the better in 
this last revisal, that I have much warmer hopes 
of success than formerly. Yours, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAR coz, The Lodge, Jan. 23, 1790. 

. I HAD a letter yesterday from the wild boy John- 
son, for whom I have conceived a great affection. 
It was just such a letter as I like, of the true helter- 
skelter kind ; and though he writes a remarkably 
good hand, scribbled with such rapidity, that it was 
barely legible. He gave me a droll account of the 
. adventures of Lord Howard's note, and of liis own 
in pursuit of it. The poem he brought me came 
as from Lord Howard, with his lordship's request 
that I would revise it. It is in the form of a pas- 
toral, and is entitled " The Tale of the Lute; or 
the Beauties of Audley End."' I read it atten- 
tively; was much pleased with part of it, and part 
of it I equally dislilied. I told lum so, and iji such 
terms as one naturally uses when there seems to 
be no occasion to quahfy or to alleviate censure. I 
observed him afterwards somewhat more thought- 
ful and silent, but occasionally as pleasant as usual: 
and in Kilwick wood, where We walked next day, 
the truth came out; that he was himself the au- 
thor; and that Lord Howard not approving it al-' 
together, and several friends of his own age, to 
whom he had shown it, differing from his lordsJiip 
in opinion, and being highly pleased with it, he 
had come at last to a resolution to abide by my 
judgment; a measure to which Lord Howard by 
all means advised him. He accordingly brought 
it, and vpill bring it again in the summer, when we 
shall lay our heads together and try to mend it. 

I have lately had a letter also from Mrs. King, 
to whom I had written to inquire whether she were 
living or dead. She tells me. the critics expect 
from my Homer every thing in some parts, and 
that in others I shall fall short. These are the 
Cambridge critics; and she has her intelligence 
from the botanical professor, Martyn. That gen- 
tleman in reply answers them, that I shall fall 
sliort in nothing, but shall disappoint them all. It 
shall be ray endeavour to do so, and I am not 
without hope of succeeding. "W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, The Lodge, Feb. 2, 1700. 

Should Heync's Homer appear before mine, 
which I hope is not probable, and should he adopt 
in it the opinion of Bentley, that the whole last 
Odyssey is spurious, I will dare to contradict both 
him and the Doctor. I am only in part of Bent- 
ley's mind (if indeed his mind were such) in tliis 
matter, and giant as he was m learning, and eagle- 
eyed in criticism, am persuaded, convinced, and 
sure (can I be more positive?) that except from 
the moment when the Ithacahs begin to meditate 
an attack on the cottage of Laertes, and thence 
to the end, that book is the work of Homer. From 
the moment aforesaid, I yield the point, or rather 
have never, since I had any skill in Homer, felt 
myself at all inclined to dispute it. But I believe 
perfectly at the same time that. Homer himself 
alone excepted, the Greek poet never existed who 
could have wiitten the speeches made by the shade 
of Agamemnon, in which there is more insight 
into the human heart discovered than I ever saw 
in any other work, unless in Shakspeare's. I am 
equally disposed to fight for the whole passage that 
describes Laertes; and the interview between him 
and Ulysses. Let Bentley grant these to Homer, 
and I will shake hands with him as to all the rest. 
The battle with which the book concludes is, I 
think, a paltry battle, and there is a huddle in the 
management X)f it altogether unworthy of my fa- 
vourite, and the favourite of aU ages. 

If you should happen to fall into company with 
Dr. Warton again, you will not, I dare say, forget 
to make him my respectful compUments, and to 
assure him that I felt myself not a Uttle flattered 
by the favourable mention he was pleased to make 
of me and my labours. The poet who pleases a 
man like hiin has nothing to wish for. I am glad 
that you were pleased with my young cousm John- 
son ; he is a boy, and bashful, but has great merit 
in respect both of character and intellect. So far 
at least as in a week's knowledge of liim I could 
possibly learn ; he is verj"^ amiable, and very sensi- 
ble, and inspired me with a warm wish to know 
him better. W. C. 



■TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, Feb. 9, 1790. 

I HAVE sent you lately scraps instead of letters, 
having had occasion to answer immediately on the 
receipt, which always happens whilfe I am deep 
in Homer.. 

I knew when I recommended Johnson to you 
that you would find some way to serve him, and 



338 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 313, 314, 315. 



so it has happened, for notwithstanding your own 
apprehensions to the contrary, you have already 
procured him a chaplainship. This is pretty well, 
considering that it is an early day, and that you 
have but just begun to know that there is such a 
man under Heaven. I had rather myself be pa- 
tronised by a person of small interest, with a heart 
like yours, than by the Chancellor himself, if he 
did not care a farthing for me. 

If I did not desire you to make my acknowledg- 
ments to Anonymous, as I beheve I did not, it was 
because I am not aware that I am warranted to do 
so. But the omission is of less consequence, be- 
cause whoever he is, though he has no objection 
to doing the kindest things, he seems to have an 
aversion to the thanks they merit. 

You must know that two odes composed by 
Horace have lately been discovered at Rome; I 
wanted them transcribed into the blank leaves of a 
little Horace of mine, and Mrs. Throckmorton 
performed that service for me ; in a blank leaf there- 
fore of the same book I wrote the following.* 

W. C. 



[TO MR. JOHNSON.] . 

DEAR SIR, Weston, Feb. II, 1790. 

I AM very sensibly obliged by the remarks of 
Mr. Fuseli, and beg that you will tell him so: 
they afford me opportunities of improvement, which 
I shall not neglect. When he shall see the press- 
copy, he will be convinced of this; and will be 
convinced likewise that smart as he sometimes is, 
he spares me often when I have no mercy on my- 
self He will see almost a new translation. * * * 

I assure you faithfully, that whatever my faults ^ith an amiable character so impressed upon all 
may be, to be easily or hastily satisfied with what her features, every body was sure to do so. 
I have written is not one of them. ' I have a very affectionate and a very clever let- 

ter from Johnson, who promises me the transcript 
of the books entrusted to him in a few days. I 
have a great love for that young man; he has 
some drops of the same stream in his veins that 
once ahiipated the original of that dear picture. 

W. C. 



I feel myself well enough inclined to the mea- 
sure you propose, and will show to your new ac- 
quaintance with all my heart a sample of my 
translation, but it shall not, if you please, be taken 
from the Odyssey. It is a poem of a gentler cha- 
racter than the Ihad, and as I propose to carry her 
by a coup de main, I shall eniploy Achilles, Aga- 
memnon, and the two armies of Greece and Troy 
in my service. I vnH accordingly send you in the 
box that I received from you last night, the two 
first books of the Ihad, for that lady's perusal ; to 
those I have given a third revisal; for them there- 
fore I will be answerable, and am not afraid to 
stake the credit of my work upon them with her, 
or vnih. any living wight, especially one who un- 
derstands the original. I do not mean that, even 
they are finished, for I shall examine and cross- 
examine them yet again, and so you may tell her, 
but I know that they will not disgrace me; whereas 
it is so long since I have looked at the Odyssey 
that I know nothing at all about it. They shall 
set sail fi-om Olney on Monday mornirig in the 
Diligence, and will reach you I hope in the eve- 
ning. As soon as she has done with them, I shall 
be glad to have them again, for the time draws near, 
when I shall want to give them the last touch. 

I am delighted with Mrs. Bodham's kindness, 
in giving me the only picture of my own mother 
that is to be found I suppose in aU the world. I 
had rather possess it than the richest jewel in the 
British crown, for I loved her with an affection 
that her death, fifty-two years since, has not in 
the least abated. I remember her top, young as 
I was when she died, well enough to know that it 
is a very exact resemblance of her, and as such it 
is to me invaluable. Every body loved her, and 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, Feb. 26, 1790. 
You have set my heart at ease, my cousin, so 
far as you were yourself the object of its anxieties. 
•What other troubles it feels can be cured by God 
alone. But you are never silent a week longer 
than usual, without giving an opportunity to my 
imagination (ever fruitful in flowers of a sable 
hue) to tease me vnth them day and night. Lon- 
don is indeed a pestilent place, as you call it, and I 
would, with all my heart, that thou hadst less to 
do with it ; were you under the same roof with 
me, I should know you to be safe, and should 
never distress you with melancholy letters. 



' The verses to Mrs. Throckmorton on her beautiful trans- 
cript of Horace's Ode concluded this Letter. 



TO MRS. BODHAM, 

MY DEAREST ROSE, Westou, Feb. 27, 1790. 

Whom I thought withered, and fallen from the 
stalk, but whom I find still alive: nothing could 
give me greater pleasure than to know it, and to 
learn it from yourself I loved you dearly when 
you were a child, and love you not a jot the less 
for having ceased to be so. Every creature that 
bears any affinity to my own mother is dear to me, 
and you, the daughter of her brother, are but one 
I remove distant from her; 1 love you therefore, and 



Let. 316. 



LETTERS. 



339 



love you much, both for her sake, and for your 
own. The world could not have furnished you 
with a present so acceptable to me, as the picture 
which you have so kindly sent me. I received it 
the night before last, and viewed it with a tre- 
pidation of nerves and spirits somewhat akin to 
what I should have felt, had the dear original 
presented herself to my embraces. I kissed it, 
and hung it where it is the last object that I see 
at nighty and of course the first on which I open 
my eyes in the morning". She died when I had 
completed my sixth year, yet I remember her 
well, and am an ocular witness of the great fide- 
lity of the copy. I remember too a multitude of 
the maternal tendernesses which I received from 
her, and which have endeared her memory to me 
beyond expression. Thei;e is in me, I believe, 
more of the Donne than of the Cowper; and 
though I love all of both names, and have a thou- 
sand reasons to love those of my own name, yet I 
feel the bond of nature draw me vehemently to 
your side. I was thought in the days of my child- 
hood much to resemble my mother, and in my na- 
tural temper, of which at the age of fifty-eight I 
must be supposed a competent judge, can trace 
both her, and my late uncle, your father. Some- 
what of his irritability, and a little I would hope 

both of his and of her , I know not what to 

call it, without seeming to praise myself, which is 
not my intention, but speaking to you, I will even 
speak out, and say good nature. Add to all this, 
I deal much in poetry, as did our venerable an- 
cestor, the Dean of St. Paul's, and I think I shall 
have proved myself a Donne at all points. The 
truth is, that whatever I am, I love you all. 

I account it a happy event, that brought the 
dear boy, your nephew, to my knowledge, and 
th9,t breaking through all the restraints which his 
natural bashfulness imposed on him, he deter- 
mined to find me out. He is amiable to a degree 
that I have seldom Seen, and I often long with im- 
patience to see him again. 

My dearest cousin, what shall I say in answer 
to your affectionate invitation 1 1 must say this, 
I can not come now, nor soon, and I wish with all 
my heart I could. But I will tell you what may 
be done perhaps, and it will answer to us just as 
well : you and Mr. Bodham can come to Weston, 
can you not 1 The summer is at hand, there are 
roads and wheels to bring you, and you are nei- 
ther of you translating Homer. I am crazed that 
I can not ask you all together for want of house- 
room; but for Mr. Bodham and yourself, we have, 
good room, and equally good for any third, in the 
shape of a Donne, whether named Hewitt, Bod- 
ham, Balls, or Johnson, or by whatever name dis- 
tinguished. Mrs. Hewitt has particular claims 
upon me; she was my playfellow at Berkham- 



stead, and has a share in my wannest affections. 
Pray tell her so ! Neither do I at all forget my 
cousin Harriet. She and I have been many a 
time merry at Catfield, and have made the par- 
sonage ring with laughter. Give my love to her. 
Assure yourself, my dearest cousin, that I shall 
receive you as if you were my sister ; and Mrs. 
Unwin is, for my sake, prepared to do the same. 
When she has seen you, she will love you for 
your own. 

I am much obliged to Mr. Bodham for his 
kindness to my Homer, and with my love to you 
all, and with Mrs. Unwin's kind respects, am. 
My dear, dear Rose, ever yours, W. C. 

P. S. — ^I mourn the death of your poor brother 
Castres, whom I should have seen had he lived, 
and should have seen with the greatest pleasure. 
He was an amiable boy, and I was very fond of 
him. • 

Still another P. S. — I find on consulting Mrs. 
Unwin, that I have underrated our capabilities, 
and that we have not only room for you and Mr. 
Bodham, but for two of your sex, and even for 
your nephew into the bargain. We shall be happy 
to have it all so occupied. 

Your nephew tells me that his sister, in the 
qualities of the mind, resembles you: that is 
enough to make her dear to me, and I beg you 
will assure her that she is so. Let it not be long 
before I hear from you. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

Weston, Feb. 28, 1790. 

MY DEAR COUSIN JOHN, 

I HAVE much wished to hear from you, and 
though you are welcome to vmte to Mrs: Unwin 
as often as you please, 1 wish myself to be num- 
bered among yoijr correspondents. 

I shall find time to answer you, doubt it not! 
Be as busy as we may, we can always find time 
to do what is agreeable to us. By the way, had 
you a letter from Mrs. Unwin 1 I am witness 
that she addressed one to you before you went 
into Norfolk; but your mathematico-poetical head 
forgot to acknowledge the receipt of it. 

1 was never more pleased in my life than to 
learn, and to learn from herself, that my dearest 
Rose* is still ahve. Had she not engaged me to 
love her by the sweetness of her character when a 
child, she would have done it effectually now, by 
making me the most acceptable present in the 
world, my own dear mother's picture. 1 am per- 

"' Mrs. Anne Bodham. 



340 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. S17, 318. 



haps the only person living who remembers her^ 
but I remember her well, and can attest on my 
own knowletlge, the truth of the resemblance. 
Amiable and elegant as the countenance is, such 
exactly was her own ; she was one of the tender- 
est parents, and so just a copy of her is therefore 
to me invaluable. 

I wrote yesterday to my Rose, to tell her all 
this, and to thank her for her kindness in send- 
ing it! Neither do I forget your' kindness, who 
intimated to her that I should be happy to possess 
it. 

She invites me into Norfolk, but alas she might 
as well invite the house in which I dwell; for all 
other considerations and unpediments apart, how 
is it possible that a translator of Homer should 
lumber to such a distance ! But though I pan not 
comply with her kind invitation, I have niade my- 
self the best amends in my power by inviting her, 
and all the family of Donnes, to Weston. Per- 
haps we could not accommodate them all at once, 
but in succession we could ; and can at any time 
find room for five, three of them being females, 
and one a married one. .You are a mathematician ; 
tell me then how five persons can be lodged in 
three beds (two maFes'and three females), and I 
shall have good hope, that you ^vill proceed a se- 
nior optime'? It would make me happy to see our 
house so furnished. As to yourself, whom I know 
to be a suhscalarian, or a man that sleeps under 
the stairs, I should have no objection to all, nei- 
ther could you possibly have any yourself, to the 
garret, as a place in which you might be disposed 
of with great felicity of accommodation. 

I thank you much for your services in the tran- 
scribing way, and would by no means have you 
despair of an opportunity to serve me in the same 
way yet again; — write to me soon, and tell me 
when I shall see you. 

I have not said the half that I have to say, but 
breakfast is at hand, which always terminates my 
epistles. 

What have you done with your poem'? The 
trimming that.it procured you here has not, I hope, 
put you out of conceit with it entirely; you are 
more than equal to the alteration that it needs. 
Only remember, that in writing, perspiciiity is al- 
ways more than half the battle. The want of it 
is the ruin of more than half the poetry that is 
published. A meaning that does not stare you in 
the face i.s.as bad as no meaning, because nobody 
will take the pains to poke for it. So now adieu 
for the present. Beware of killing yourself with 
problems; for if you do, you will never live to be 
another Sir Isaac. 

Mrs. Unwin's affectionate remembrances attend 
you ; Lady Hcskclh is much disposed to love you ; 
perhaps most who know you have some little ten- 
dency the same way. 



TO LADY HESKETH. . 

The Lodge, March 8, 1790. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, 

I thank thee much and o_ft for negotiating so 

well this poetical concern with Mrs. , and 

for sending me her opinion in her own hand. I 
should be unreasonable indeed not to be highly 
gratified by it, and I like it the better for being 
modestly expressed. It is, as you know, and it 
shall be some months longer, my daily business to 
polish and improve what is done, that when the 
whole shall appear she may find her expectations 
answered. I am glad also that thou didst send 
her the sixteenth Odyssey, though, as I said be- 
fore, I know not at all at present whereof it is 
made: but I am sure that thoii wouldst not have 
sent it, hadst thou not conceived a good opinion 
of it thyself, and thought that it would do me cre- 
dit. It was very Idnd in thee to sacrifice to this 
Minerva on my account. 

For my sentiments on the subject of the Test 
Act, I can not do better than refer thee to my 
poem, entitled and called " Expostulation." I 
have there expressed myself not much in its fa- 
vour ; considering it in a religious view ; and in . a 
political one I lUve it not a jot the better. I am 
neither Tory nor High Churchman, but an old 
Whig, as my father was before me; and an enemy 
consequently to all tyrannical impositions. 

Mrs. Unwin bids me return thee many thanks 
for thy inquiries so kindly made concerning her 
health. She is a little better than of late, but lias 
been ill continually ever since last November. 
Every thing that could try patience and submis- 
sion she has had, and her submission and patience 
have answered in the trial, though mine on her 
account have often failed sadly. 

I have a letter from Johnson, who tells me that 
he has sent his transcript to you, begging at the 
same time more copy. Let him have it by all 
means ; he is an industrious youth, and I love him 
dearly. ■ I told him that you are disposed to love 
him a little. A new poem is born on the receipt 
of my mother's picture. Thou shalt have it. 

W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

The Lodge, March 11, 1790. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I WAS glad to hear from you, for a line from 
you gives me always much pleasure, but was not 
much gladdened by the contents of your letter. 
The state of your health, which I have learned 
more accurately perhaps from my cousin, except 
in this last instance, than from yourself, has rather 
alarmed me, and even she has collected her infer- 



Let. 319, 320. 



LETTERS. 



341 



mation upon that subject more from your looks 
than from your own. acknowledgments To com- 
plain much and often of our indispositions does 
not always ensure the pity of the hearer, perhaps 
sometimes forfeits it; but to dissemble them alto- 
gether, or at least to suppress the worst, is attended 
ultimately with an inconvenience greater still; the 
secret will out at last, and our friends, unpsepared 
to receive it, are doubly distressed about us In 
saying this I squint a Uttle at Mrs. Unwin, who 
will read it; it is with her as with you, the only 
subject on which she practises any dissimulation 
at all; the consequence is, that when she is much 
indisposed I never believe myself in possession of 
the whole truth, live in constant expectation of 
hearing something worse, and at the long run am 
seldom disappointed. It seems therefore, as on 
all other occasions, so even in this, the better 
course on the vs^hole to appear what we are ; not 
to lay the fears of our friends asleep by cheerful 
looks, which do not properly belong to us, or by 
letters written as if we were well, when in fact 
we are very much otherwise. On condition hov?- 
ever that you act differently toward me for the fu- 
ture, I will pardon the past, and she may gather 
from my clemency shown to you, some hopes, on 
the same conditions, of similar clemency to herself 

W. C. 



TO MRS. THROCKMORTON. 

The Lodge, March 27, 1790. 

MY DEAREST MADAM, 

I SHALL only observe. on the subject of your ab- 
sence that you have stretched it since you went, 
and have made it a week longer. Weston is sadly 
unked without you; and here are two of us, who 
will be heartily glad to see you again. I believe 
you are happier at home than any where, which 
is a comfortable behef to your neighbours, because 
it affords assurance that since you are neither 
likely to ramble for pleasure, nor to meet with any 
avocations of business, while Weston shall continue 
to be your home, it will not often want you. 

The two first books of my Iliad have been sub- 
mitted to the inspection and scrutiny of a great 
critic of your sex, at the instance of my cousin, as 
you may suppose. The lady is mistress of more 
tongues than a few (it is to be hoped she is single), 
and particularly she is mistress of the Greek. She 
returned them with expressions thpit if any thing 
could make a poet prouder than all poets naturally 
are, would have made me so. I tell you this, be- 
cause I know that you. all interest, yourselves in 
the success of the said Iliad. • '■ 

My periwig is anived, and is tl:i^ very perfection 
of all periwigs, having only one fault; which is, 
that my head will only go into the first half of it, 



the other half, or the upper part of it, continuing 
still unoccujiied. My artist in this way at Olncy 
has however undertaken to make the whole of it 
tcnantable, and then I shall be twenty years young- 
er than you have ever seen me. 

I heard of your birthday very early in the morn- 
ing; the news came from the steeple. W. C. 



. TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, March 22, 1790. 
I REJOICE, my dearest cousin, that my MSS, 
have roamed the earth so successfully, and have 
met with no disaster. The single book excepted 
that went to the bottom of the Thamoe and rose 
again, they have been fortunate without'exception. 
I am not superstitious, but have nevertheless as 
good a right .to believe that adventure an omen, 
and a favourable one, as Swift had to interpret, as 
he did, the loss of a fine fish, which he had no 
sooner laid on the bank, than it flounced into the 
water again. This he tells us himself he always 
considered as a type of his future disappointments; 
and why may not I as well consider the mars'el- 
lous recovery of my lost boo'k from the bottom of 
the Thames, as typical of its future prosperity! 
To say the truth, I have no fears now about the 
success of 'my Translation, though in tune past I 
have had many. I knew there was a style some- 
where, could I but find it, in which Homer ought 
to be rendered, and which alone would suit him. 
Long time I blundered about it, ere I could attain 
to any decided judgment on the matter; at first I 
was betrayed by a desire of accommodating ray 
language to the simplicity of his, into much of the 
quaintness that belonged to our writers of the fif- 
teenth century. In the course of many revisals I 
have delivered myself from this evil, I believe, en- 
tirely; but I have done it slowly, and as a man 
separates himself from his mistress when he is 
going to marry. I had so strong a predilection in 
favour of this style at first, that I was crazed to find 
that others were not as much enamoured with it 
as myself At every passage of that sort which I 
obliterated, I groaned bitterly, and said to myself, 
I am spoiling my work to please those who have 
no taste for the simple graces of antiquity. But 
in measure as I adopted a more modern phraseo- 
logy, I become a convert to their opinion, and in 
the last revisal, wliich I am now making, am not 
sensible of having spared a single expression of the 
obsolete kind. I see my work so much improved 
by this alteration, that I am filled with wonder at 
my own backwardness to assent to the necessity 
of it, and the more when I consider that Milton, 
with whose manner I account myself intimately 
acquainted, is never quaint, never twangs through 
the nose, but is every where grand and elegant, 



342 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 321, 3^. 



without resorting to musty antiquity for his beau- 
ties. On the contrary, he took a long stride for- 
W£trd, left the language of his own day far behind 
him, and anticipated the expressions of a century 
yet to come. 

I have now, as I said, no longer any doubt of 
the event, but I will give thee a shilling if thou wilt 
tell me what I shall say in my preface. It is an 
affair of much delicacy, and I have as many 
opinions about it as there are whims in a weather- 
cock. 

Send my MSS. and thine when thou wilt. In 
a day or two I shall enter on the last Iliad. WTien 
I have finished it I shall give the Odyssey one more 
reading, and shall therefore shortly have occasion 
for the copy in thy possession ; but you see that 
there is no -need to hurry. 

I leave the little space for Mrs. UnWin's use, 
who means, I beheve, to occupy it. 

Andcim evermore thine most truly, W. C. 

Postscript in the hand of Mrs. TJnwin. 

You can not imagine how much your ladyship 
would obhge your unworthy ser\'ant, if you would 
be so good to let me know in what point I differ 
from you. All that at present I can say is, that 
I will readily sacrifice my own opinion, unless 
J can give you a substantial reason for- adhering 
to it. ■ - 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. 

Weston, March 23, 1790. 

Your MS. arrived safe in new Norfolk Street, 
and I am much obliged to you for your labours. 
Were you now at Weston I could furnish you with 
employment for some weeks, and shall perhaps be 
equally able to do it in summer, for I have lost my 
best amanuensis in this place, Mr. George Throck- 
morton, who is gone to Bath. 

You are a man to be envied, who have never 
read the Odyssey, which is one of the most amus- 
ing story-books in the world. There is also much 
of the finest poetry in the world to be found in it, 
notvsdthstanding all that Longinus has insinuated 
to the contrary. His comparison of the Iliad and 
Odyssey to the meridian, and the decHning sun, 
is pretty, but I iim persuaded, not just. The pret-' 
tincss of it seduced him ; he was otherwise too judi- 
cious a reader of Homer to have made it. I can 
find in the latter no symptoms of impaired ability, 
none of tlic effects of age ; on the contrary, it 
seems to me a certainty, that Homer, had he writ- 
ten the Odyssey in his youth, could not have writ- 
ten it better; and if the Iliad in his old age, that 
he would have written it just as well. A critic 
would tell me, that instead of icrittcn. I should 



have said composed. Very likely — but,. 1 am not 
writing to one of that snarling generation. 

My boy, I long to see thee again. It has hap- 
pened some way or other, that Mrs. Unwin ahd 
I have conceived a great affection for thee. That 
I should, is the less to be wondered at (because 
thou art a shred of my own mother) ; neither is 
the wcjnder great that she should fall into the same 
predicament : for she loves every thing that I love. 
You will observe that your own personal right to 
be beloved makes no part of the consideration. 
There is nothing that I touch with so much ten- 
derness as the vanity of a young man ; because I 
know how extremely he is susceptible of impres- 
sions that might hurt him in that particular part 
of his composition. If you should ever prove a 
coxcomb, from which character you stand just 
now at a greater distance than any young man I 
know, it shall never be said that I have made you 
one ; no, you will gain nothing by me but the 
honour of being much valued by a poor poet, who 
can do you no good while he lives, and has nothing 
to leave you when he dies. If you can be con- 
tented to be dear to me on these conditions, so you 
shall; but other terms more advantageous than 
these, or more inviting, none have I ta propose. 

Farewell. Puzzle not yourself about a subject 
when you vn*ite to either of us ; every thing is sub- 
ject enough from those we love. W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

■ Weston, April 17, 1790. 

YoDR letter that now lies before me is almost 
three weeks old, and therefore of full age to re- 
ceive an answer, which it shall without delay, if 
the interval between the present moment and 
that of breakfast should prove sufficient for the 
purpose. 

Yours to Mrs. TJnvvin was received yesterday, 
for which she will thank you in due time. Lhave 
also seen, and have now in my desk your letter to 
Lady Hesketh ; she sent it thinking it would di- 
vert me ; in which she was not mistaken. I shall 
tell her when I write to her next, that you long to, 
receive a line from her. Give yourself no trouble 
on the subject of the politic device you saw good 
to recur to, when you presented me with the man- 
uscript ; it was an innocent deception, at least it 
could harm nobody save yourself; an effect which 
it did not fail to produce ; and since the punish- 
ment followed it so closely, by me at least it may 
very well be forgiven. You ask, how can I tell 
that you are nOt «iddicted to practices of the de- 
ceptive kind 1 ♦And certainly, if the little time 
that I have had to study you were alone to be con- 
sidered, the question would not be unreasonable ; 



Let. 323, 334, 325. 



LETTERS. 



313 



but in general a man who reaches my years finds 

" That long experience does attain 
To something iilce prophetic strain." 

I am very much of Lavater's opiniort, and per- 
suaded that faces are as legible as books, only with 
these circumstances to recommend them to our 
perusal, that they are read in much less time, and 
are much less likely to deceive us. Yours gave 
tae a favourable impression of you the moment I 
beheld it, and. though I shall "not tell you in par- 
ticular what I saw in it, for reasons mentioned in 
my last, I will add that I had observed in you 
nothing since, that has not confirmed the opinion 
I then formed in your favour. In fact, I can not 
recollect that my skill in physiognomy has ever de- 
ceived me, and I should add more on this subject, 
had I room. 

When you have shut up your mathematical 
books, you must give yourself to the study of 
Greek ; not merely that you may be able to read 
Homer and the other Greek classics with ease, but 
the Greek Testament, and the Greek fathers also. 
Thus quaUfied, and by the aid of" your fiddle into 
the bargain, together with some portion of the 
grace of God (without which nothing can be done) 
to enable you to look well to your flock, when you 
shall get one, you will be well set up for a parson. 
In which character, if I live to see you in it, I 
shall expect anci hope that you will make a very 
different figure from most of your fraternity. 

Ever yours. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, April 19, 1790. 

MY DEAREST COZ, 

I THANK thee for my cousin Johnson's letter, 
which diverted me. I had one from him lately, in 
which he expressed an ardent desire of a hne from 
you, and the delight he would feel in receiving it. 
1 -know not whether you will have the charity to 
satisfy his longings, but mention the matter, think- 
ing it possible that you may. A letter from a 
lady to a youth immersed in mathematics must 
be singularly pleasant. 

I am finishing Homer backward, having begun 
at the last book, and designing to persevere in 
that crab-like fashion, till I arrive at the first. 
This may remind you perhaps of a certain poet's 
prisoner in the Bastile (thank Heaven ! in the 
Bastile now no more) counting the nails in the 
door for variety's sake in all directions. I find so 
little to do in the last revisal, that I shall soon reach 
the .Odyssey, and soon want those books of it 
which are in thy possession ; the two first of the 
Iliad, which are also in thy possession,- much sooner ; 
thou must therefore send them by the first fair op- 
23 



portunity. I am in high spirits on this subject, 
and tliink that 1 have at last licked the clumsy cub 
into a shape that will secure to it the favourable 

notice of the public. Let not -retard me, 

and 1 shall hope to get it out next winter. 

I am glad that thou hast sent the General those 
verses on my mother's picture. They wiU amu^e 
him — only I hope that he will not miss my mother- 
in-law, and think that she ought to have made a 
third. On such an occasion it was not possible to 
mention her with any propriety. I rejoice at the 
General's recovery ; may it prove a perfect one. 

W. C, 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Weston, April 30, 1790. 

To my old friend. Dr. Madan, thou couldst not 
have spoken better than thou didst. Tell him, I 
beseech you, that I have not forgotten him ; tell 
him also that to my heart and home he will be 
always welcome; nor heT)nly, but all that are his. 
His judgment of my translation gave me the high- 
est satisfaction, because I know him to be a rare 
old Grecian. 

The General's approbation of my picture verses 
gave me also much pleasure. I wrote them not 
without tears, therefore I presume it may be that 
they are felt by others. Should he offer me my 
father's picture, I shall gladly accept it. A melan- 
choly pleasure is better than none, nay verily better 
than most. He had a sad task imposed on him, 
but no man could acquit himself of such a one ' 
with more discretion, or with more tenderness. 
The death of the unfortunate.young man remind- 
ed me of those lines in Lycidas, 

It was that fatal and perfidioii-5 bark, . 

Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, 

That simk so low that sacred head of thine ! 

How beautiful ! " W. C. 



TO MRS. THROCKMORTON. 

The Lodge, May 10, 1790. 

MY DEAR MRS. FROG,* 

You have by this time (I presume) heard from 
the Doctor, whom I desired to present to you our 
best affections, and to tell you that we are well. 
He sent an urchin (I do not mean a hedge-hog, 
commonly called an urchin in old times, but a 
boy, commonly so called at present) expecting 
that he would find you at Buckland's. whither he 
supposed you gone on Thursday. He sent him 
charged with divers articles, and among others with 



* The sportive title generaEy bestowed by Cowper on his 
amiable friends the Throckmortons. 



344 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 326,327,328. 



letters, or at least with a letter ; when I mention 
that if the boy should be lost, together with his 
despatches, past all possibility of recovery, you 
may yet know tliat the Doctor stands acquitted of 
not writing. — That he is utterly lost (that is to 
say the boy, for the Doctor heiug the last antece- 
dent, as the gi-ammarians sa}', you might other- 
wise suppose he Was intended) is the more proba- 
ble, because he was never four miles from his home 
before, having only traveled at the side of a plough- 
team ; and when the Doctor gave him his direc- 
tion to Buckland's, he asked, very naturally, if 
that place was in England. So what has become 
of him Heaven knows ! 

I do not know that any adventures have pre- 
sented themselves since your departure worth men- 
tioning, except that the rabbit, that infested your 
wilderness, has been shot for devouring your car- 
nations; and that I myself have been in some dan- 
ger of being devoured m like manner by a great 
dog, viz. Pearson's. But I wrote' him a letter on 
Friday (I mean a letter to Pearson, not to his dog, 
which I mention to prevent mistakes — for the said 
last antecedent might occasion tliem in this place 
also) informing him, that unless he tied up his 
great mastift'in the day-time, I would send him a 
worse thing, commonly called and known by the 
name of an attorney. When I go forth to ramble 
jn the fields, I do not sally like Don Q.uixote, with 
a purpose of encountering monsters, if any such 
can be found; but am a peaceable poor gentleman, 
and a poet, who mean nobody 'any harm, the fox- 
hunters and the two universities of this land ex- 
cepted, 

I can not learn from any creature whether the 
Turnpike bill is alive or dead. So ignorant am I, 
and by such ignoramuses surrounded. But if I 
know little else, this at least I know, that I love 
you, and Mr. Frog ; that I long for your return, 
and that I am. with Mrs. Unwin's best affections, 
Ever yours, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, ifai/ '28, 1790. 

MY DEARKST COZ, 

I THANK thee for the ofTer of thy best services 
on this occasion. But heaven guard my brows 
from the wreath you mention, wdratever wreath 
beside may hereafter adorn them ! It would be a 
leaden extinguisher clapped on all the lire of my 
genius, and I should never more produce a line 
worth reading. To speak seriously, it would 
make me miserable, arid therefore I am sure that 
thou of all my friends, wouldst least wish me to 
wear it. 

Adieu, ever thine — in Homer-hurry, W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Weston, June 3, 1790. 
YotJ will wonder when I tell you that I, even J, 
am considered by people, who live at a great dis^ 
tance, as having interest and influence sufficient 
to procure a place at court for those who may 
happen to want one. I have accordingly been 
applied to within these few days by a Welshman, 
with a wife and many children, to get him made 
poet-laureat as fast- as possible. If thou wouldst 
wish to make the world merry twice a year, thou 
canst not do better than to procure the office for 
him. 1 will promise thee, that he shall afford thee 
a hearty laugh in return, every birth day, and 
everynew year. He is an honest man. 

Adieu! W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

MY DEAR JOHN, Weston, Juuc 1,11^0. 

You know my engagements, and are consequent- 
ly able to account for my silence. I will not there- 
fore waste time and paper in mentioning them, 
but will only say that added to those with which 
you are acquainted, I had other hindrances, such 
as business, and a disorder of my spirits, to which 
I have been all my life subject. At present I am, 
thank God ! perfectly well both in niind and body. 
Of you I am always mindful, whether I write or 
not, and very desirous to see you. You will re- 
member, I hope, that you are under engagements 
to Us, and, as soon as your Norfolk friend can 
spare you, will fulfil them. Give us all the time 
you can, and all that they can spare to us! 

You never pleased me more than when you told 
me you had abandoned your mathematical pur- 
suits. It grieved me to think that you were wast- 
ing your tune merely to gain a little Cambridge 
fame, not worth your having. I can not be con- 
tented that your renown should thrive novvhere 
but on the banks of the Cam. Conceive a nobler 
ambition, and never let your honour be circum- 
scribed by the paltry dimensions of an university; 
It is well that you have already, as you observe, 
acquired sufficient information in that science, to 
enable you to pass Creditably such examinations as 
I suppose you must hereafter undergo. Keep 
what you have gotten, and be content. More is 
needless. 

' You could not apply to a worse than I am to 
advise you concerning your studies.' I was never 
a regular student myself, but lost the most valua- 
ble, years of my life in an attorney's office, and in 
the Temple. I will not therefore give myself airs, 
and affect to know what I know not. The affair 



Let. 329, 330. 



LETTERS. 



345 



is of great importance to you, and you should be 
directed in it by a wiser than I. To speak how- 
ever in very general terms on the subject, it seems 
to me that your chief concern is with history, na- 
tural philosopliy, logic, and divinity. As to meta- 
physics, I know little about them. But the very 
little that 1 do know has not tkught me to admire 
them! Life is too short to aflbrd time even for 
serious trifles. Pursue what you know to be at- 
tainable, make truth your object, and your studies 
will make you a wise man! Let your divinity, 
if I may advise, be the divinity of the glorious Re- 
formation: I'mean in contradistinction to Armi- 
nianism, and all the isms that were ever broached 
in this world of error and ignorance. 

The divinity of the Reformation is called Cal- 
vinism, but injuriously. It has been that of the 
church of Christ in all ages. It'is the divinity of 
St. Paul, and of St. Paul's master, who met liim 
in the way to Damascus. 

I have written in great haste, that I might finish 
if possible before breakfast. Adieu ! Let us see 
you soon ; the sooner the better. Give my love 
to the silent lady, the Rose, and all my friends 
around you. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE,ESa. 

The Lodge, June 8, 1790. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

Among the many who love and esteem ypu, 
there is none who rejoices more in your felicitj' 
than myself Far from blaming, I commend you 
much for connecting yourself, young as you are, 
with a well-chosen companion for hfe. Entering 
on the state with uncontaminated morals, you have 
the best possible prospect of happiness, and will 
be secure against a thousand and ten thousand 
temptations, to which, at an early period of life, 
in such a Babylon as you must necessarily inha- 
bit, you would otherwise have been exposed. I 
see it too in the light you jio, as likely to be ad- 
vantageous to you in your profession. Men of 
business have a better opinion of a candidate for 
employment, who is married, because he has given 
bond to the world, as you observe, and to himself, 
for diligence, industry, and attention, • It is alto- 
gether therefore a subject' of much congratulation : 
and mine, to wliich I add Mrs. Unwin's, is very 
sincere. Samson at his marriage proposed a rid- 
dle to the Philistines. I am no Samson, neither 
are you a Philistine. Yet expound to me the fol- 
lowing, if you can. 

What are they, which stand at a. distance from 
each other, and meet without ever moving 7 

Should you be so fortunate as to guess it, you 
may propose it to the company, when you celebrate 
your nuptials • and if you can win thirty changes 



of raiment by it, as Samson did by his, let me tell 
you, they will be no contemptible acquisition to a 
young beginner. 

You will not, I hope, forget your way to Wes- 
ton, in consequence of your marriage, where you 
and yours will be always welcome. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, June 17, 1790. 

MY DEAREST COZ, 

Here am I, at eight in the morning, in full 
dress, going a visiting to Chicheley. We are a 
strong party, and fill two chaises; Mrs. F. the 
elder, and Mrs. G. in one; Mrs. F. the younger, 
and myself in another. Were it not that I shall find 
Chesters at the end of my journey, I should be 
inconsolable. That expectation alone supports 
my spirits; and even with this prospect before me, 
when I saw this moment a poor old woman coming 
up the lane opposite my window, I, could not help 
sighing, and saying to myself — " Poor, but happy 
old woman I thou art exempted by thy situation 
in life from riding in chaises, and making thyself 
fine in a morning, happier therefore in my account 
than I, who am under the cruel necessity of doing 
both. Neither dost thou write verses, neither hast 
thou ever heard of the name of Homer, whom I am 
miserable to abandon for a whole morning 1" This, 
aixl more of the same sort, passed in my mind on 
seeing the old woman above said. 

The troublesome business, with which I filled 
my last letter, is (I hope) by this time concluded, 
and Mr. Archdeacon satisfied. I can, to be sure, 
but ill afford to pay fifty pounds for another man's 
negligence, but would be happy to pay a hundred 
rather than be treated as if I were insolvent; 
threatened with attorneys and bums. One would 
think that, living where I live, I might be ex- 
empted from trouble. But alas ! a* the philoso- 
phers often affirm, there is no nook under heaven 
in which trouble can not enter; and perhaps had 
there never been one philosopher in the world, 
this is a truth that would not have been always 
altogether a secret. 

I have made two inscriptions lately at tlie re- 
quest of Thomas Gifford, Esq. who is sowing twen- 
ty acres with acorns on one side of his house, and 
twenty acres with ditto on the other. Ho erects 
two memorials of stone on the occasion, that when 
posterity shall be curious to know the age of the 
oaks, their curiosity may be gratified.* 

My works therefore will not all perish, or will 
not all perish soon, for he has ordered his lapidary 
to cut the characters very deep, and in stone ex- 
tremely hard. It is not in vain then, that I have 



* The Inscriptions were inserted here. See Poeina. 



346 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 331, 332. 



so long exercised the business of a poet. I shall 
at least reap the reward of my labours, and be im- 
mortal probably for many years. 

Ever thine, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 



MY DEAR FRIEND, 



Weston, June 22, 1790. 



Villoison makes no mention of the serpent, 
whose skin, or bowels, or perhaps both, were ho- 
noured with the Iliad and Odyssey inscribed upon 
them. But I have conversed with a Uving eye- 
witness of an African serpent long enough to have 
afforded skin and guts for the purpose. In Africa 
there are ants also, which frequently destroy those 
monsters. They are not much larger than ours, 
but they travel in a column of immense length, 
and eat through every thing that opposes them. 
Their bite is like a spark of fire. When these 
serpents have killed their prey, lion or tiger or any 
other large animal, before they swallow him, they 
take a considerable circuit round about the car- 
case, to see if the ants are coming, because when 
they have gorged their prey, they are unable to 
escape them. They are nevertheless sometimes 
surprised by them in their unwieldy state, and the 
ants make a passage through them. Now if you 
thought your own story of Homer, bound in snake- 
skin, worthy of three notes of admiration, you can 
not do less than add six to mine, confessing at the 
same time, that if I put you to the expense of a 
letter, I do not make you pay your money for no- 
thing. But this account I had from a person of 
most unimpeachcd veracity. 

I rejoice with you in the good Bishop's removal 
to St. Asaph, and especially because the Norfolk 
parsons mucff more resemble the ants above-men- 
tioned, than he the serpent. He is neither of vast 
size, nor unwieldy, nor voracious; neither, I dare 
say, does he sleep after dinner, according to the 
practice of the said serpent. But, harmless as- he 
is, I am mistaken if his mutinous clei-gy did not 
sometimes disturb his rest, and if he did not find 
their bite, though they could not actually eat 
through him, in a degree resembling fire. Good 
men like him, and peaceable, should have good 
and peaceable folks to deal with, and I heartily 
wish him such in his new diocese. But if he will 
keep the clergy to their business, he shall have 
trouble, let him go where he may; and this is 
boldly spoken, considering that I speak it to one 
of that reverend body. But ye are like Jeremiah's 
basket of figs. Some of you could not be better, 
and some of you are stark naught. Ask the bishop 
himself, if tliis be not true ! W. C. 



TO MRS. BODHAM. 

The Lodge, June 29, 1790. 

MY DEAREST COUSIK, 

It is true that I did sometimes complain to Mrs. 
Unwin of your long silence. But it is likewise 
true, that I made many excuses for you in my own 
mind, and did not feel myself at all inchned to be 
angry, nor even much to wonder. There is an 
awkwardness, and a difBculty in writing to those 
whom distance and length of time have made in 
a manner new to us, that naturally gives us a, 
check, when we, would otherwise be glad to ad- 
dress them. But a time, I hope, is near at hand, 
when you and I shall be effectually delivered from 
all such constraints, and correspond as fluently as 
if our intercourse had suffered much less interrup- 
tion. 

You must not suppose, my dear, that tjiough I 
may be said to have lived many years with a pen 
in my hand, I am myself altogether at my ease on 
this tremendous occasion. Imagine rather, and 
you will come nearer lo the truth, that when I 
placed this sheet before me I asked myself more 
than once, " how shall I fill if!" One subject in- 
deed presents itself, the pleasant prospect that 
opens upon me of our coming once more together, 
but that once exhausted, with what shall I pro- 
ceed 1 Thus I questioned myself; but finding 
neither end nor profit of such questions, I bravely 
resolved to dismiss them all at once, and to engage 
in the great enterprise of a letter to my quondam 

Rose at a venture^ There is great truth in a 

rant of Nat. Lee's, or of Dryden's, I know not 
which, who makes an enamoured youth say to his 
mistress. 

And nonsense shall be eloquence in love. 

For certain it is, that they who truly love one an- 
other are not very nice examiners of each other's 
style or matter; if an epistle comes, it is always 
welcome, though it be perhaps neither so wise nor 
so witty as one might have wished to make it. 
And now, my cousin, let me tell thee how much 
I feel myself obliged to Mr. Bodham, for the readi- 
ness he expresses to accept my invitation. Assure 
him that, stranger as he is to me at present, and 
natural as the dread of strangers has ever been to 
me, I shall yet receive him with open arms, be- 
cause he is your husband, and loves you dearly. 
That consideration alone will endear him to me, 
and 1 dare say that I shall not find it his only re- 
commendation to my best affections. May the 
health of his rek-rtion (his mother, 1 suppose) be 
soon restored, and long continued, and may nothing 
melancholy, of what kind soever, interfere to pre- 
vent our joyful meeting. Between flie present 
moment and September bur house is clear for your 
reception, and you have nothing to do but to give 



Let. 333, 334, 335. 



LETTERS. 



347 



us a day or two's notice of your coining. In Sep- 
tember we expect Lady Hesketii, and I only re- 
gret that our house is not large enough to hold all 
together, for were it possible that you could meet, 
you would love each other. 

Mrs. Unwin bids me offer you her best love. 
She is never well, but always patient, and always 
cheerful, and feels beforehand that she shall be loth 
to part with j'iou. 

My love to all the dear Donncs of every name ! — 
write soon, no matter about what. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

• July 7, 1790. 

Instead of beginning with the saffron-vested 
morning, to which Homer invites me, on a morn- 
ing that has no saffron vest to boast, I shall begin 
with you. 

It is irksome to us both to wait so long as we 
must for you, but we are willing to hope that by 
a longer stay you will make us amends for all this 
tedious procrastination. 

Mrs. Unwin has made known her whole case 
to Mr. Gregson, whose opinion of it has been very 
consolatory to me : he says indeed it is a case per- 
fectly out of the reach of all physical aid, but at 
the same time not "at all dangerous. Constant 
pain is a sad grievance, whatever part is affected, 
and she is hardly ever free from an aching head, 
as well as ah uneasy side, but patience is an ano- 
dyne of God's own preparation, and of that he 
gives her largely. 

The French, who like all hvely folks are ex- 
treme in every thing, are such in their zeal for 
freedom ; and if it were possible to make so noble 
a cause ridiculous, their manner of promoting it 
could not fail to do so. Princes and peers reduced 
to plain gentlemanship, and gentles reduced to a 
level with their own lackeys, are excesses of which 
they will repent -hereafter. Difference of rank 
and subordination are, I believe, of God's appoint 
ment, and consequently essential to the well-being 
of society: but what we mean by fanaticism in 
religion is exactly that which animates J;h.eir po- 
litics; and unless time should sober them,, they 
will, after all, be an unhappy people. Perhaps it 
deserves not much to be wondered at, that at their 
• first escape from tyrannic shackles they should act 
extravagantly; and treat their kings as they have 
sometimes treated their idols. To these however 
they are reconciled in due time again, but their 
respect for monarchy is at an end. They want no- 
thing now but a little English sobriety, and that 
they want extremely: I heartily wish them some 
wit in their anger, for it were gi'eat pity that so 
many millions should be miserable for want of it. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

MY DEAR joiiNXY, Wcston, JuUj 8, 1790. 

You do well to perfect yourself on the violin. 
Only beware, that an amusement so very bewitch- 
ing as music, especially when we produce it our- 
elves, do not steal from you all those hours, that 
should be given to study. I can be well content, 
that it should serve you as a refreshment after 
severer exercises, but not that it should engross 
you wholly. Your own good sense will most pro- 
bably dictate to you tliis precaution, and I might 
have spared you the trouble of it; but I have a 
degree of zeal for your proficiency in more im- 
portant pursuits^ that wotdd not suffer me to sup- 
press it. 

tiaving delivered ray conscience by giving you 
this sage admonition, I will convince you that I 
am a censor not over and above severe, by ac- 
knowledging in the next place that I have known 
very good performers on the violin very learned 
also ; and my cousin, Dr. Spencer Madan, is an 
instance. 

I am delighted that you have engaged your sis- 
ter to visit us; for I say to myself, if John be 
amiable, what must Catharine be 1 For we males, 
be we angelic as we may, are always surpassed 
by the ladies. But knOw this, that I shall not be 
in love with either of you, if you stay with us only 
a few days, for you talk of a week or so. Correct 
this erratum, I beseech .you, and convince us by 
a much longer continuance here, that it was one. 

W. C. 

Mrs. Unwin has never been well since you saw 
her. You are not passionately fond of letter- 
writing, I perceive, who have dropped a lady; 
but you will be a loser by the bargain ; for one 
letter of hers in point of real utility, and sterling 
value, is worth twenty of mine, and you will never 
have another from her, till you have earned it. 

W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

Weston,. July 31, 1790, 
You have by this time, I presume, answered 
Lady Hesketh's letter 1 If not, answer it without 
delay; arid this injmiction I give you, judging that 
it may not be entirely mmecessary; for though 
I have seen you but once, and only for two or 
three days, I have found out that you are a scat- 
ter-brain. I made the discovery perhaps the sooner, 
because in this you very much resemble myself, 
who in the course of my life have, through mere 
carelessness and inattention, lost many advan- 



348 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 33G, S37, 338. 



tages: and insuperable shyness has also deprived 
me of many. And here again there is a resem- 
blance between us. You will do well to guard 
against bolli, for of both, 1 believe, you have a 
considtrablo share as w.ell as myself. 

Wc Ion" to see you again, and are only con- 
cerned at tlie short stay you propose to make with 
us. If time should seem as short to you at Wes- 
ton, as it seems to us, your visit here will be gone 
" as a dream when one awaketh, or as a watch in 
the night." 

It is a life of dreams, but the pleasantest one 
naturally wishes longest. 

I shall find employment for you, having made 
alread}' some part of the fair copy of the Odyssey 
a foul one. I am revising it for the last time, and 
spare nothing that I can mend.* The Iliad is 
finished. 

If you have Donne's poems, bring them with' 
you, for I have not seen them many years, and 
shoidd like to look them over. 

You may treat us too, if you please, with a ht- 
tle of your music, for I seldom hear any, and de- 
light much in it. You need not fear a rival, for 
we have but two fiddles in the neighbourhood — 
one a gardener's; the other a tailor's: terrible per- 
formers both! W. C. 



[TO MR. JOHNSON!] 

Se'pt. 7, 1790. 
It grieves me that after all I am obliged to go 
into public without the whole advantage of Mr. 
Fuseli's judicious strictures. My only considera- 
tion is, that I have not forfeited them by my own 
impatience. Five years are no small portion of a 
man's life, especially at the latter end of it; and in 
those five years, being a rnan of almost no en- 
gagements, I have done more in the way of hard 
work, than most could have done in twice the 
number. I beg you to present my compliments 
to Mr. Fuseli, with many and sincere thanks for 
the services that his own more important occupa- 
tions would allow him to render me. 



TO MRS. BODHAM. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, Weslon, Sept. 9, 1790. 

I AM truly sorry to be forced after all to resign 
the hope of seeing you and Mr. Bodham at Wes- 
ton this year; the next may possibly be more pro- 
pitious, and I heartily wish it may. Poor Catha- 



* The revisal was completed on the 25th of August foHow- 
Ing; five years and one month (exclusive of the period of 
illness before-mentioned) from the writer's entering on the 
Oanslation of Homer. 



rine's unseasonable indisposition has also cost ug 
a disappointment, which we much regret ; and 
were it not that .Tohnny has made shift to reach 
us, we sliould think ourselves completely unfortu- 
nate. But him we have, and him we will hold as 
long as we can, so expect not very soon to see him 
in Norfolk. He is so harmless, cheerful, gentle, 
and good-tempered, and I am so entirely at my 
ease mth him, that lean not surrender him with- 
out a needs must, even to those who have a su- 
perior claim upon him. He left us yesterday 
morning, and whither do you think he is gone, 
and on what errand 1 Gone, as sure as you are 
alive, to London, and to convey my Homer to the 
bookseller's. But he will return the day after to- 
morrow, and 1 mean to part with him no more, 
till necessity shall force us asunder. Suspect me 
not, my cousin, of being such a monster as to 
have imposed this task myself on your kind ne- 
phew, or even to. have thought of doing it. It 
happened that one day, as we chatted by the fire- 
side, I expressed a wisli, that 1 could hear of some 
trusty body going to London, to whose care I 
might consign my voluminous labours, the work 
of five years. For I purpose never to visit that 
city again myself, and should have been imeasy to 
have left a charge, of so much importance to me, 
altogether to the care of a stage-coachman. Johnny 
had no sooner heard my wish; than offering him- 
self to the service, he fulfilled it, and his offer was 
made in such terms, and accompaniecj with a coun- 
tenance and manner expressive of so much alacri- 
ty, that unreasonable as I thought it at first, to 
give him so much trouble, I soon found that I 
should mortify him by a retusal. He is gone 
therefore with a box full of poetry, of which I 
think nobody will plunder him. He has only to 
say what it is, and there is no commodity I think a 
freebooter would covet less. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa 

The -Lodge, Sept. 13, 1790. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

Your letter was particularly welcome to me, 
not only, because it came after a long silence, but 
because it brought me good news — news of your 
marriage, and consequently, I trust, of your hap- . 
piness. May that happiness be durable as your 
lives, and may you be the Felices ter et amplius 
of whom Horace sings so sweetly ! This is my 
sincere wish, and, though expressed in prose, shall 
serve as your cpithalamium. You comfort me 
when you say that your marriage will not deprive us 
of the sight of you hereafter. If you do not wish 
that I should regret your union, you must make 
that assurance good as often as you have oppor- 
tunity. 



Let. 339, 340, 341. 



LETTERS. 



349 



After perpetual versification during fiVe years, I 
find myself at last a vficant man, and reduced to 
read for my amusement. ' My Homer is gone to 
the press, and you will imagine that I feel a void 
in consequence. The proofs however will be com- 
ing soon, and I shall avail myself, with all my 
force, of this last opportunity, to make my work 
as perfect as I wish it. I shall not therefore be 
long time destitute of employment, but shall have 
sufficient to keep mc occupied all the winter, and 
part of the ensuing spring, for Johnson purposes 
to publish either in March, April, or May — my 
very preface is finished. It did not cost nie much 
trouble, being neither long nor learned. I have 
spoken my mind as freely as decency would per- 
mit on the subject of Pope's version, allowing him, 
at the same time, all the merit to which 1 think 
him entitled. I have given my reasons for trans- 
lating in blank verse, and hold some discourse oh 
the mechanism of it, chiefly with a view to obviate 
the prejudices of some people against it. I expa- 
tiate a little on the manner in which I think Ho- 
mer ought to be rendered, and in which I have en- 
deavoured to render him myself, and anticipated 
two or three cavils, to wliich I foresee that I shall 
be liable from the ignorant, or uncandid, in order, 
if possible, to prevent them. These are the chief 
heads of my preface, and the whole consists' of 
about twelve pages. 

It is possible when .1 come to treat with John- 
son about the copy, I may want some person to 
negotiate for me ; and knowing no one so. intelli- 
gent as yourself in books, or so well qualif],ed to 
estimate their just value, I shall beg leave to resort 
to and rtjly on you as my negotiator. But I v?ill 
not trouble you unless I should see occasion. My 
cousin was the bearer of my mss. to London. He 
went on purpose, and returns to-morrow. Mrs. 
Unwin's affectionate felicitations, added to my own, 
conclude me, 

My dear friend, sincerely youTS, W. C!- 

The tree? of a colonnade will solve my riddle. 



[TO MR. JOHNSON.] 

Weston, Oct. 3, 1790. 
Mr. Newton having again requested that the 
preface which he wrote for my first volume may be 
prefixed to it, I am desirous to gratify him in a 
particular that so emphatically bespeaks his friend- 
ship for me ; and should niy books sfee another 
edition, shall be obliged to you if you will add it 
accordingly. 



I beg that you will not sufier your reverence 
either for Homer, or his translator, to check your 
continual examinations. I never knew with cer- 



tainty, till now, that the marginal strictures I 
found in the Task proofs were yours. The just- 
ness of them, and the benefit I derived from them, 
arc fresh in my memory, and I doubt not that 
their utility will be the same in the present in- 
stance.* 

Weston, Oct. 30, 1790 



TO MRS. BODHAM. 

MY DEAR coz, W6ston,Nov. 21, 1790. 

Our kindness to your nephew is no more than 
he must entitle himself to wherever he goes. " His 
amiable disposition and manners will never fail to 
secure hira a warm place in the affection of all 
who know him. The advice I gave resjpecting his 
poem on Audley End was dictated by my love of 
him, and a sincere desire of his success. It is one 
thing to write what may please our friends, who, 
because they are such, are apt to be a little biased 
in . our favour ; and another to write what may 
please every body ; becaiuse they who have no con- 
nexion, or even knowledge of the author, will be 
sure to find fault if they can. My advice, how- 
ever salutary and necessary as it seemed to me, 
was such as I dared not give to a poet of less diffi- 
dence than he. Poets ^.re to a proverb irritable, 
and he is the only one I ever knew, who seems to 
have no spark of that fire about him. He has 
left us about a fortnight, and sorry we were to lose 
him ; but had he been my son, he must have gone,' 
and- 1 could not have regretted him more. If his 
sister be still with you, present my love to her, and 
tell her how much I wish to see them at Weston 
together. 

Mrs. Hewitt probably remembers more of my 
childhood, than I can recollect either of hers or 
my own ; but this I recollect, that the days of that 
period were happy days, compared with most I 
have seen since. There are few perhaps in the 
world, who have not cause to look back; with re- 
gret on the days of infancy ; yet, to say the truth, 
I suspect some deception in this. For infancy it- 
self has its cares ; and "though we can not now 
conceive how trifles could affect us much, it is cer- 
tain that they did. Trifles they appear now, but 
such they were not then. W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

MY BIRTH-DAY. 

Friday, Nov. 26, 1790. 

MY DEAREST JOHNNY, 

I AM happy that you have escaped from the claws 



* I am anxious to preserve this singular anecdote ; as it 
is honourable both to the modest poet, and to his intelligent 
bookseller. Hayley. 



350 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 342, 3^. 



of Euclid into the bosom of Justinian. It is use 
ful I suppose to ercry man, to be well grounded in 
the princij)les of jurisprudence ; and I take it to 
be a brancii of science that bids much fairer to 
enlarcfc the mind, and give an accuracy of rea- 
soning, tliat all the mathematics in the world. 
Mind 3-our studies, and you will soon be wiser than 
I can hope to be. 

We had a visit on Monday, from one of the 
first women in the world ; in point of cliaracfer, I 
mean, and accomplishments, the dowager lady 
Spencer ! I may receive perhaps some honours 
hereafter, should my translation speed according 
to my wishes, and the pains I have taken witii it ; 
but shall never receive any that I shall esteem so 
highly. She is indeed worthy to whom I should 
dedicate, and may but my Odyssey prove as wor- 
thy of her, I shall have nothing to fear from the 
critics. Yours, my dear Johnny, 

With much affection, W. 0. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

The Lodge, Nov. 30, 1790. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I WILL confess that I thought your letter some- 
what tardy, though at the same time I made every 
excuse for you, except, as it seems, the right. 
TViat indeed was out of the reach of all possible 
conjecture. I could not guess that your silence 
was occasioned by your being occupied with ei- 
ther thieves or thief-takers. Since however the 
cause was such, I rejoice that your labours were 
not in vain, and that the freebooters who had plun- 
dered your friend, are safe in limbo. I admire too, as 
much as I rejoice in your success, the indefatiga- 
ble spirit that prompted you to pursue, with such 
unremitting perseverance, an object not to be 
reached but at the expense of infinite trouble, and 
that must have led you into an acquaintance with 
scenes and characters the most horrible to a mind 
like yours. I see in this conduct the zeal and 
firmness of your friqudship to whomsoever pro- 
fessed ; and though I wanted not a proof of it 
myself, contemplate so unequivocal an indication 
of what you really are, and of what I always be- 
lieved you to be, with much pleasure. May you 
rise from the condition of an humble prosecutor, 
or witness, to the bench of judgment ! 

When your letter arrived, it found me with the 
worst and most obstinate! cold that I ever cauglit. 
This was one reason why it had not a speedier 
answer. Another is; that, except Tuesday morn- 
ing, there is none in the week- in which I am not 
engaged in tlic last rcvisal of my translation ; the 
revisal I mean of my proof-sheets. To this busi- 
ness I give myself with an assiduity and attention 
truly admirable, and set an example, which if 



other poets could be apprised of, they would do 
well to follow. Miscarriages in authorship (1 am 
persuaded) are as often to be ascribed to want of 
painstaking, as to want of ability. 

Lady Hesketh, Mrs. Unwin, and myself often 
mention you, and always in terms, that though you 
would blush to hear them, you need not be ashamed 
of; at the same time wishing much that you could 
change our trio into a quartetto. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, WestoH, Dec. 1, 1790.. 

It is plain that you understand trapj as we used 
to say at school: for you begin with accusing me 
of long silence, conscious yourself at the same time 
that you have been half a year in my debt, or there- 
about. But I 'will answer your accusations with 
a boast, with a boast of having intended many a 
day to write to you again, notwithstanding your 
long insolvency. Your brother and sister of Chi- 
cheley can both witness for me that, weeks since, 
I testified such an intention ; and if I did not exe- 
cute it, it was not for want of good will, but for 
want of leisure. When will you be able to glory 
of such designs, so liberal and magnificent, you, 
who have notliing to do by your own confession 
but to grow fat and saucy 1 Add to all this, that I 
have had a violent cold, such as I never have but 
at the first approach of winter, and such as at that 
time I seldom escape. A fever accompanied it, 
and ah incessant cough. 

You measure the speed of printers, of my printer 
at least, rather by your own wishes than by any 
just standard. Mine (I believe) is as nimble a 
one as falls to the share of poets in general, though 
not nimble enough to satisfy either the author or 
lus friends. I told you that my work would go to. 
press in autumn, and so it did. But it had been 
six weeks in London ere the press began to work 
upon it. About a month since we began to print, 
and at the rate of nine sheets in a fortnight have 
proceeded to about the middle of the sixth lUad. 
" No further?' you Say, I answer — No, nor even 
so far, without much scolding on my part both at 
the bookseller and the printer. But courage, my 
friend! Fair and softly as we proceed, we shall 
find our way through at last; and in confirmation 
of tliis hope, wliijc 1 write this, another sheet ar^ 
rives. I expect to publish in the spring. 

I love and thank you for the ardent desire you 
express to hear me bruited abroad, el per ora virAm 
vulitanlcm. For your encouragement I will tell 
you that I read, myself at least, with wonderful 
complacence what I have done ; and if the world, 
when it shall appear, do not like it as well as I, 
we will both say and swear with Fluellin, that it 



Let. 344, 345, -346. 



LETTERS. 



351 



is an ass and a fool (look you!) and a pratmg cox- 
comb. 

I felt no amliition of the laurel. Else, though 
vainly perhaps, I had friends who would have made 
a stir on my behalf on that occasion. I confess 
that when I learned the new condition of the of- 
fice, that odes were no longer required, and that 
the salary was increased, I felt not the same dis- 
like of it. But I could neither go to court, nor 
could I kiss hands, were it for a much more valua- 
ble consideration. Therefore never expect to hear 
that royal favours find out me ! 

Adieu, my dear old friend! I will send you a 
mortuary copy soon^ and in the mean time remain. 
Ever yours, W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa 

Weston, Dec. 18, 1790. 

I PERCEIVE myself so flattered by the instances 
of illustrious success mentioned in your letter, that 
I feel all the amiable modesty, for which I was 
oiye so famous, sensibly giving way to a spirit of 
vain glory. 

The King's College subscription makes me 
proud — the effect that my verses have had on 
your two yoiing friends, the mathematicians, makes 
me proud; and I am, if possible, prouder still of the 
contents of the letter that you enclosed. 

You complained of being stupid, and sent me 
one of the cleverest letters. I have not complained 
of being stupid, and have sent you one of the dull- 
est. But it is no matter; I never aim at any thing 
above the pitch of every day's scribble, when I 
write to those I love. 

, Homer proceeds, my boy ! We shall get through 
it in time, and (I hope) by the time appointed. 
We are now in the tenth Iliad. I expect the la- 
dies every minute to breakfast. You have their 
best love. Mine attends the whole army of Domies 
at Mattishall Green assembled. How happy should 
I -find myself, were I but one of the party! My 
capering days are over. But do you caper for me, 
that you may give them some idea of the happiness 
I should feel, were I in the midst of them ! 

W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAQOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, WestoTi, Jan 4, 1791. 

You would long since have received an answer 
to your last, had not the wicked- Clerk of North- 
ampton delayed to send me the printed copy of my 
annual dirge, which I waited to enclose. Here it 
is at last, and much good may it do the readers! 

I have regretted that I could not write sooner, 
especially because it well became me to reply as 



soon as jwssiblc to your kind. inquiries after my 
health, which has been both better and worse since 
I wrote last. The cough was cured, or nearly so, 
when I received your letter, but I have lately been 
afflicted with a nervous fever, a malady formidable 
to me above all others, on account of the terror and 
dejection of spirits, that in my case always accom- 
pany it. I even looked forward, for this reason, 
to the month now current, with the most miserable 
apprehensions, for in this month the distemper has 
twice seized me I wish to be thankful however 
to the sovereign Dispenser both of health and sick- 
ness, that, though I have felt cause enough to 
tremble^ he gives me now encouragement to hope 
that I may dismiss my fears, and expect, for this 
January at least, to escape it. 

The mention of quantity reminds me of a re- 
mark that I have seen somewhere, possibly in 
Johnson, to this purport, that the syllables in our 
language being neither long nor short, our verse 
accordingly is less beautifiil than the verse of the 
Greeks or Romans, because requiring less artifice 
in its construction. But I deny the fact, and am 
ready to depose on oath, that I find every syllable 
as distinguishably arid clearly either long or short, 
iri our language, as in any other. 1 know also 
that without an attention to the quantity of our 
syllables, good verse can not possibly be written; 
and that ignorance of this master is one reason 
why we see so much that is good for nothing. The 
movement of a verse is always either shuflhng or 
graceful, according to our management in this par- 
ticular, and Milton gives almost as many proofs 
of it in his Paradise Dost as there are lines in the 
poem. Away therefore with all such unfounded 
observations ! I would not give a farthing for many 
bushels of them — nor you perhaps for this letter. 
Yet upon recollection, forasmuch ^s I know you 
to be a dear lover of literary gossip, I think it pos- 
sible j'ou may esteem it Highly. 

Believe me, my dear iriend, most truly yours, 

W. C. 



[TO MR. JOHNSON.*] - 

Note by the Editor. 
This extract is, in fact, entitled to a much earlier place in the 
■ collection ; but having a common subject with the conclud- 
ing paragraph of the preceding Letter, it seemed to call for 
insertion immediately after it. 

I DID not write in the line, that has been tam- 



' It happened that some accidental reviser of the manu- 
scriptjiad taken the liberty to alter a line in a poem of Cow- 
per's : — This liberty drew froni the offended poet the following 
very just and animated remonstrance, which I. am anxious to 
preserve, because it elucidates, with great felicity of expres- 
sion, his deliberate ideas on English versification. Hayley. 



852 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



■Let. 347, 348. 



pcred with, hastily, or without due attention to the 
construction of it ; and what appeared to me its 
only ment is, .'in its present state, entirely anni- 
hilated. 

I know that the ears of modern Vcrse-writefs. are 
delicate to an excess, and their readers are troubled 
with the same squeamishncss as themselves. So 
that if a line do not run as smooth as quicksilver 
they are offended. A critic of the present day 
serves a poem as a cook serves a dca.d turkey, when 
she fastens the legs of it to a post, and draws out 
all the sinews. For. this we niay thank Pope ; 
but unless we could imitate him in the closeness 
ahd compactness of his expression, as well as in 
the smoothness of his numbers, we had better drop 
the imitation, which serves no other purpose than 
to emasculate and weaken all we write. Give me 
a manly, rough line, with a deal of meaning in it, 
rather than a whole poem full of musical periods, 
that have notmhg but their oily smoothness to re- 
commend them! 

I have said thus much, as I hinted. in the be- 
ginning, because I have just finished a much long- 
er poem than the last, which o'ur common friend 
will receive by the same messenger that has the 
charge of this letter. In that poem there are many 
lines, which an ear, so nice as the gentleman's who 
made the above-mentioned alteration, would un- 
doubtedly condemn; and yet (if I may be permit- 
ted to 'say it) they «an not be made smoother with- 
out being the worse for it. There is a roughness 
on a plum, which nobody that understands fruit, 
would rub off, though the plum would be much 
more polished without it. But lest I tire you, I 
will only add, that I wish you to guard me from all 
such meddling; assuring you, that I always write 
as smoothly as I can; but that I never did, never 
will sacrifice the spirit or sense of a passage to the 
sound of it 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. ■ 

Weston, Jan. 21, 1191. 
I KNOW that you have already been catechised 
by Lady Hcsketh on the subject of your return 
hither before the winter shall be over, and shall 
therefore only say that if you can come, we shall 
be happy to receive you. Remember also, that 
nothing can excuse the nonperformance of a pro- 
mise but absolute necessity! In the mean time my 
faith in your veracity is such, that I am persuaded 
you will suficr nothing less than necessity to pre- 
vent it. Were you not extremely pleasant to us, 
and just the sort of youth that suits us, we should 
neither of us have said half so much, or perhaps a 
word on the subject. 



Yours, my dear Johnny, arc vagaries that I 
shall never sec practised by any other; and whe- 
ther you slap your ancle, or reel as if you were 
fuddled, or dance in the path before me, all is cha- 
racteristic of yourself, and therefore to me delight- 
ful. I have hinted to you indeed sometimes, that 
you should be cautious of indulging antic habits 
and singularities of all sorts, and young men in 
general have need enough of such admonition. 
But yours are a sort of fairy habits, such as might 
belong to Puck or Robin Goodfellow, and there- 
fore, good as the advice is, I should be half sorry 
should you take it. . 

This allowance at least I give you. Continue 
to take your walks, if walks they may be called, 
exactly in their present fashion, till you have taken 
orders! Then, indeed, forasmuch as a skipping, 
curveting, bounding divine might be a spectacle 
hot altogether seemly, I shall consent to your adop- 
tion of a more grave demeanour. W, C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. • 

MY DEAR FRIEND, The Lodge, Feb. 5, 1791. 

My letters to you were all either petitionary, or 
in the style of acknowledgments and thanks, and 
such, nearly in an alternate order. In my last I 
loaded you with commissions, for the due dis- 
charge of which I am now to say, and say truly, 
how much I feel myself obliged to you ; neither can 
I stop there, but must thank you likewise for new 
honours from Scotland, which have left me no- 
thing to wish for from that country; for my list is 
now I believe graced with the subscription of all 
its learned bodies. I regret only that some of them 
arrived too late to do honour to my present publi- 
cation of names. But there are those among them 
and from Scotland too, that may give an usefbl 
liint perhaps to our own universities. Your very 
handsome present of Pope's Homer has arrived 
safe, notwithstanding an accident that befel him 
by the way. The Hall-Servant brought the parcel 
from Olney, resting it on the pommel of the saddle, 
and his horse fell with him. Pope was in conse- 
quence rolled in the dirt, but being well coated got 
no damage.. If augurs and soothsayers were not 
out of fashion, I should have consulted one or two 
of that order, in hope of learning from them that 
this fall was ominous. I have found a place for 
him in the parlour, where he makes a splendid 
appearance, and where he shall not long want a 
neighbour, one whoj if less popular than himself, 
shall at least look as big as he. How has it hap- 
pened that, since Pope did certainly dedicate both 
Iliad and Odyssey, no dedication is found in this 
first edition of them 1 W. C. 



Let. 349, 350, 351. 



LETTERS. 



353 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Feb. 13, 1791. 
1 CAN now send you a full and true- account of 
this business. Having learned that your inn at 
Woburn was the George, we sent Samuel thithei; 
yesterday. Mr. Martin, master of the George, 
told him * * * * * 

* ■ * * * * * t 

-W. C. 
P. S. I can not help adding a circumstance that 
will divert you. Martin, having learned from Sam 
whose servant he was, told him that he had never 
seen Mr. Cowper, but he had heard him frequently 
spoken of by the companies that .had called at liis 
house, and therefore, when Sam would have, paid 
for his breakfast, would^ take nothing from him. 
Who says that fame is only empty breath 1 On 
the contrary, it is good ale, and cold beef into the 
bargain. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

Weston Underwood, Feb. 26, 1791. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, ' •' 

It is a maxim of mucii weight, 

Wortli conning o'er and o'er. 

He, wlio has Homer to translate, 

Had need do nothing more. 

But notwithstanding the truth and importance 
of this apophthegm, to which I lay claim as the 
original author of it, it is not equally true that my 
application to Homer, close- as it is, has been the 
sole cause of my delay to answer you. No. In ob- 
serving so long a silence I have been influenced 
much more by a vindictive purpose, a purpose to 
punish you for your suspicion that I could possi- 
bly feel myself hurt or offended by any critical sug- 
gestion of yours that seemed to reflect on the pu- 
rity of my nonsense verses. Understand, if you 
please, for the future, that whether I disport my- 
self in Greek or Latin, or in whatsoever other 
language, you are hereby, henceforth, and for ever, 
entitled and warranted to take any liberties with 
it to which you shall feel yourself inclined, not 
excepting even the lines themselves which stand 
at the head of this letter ! 

You delight me when you call blank verse the 
JEnghsh heroic ; ior I have always thought, and 
often said, that we have no other verse worthy to 
be so entitled. When you read my Preface, you 
will be made acquainted with my sentiments on 



+ This letter contained the history of a servant's cruelty to 
a posthorse, which a reader of humanity could not wish to see 
in print. But the postscript describes so pleasantly the signal 
intiuence of a poet's reputation on the spirit of a liberal inn- 
keeper, that it surely ought not to be suppressed. Haylay. 



this subject pretty touch at large ; for which rea- 
son I will curb my zeal, and say the less about 
it at present. That Johnson, who wrote harmo- 
niously in rhyme, should have had so defective an 
ear as never to have discovered any music at all 
in blank verse, till he heard a particular friend of 
his reading it, is a wonder nev^ sufticicntly to be 
wondered at. Yet this is true on his own acknow- 
ledgment, and amounts to a plain confession (of 
which perhaps he was not aware when he made 
it) that he did not know how to read blank verse 
himself In short, he either suffered prejudice to 
lead him in a string whitliersoevcr it would, or his 
taste iri poetry was worth little. I don't believe he 
ever read any thing of that kind with enthusiasm 
in his life: and as good poetry can not be composed 
without a considerable share of that quality ui the 
mind of the author, so neither cah it be read or 
tasted as it ought to be without it. 

I have said all this in the morning fasting, but 
am soon going to my tea. When, therefore; 1 shall 
have told you that we are now, in the course of 
our printing, in the second book of the Odyssey, I 
shall only have time to add, that 

I am, my dear friend, . 

■ Most truly yours, W. C. 

I think your Latin quotations very applicable to 
the present state of France. But France is in a 
situation new and untried before. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

Feb. 27, 1791. 

Now, my dearest Johnny, I must tell thee in 
few words' how much I love and am obliged to 
thee for thy affectionate services. 

My Cam"bridge honours are all to be ascribed to 
you, and to you only. Yet you are but a little 
man ; and a little man into the bargain who have 
kicked the mathematics, their idol, out of your stu- 
dy. So important are the endings which Provi- 
dence frequently connects with small beginnings. 
Had you been here, I could have furnished you 
with much employment ; for I have so dealt with 
your fair MSS. in the course of my polishing and 
improving, that 1 have almost bl6tted out the whole. 
Such, however, as it is, 1 mast now send it to the 
printer, and he must be content with it, for there 
is not time to make a fresh copy. We are now 
printing the second book Of the Odyssey. 

Should the Oxonians bestow none of their no- 
tice on me on this occasion, it will happen singu- 
larly enough, that as Pope received all his univer- 
sity honours in the subscription way from Oxford, 
and none at all from Cambridge, so I shall have 
received all mine from Cambridge, and none from 
Oxford. This is the more likely to be the case, 
because I understand that on whatsoever occasion 



354 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 352,353, 354, 355. 



either of those learned bodies thinks fit to move, 
the other alwa_ys makes it a point to sit still, thus 
proving its superiority. 

I shall send up your letter to Lady Hesketh in 
a day or two, knowing that the intelhgence con- 
tained in it will afford her the greatest pleasure. 
Know likewise foiiyour own gratificAtion, that all 
tlie Scotch universities have subscribed, none ex- 
cepted. 

We are all as well as usual; that is to say, as 
well as reasonable folks expect to be on the Crazy 
side of this frail existence. 

I rejoice that we shall so soon have you again at 
our fireside. W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

Weston, March 6, 179L 
After all this ploughing and sowing on the 
plains of Troy, once fruitful, such at least to my 
translating predecessor, sonie harvest I hope will 
arise for me also. My long work has received its 
last, last touches ; and I am now giving rny pre- 
face its final adjustment. We are ia the fourth 
Odyssey in the course of our printing, and I ex- 
pect that I and the swallows shall appear together. 
They have slept all the winter, but I, on tlje con- 
trary, have been extremely busy. Yet if I can 
" viram volitare -per ora" as swiftly as they through 
the air, I shall account myself well requited. 

Adieu ! W. C. 



TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. 

SIR, Weston, March 6, 1791. 

I HATE always entertained,. and have occasion- 
ally avowed, a great degree of respect for the abi- 
lities of the unknown author of tlie Village Curste, 
unknown at that time, but how well known, and 
not to me only, but to many. For before I was 
favoured with your obliging letter, I knew your 
name, your place of abode, your profession, and 
that you had four sisters; all which I learned nei- 
ther from our bookseller, nor from any of. his con- 
nexions ; you will perceive, therefore, that you are 
no longer an author incognito. The writer in- 
deed of many passages that have fallen from your 
pen could not long continue so. Let genius, true 
genius, conceal itself where it may, we may say 
of it, as the young man in Terence of his beauti- 
ful mistress, " Diu latere non potest." 

I am obliged to you for your kind offers of ser- 
vice, and will not say that I shall not be trouble- 
some to you hereafter; but at present I have no 
need to be so. I have within these two days given 
the very last stroke of my pen to my long Trans- 
lation, and what will be my next career I know not. 



At any rate we shall not, I hope, hereafter be 
known to each other as poets only, for your writ- 
ings have made me ambitious of a nearer approach 
to you. Your door, however, will never be open- 
ed to me. My fate and fortune have combined 
with my natural disposition to draw a circle round 
me which 1 can not pass ; nor have I been more 
than thhteen miles from home these twenty years, 
and so far very seldom. But you are a younger 
man, and therefore may not be quite 'so immovea- 
ble ; in which case, should you choose at any time 
to move Weston-ward, you will always find me 
happy to receive you ; and in the mean time I re- 
main, with much respect, 

Your most obedient servant, critic, and friend, 

W.C. 

P. S. I wish to know what you mean to do with 
Sir Thomas.* For though I expressed doubts 
about his theatrical possibilities, I think him a very 
respectable person, and with some improvement 
well worthy of being introduced to the public. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

March 10, 1791. 

Give my affectionate remembrances to your sis- 
ters, and tell them I am impatient to entertain them 
with my old story new dressed. 

I have two French prints hanging in my study, 
both on Iliad subjects ; and I have an Enghsh one 
in the parlour, on a subject from the same poem. 
In one of the former, Agamemnon addresses Achil- 
les exactly in the attitude of a dancing-master 
turning miss in a minuet ; in the latter the figures 
are plain, and the attitudes plain also.- This is, in 
some considerable measure I beheve, the difference 
between my translation and Pope's ; and will serve 
as an exemplification of what I am going to lay 
before you and the pubhc. W. G. 



TO, THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY PEAR FRIEND, Wcston, March 18, 1791. 

I GIVE you joy that you are about to receive 
some more of my elegant prose, and I feel myself 
in danger of attempting to make it even more ele- 
gant than usual, and thereby of spoiling it, under 
the influence of your commendations. But my 
old helter-skelter manner has already succeeded so 
well, that I will not, even for the sake of entitling 
myself to a still greater portiofi of your praise, 
abandon it. ' 

I did not call in question Johnson's true spirit 
of poetry, because he was not qualified to relish 
blank verse (though, to tell you the truth, I tliink 



Sir Thomas More, a Tragedy. 



Let. 356, 357. 



LETTERS. 



355 



that but an ugly symptom ;) but if I did not ex- 
press it I meant however to infer it from the per- 
verse judgment that he has formed of our poets in 
general ; depreciating some of the best, and. mak- 
ing honourable mention of others, in my opinion 
not undeservedly neglected. I will lay you six- 
pence that, had he lived in the days of Milton, and 
by any accident had met with his Paradise Lost, 
he would neither have directed the attention of 
others to it, nor have much admired it himself. 
Good sense, in short, and strength of intellect, seem 
to me, rather than a fine taste, to have been his 
distinguished characteristics. But should you still 
think otherwise, you ha-ve my free permission ; for 
so long as you yourself have a taste for the beau* 
ties of Cowper, I care not a fig whether Johnson 
had a taste or not. - • 

I wonder where you find all your quotations, 
pat as they are to the present condition of France. 
Do you make them yourself, or do j'ou actually find 
them 1 I am apt to suspect sometimes, that you 
impose them only on a poor nran who has but twen- 
ty books in the world, and two of them are your 
brother Chester's. They are however much to the 
purpose, be the author of them who he may. 

I was very sorry to learn lately that my friend 
at Cliicheley has been sometimes indisposed, either 
with gout or rheumatism, (for it seenis to be un- 
certain which) and attended by Dr. Kerr. I am 
at a loss to conceive how so 'temperate a man 
should acquire the gout, and am resolved therefore 
to conclude that it mUst be the rheumatism, which, 
bad as it is, is in my judgment the best of the two; 
and will aflbrd me besides some opportunity to 
sympathize with him, for I am not perfectly ex- 
empt ffom it myself Distant as you are in situa- 
tion, you are yet 'perhaps nearer to him in point 
of intelligence than I; and if you can send- me 
any particular news of him, pray do it in your 
next. 

I love and thank you for your benediction. If 
God forgive me my sins, surely I shall love him 
much, for I have much to be forg^iven. But the 
quantum need not discourage me, since there is 
One whose atonement can suffice for all. • 

Tn S'i x:t&' cufAu'f'Hy, KM o-ii, xsti 'i/Jt.01, Kctt aIiK<ifOti 

Accept our joint remembrances, and believe me 
aflectionately yoursj W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

Weston, March 19, 1791. 

MY DEAREST JOHNNY, 

You ask if it may not be improper to solicit 
Lady Hesketh's subscription to the poems of the 



Norvyich maiden'? To which I reply, it will be. 
by no means improper. On the contrary, I am 
persuaded that she will give her name with a very 
good will, for she is much an admirer of poesy 
that is worthy to be admired, and such I think, 
judging by the specimen, the poesy of this maid- 
en, Elizabeth Bentley of Norwich, is likely to 
prove. 

Not that I am myself inclined to expect in 
general great matters, in the poetical way, from 
persons whose ill fortune it has been to want the 
Common advantages of education; neither do I 
account it in general a kindness to such, to en- 
courage them in the indulgence of a propensity 
more likely to do them harm in the end, than to 
advance their interest. , Many such phenomena 
have arisen within my remembrance, at which all 
the world has wondered for a season, and has then 
forgot them. 

The fact is, that though strong natural genius 
is always accompanied with strong natural ten- 
dency to its object, yet it often happens that the 
tendency is found where the genius is wanting. 
In the present instance, however (the poems of a. 
certain Mrs. Leapor excepted, who published 
some forty years ago) I discern, 1 think, more 
marks of a true poetical talent than I remem- 
ber to have observed in the verses of any 
other, male or female, so disadvantageously cir- 
cumstanced. I wish her therefore good speed, 
and subscribe to her with all my heart. 

You will rejoice When I tell you that I have 
some hopes, after all, of a harvest from Oxford 
also; Mr. Throckmorton has written to a person 
of considerable influence there, which he has de- 
sired him to exert in my favour; and his request, 
I should imagine, will hardly prove a vain one. 
Adieu. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, WiBston, March. 24, 1791. 

You apologize for your silence in a manner 
which affords me so much pleasure, that I can 
not but be satisfied. Let business be the cause, 
and I am contented. That is a cause to which I 
would even be accessary myself, and would in- 
crease yours by any means, except by a lawsuit 
of my own, at the expense of all your opportuni- 
ties of writing oftener than thrice in a twelve- 
month. 

Your application to Dr. Dunbar reminds me 
of two lines to be found somewhere in Dr. 
Young : 

" And now a poet's gratitude you see : 

" Grant him two favours, and he'll ask for three." 

In this particular therefore I perceive that a poet, 



356 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 358, 359, 



and a poet's friend, bear a striking resemblance to. 
• each other. The Doctor will bless himself that 
the number of Scotch universities is not larger, 
assured tliat if they equalled those in England, in 
number of colleges, you would give him no rest 
till he had engaged them all. It is true, as Lady 
Hesketh told you, that I shall not fear in the 
matter of subscription a comparison eVen with 
Pope himself; considering (I mean) that we live 
in days of terrible taxation, and when verse, not 
being a necessary of hfe, is accounted dear, be it 
what it may, even at the lowest price. I am no 
very good arithmetician, yet I calculated the other 
day in my morning walk, that my two volumes, 
at the price of three guineas, will cost the pur- 
chaser less than the seventh part of a farthing 
per line. Yet there are lines among them, that 
have, cost me the labour of -hours, and none that 
have not cost me some labour. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Friday night, March 25, 179L 

MY DEAREST COZ, 

Johnson writes me word that he has repeated- 
ly called on Horace Walpole, and has never 
found him at home. He has also written to him, 
and received no answer. I charge thee therefore 
on thy allegiance, that thou move not a finger 
more in this business. My back is up, and I can 
not bear the thought of wooing him any further, 
nor would do it, though he were as pig a gentle- 
man (look you!) as Lucifer himself I have 
Welch blood in me, if the pedigree of the Donnes 
say true, and every drop of it says — " Let him 
alone !" 

I should have dined at the Hall to-day, having 
engaged myself to do so; but an untoward occur- 
rence, that happened last night, .or rather this 
morning, prevented me. It was a thundering 
rap at the door, just after the clock struck three. 
First, I thought the house was on fire.. Then I 
thought the Hall was on fire. Then I thought 
it was a house-breaker's trick. Then I thought it 
was an express. In any case I thought that if it 
should be repeated, it would awaken and terrify 
Mrs. Unwin, and kill her with spasms. The 
consequence of all these thoughts was the worst 
nervous fever I ever had in my life, although it 
was the shortest. The rap was given but once, 
though a multifarious one. Had I heard a second, 
I should have risen myself at all adventures. It 
was the only minute since you went, in which I 
have been glad that you were not here. Soon 
after I came down, I learned that a drunken party 
had passed through the village at that time, and 
they were no doubt the authors of this witty, but 
troublesome invention. 



Our thanks are due to you for the book you 
sent us. Mrs. Unwin has read me several parts 
of it, which I have much admired. The obser- 
vations are shrewd and pointed; and there is 
much wit in the similes and illustrations. Yet a 
remark struck me, which I could iiot help makmg 
viva voce on the occasion. If the book has any 
real value, and does in truth deserve the notice ■ 
taken of it by those to whom it is addressed, its 
claim is founded neither on the expression, nor on 
the style, nor on the wit of it, but altogether on 
the truth that it contains. Now the same truths 
are delivered, to my knowledge, perpetually from 
the pulpit by ministers, whom the admirers of this 
writer would disdain to hear. Yet the truth is 
not the less important for Hot being accompanied 
and recommended by brilliant thoughts and ex- 
pressions ; neither is God, from whom comes all 
truth, any more a respecter of wit than he is of 
persons. It will appear soon whether they ap- 
plaud the book for the sake of its unanswerable 
arguments, or only tolerate the argument for the 
sake of the splendid manner in whicji it is en- 
forced. I wish as heartily that it may do them 
good, as if I were myself the author of it. But 
alas! my wishes and hopes are much at variance. 
It will be the talk of the day, as another publica- 
tion' of the same kind has been; and then the 
noise of Vanity-fair will drown the voice of the 
preacher! 

I am glad to learn that the Chancellor does not 
forget me, though more for his sake than my own; 
for I see not how he can ever serve a man like 
me. ; Adieu, my dearest Coz, W. C. 



TO MRS. THROCKMORTON. 

MY DEAR MRS. FROG, April 1, 179L 

A WORD or two before breakfast ; which is all 
that I shall have time to send.— You have not; I 
hope, forgot to tell Mrs. Prog, how much I am 
obliged to him for his kind, though unsuccesrful 
attempt in my favour at Oxford. It seems not a 
little extraordinary, that persons so nobly patron- 
ized themselves, on the score of literature, should 
resolve to give no encouragement to it in return. 
Should I find a fair opportunity to thank them 
hereafter, I will not neglect it. 

Could Homer come himself, distress'd and poor, 
And tune his harp at Rhedicina's door, 
The rich old vixen would exclaim (I fear 
" Begone ! no tramper gets a farthing here." 

I have read yom* husband's pamphlet through 
and through. You may think perhaps, and so may 
he, that a question so remote from all concern of 
mine could not interest me ; but if you tliink so, 
you are both mistaken. He can write nothing 



Let. 3G0, 3G1, 3G3. 



LETTERS. 



357 



that will, not interest me ; in Ihe first place, for 
the writer's sake ; and in the next place because 
he writes better and reasons better than anybody, 
with more candour, and more sufficiency; and 
consequently with more satisfaction to all his 
readers, save only his opponents. They, I think, 
by this time, wish that they had let him alone. 

Tom is delighted pdst measure with his wooden 
nag, and gallops at a rate that would kill any 
horse that had a Ufe to lose. Adieu, W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

MT DEAR JOHNNY, Westou, April 6, 179L 

■ A THOUSAND thanks for your splendid assem- 
blage of Cambridge luminaries ! If y.ou are not 
contented with your collection it can only be be- 
cause you are unreasonable ; for I who may be 
supposed more covetous on this occasion than any 
body, am highly satisfied, and even delighted with 
it. If indeed you should find it practicable to add 
still to the rKimbcr, I have not the least objection. 
But this charge I give you : 

Stay not an hour beyond the time you have men- 
tioned, even though you should- be able to add a 
thousand names by so doing ! For I. oan not af- 
ford to purchase them at that cost. I long to see 
you, and so do we both, and will not suifer you to 
postpone your visit for any such consideration. 
No, my dear boy ! in the aflair of subscriptions 
we are already illustrious enough ; shall be so .at 
least, when you shall have enlisted a college or two 
morcj which perhaps you may be enabled to do in 
the course of the ensuing week. - I feel myself 
much obliged to your university, and much dis- 
posed to admire the liberality -of spirit tliey have 
shown on this occasion. Certainly I had not de- 
served much favour of their hands, all things con- 
sidered. But the cause of literature, seems to have 
some weight with them, and to have superseded 
the resentment they might be supposed to enter- 
tain on the score of certain censures, that you wot 
of. It is not so at Oxford. W. C 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, April 29, 1791. 

I FORGOT if I told you that Mr. Throckmorton 

had applied through the medium of to 

the university of Oxford. He did so, but without 
success. Their answer was, " that they subscribe 
to nothing." 

Pope's subscriptions did not amount, I think, to 
six hundred ; and mine will not fall very far short 
of five. Noble doings, at a time of day whep. 



Homer has no news to tell us; and when, all other 
comforts of life having risen in price, poetry has 
of course fallen. I call il a "comfort of life;" it 
is so to others, but to myself it has become even a 
necessary. 

These holiday times are very unfavourable to 
the printer's progress. He and all his demons are 
making themselves merry, and me sad, for 1 mourn 
at every hindrance. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Wcston, May 2, 1791. 

Monday being a day in which Homer has now 
no demands on me, I shall give part of the present 
Monday to' you. But it this moment occurs to 
me that the proposition with which I begin will be 
I obscure to you, unless followed by an explanation. 
j You are to understand therefore that Monday be- 
ing no postday, I have consequently no proof-sheets 
I to correct, the correction of which is nearly all 
that Ihave to do with Homer at preseiit: I say 
nearly all, because I am likewise occasionally em- 
Aived in reading over the whole of What is already 
prmted, that I may make a table of errata to each 
of the poems. How much is already printed say 
'you? — I answer — the whole Iliad, and almost 
seventeen books of the Odyssey. 

About a fortnight since, perhaps three weeks, I 
had a visit from your nephew, Mr. Bagot, and his, 
tutor, Mr. Hurlock, who came hither under con- 
duct of your niece. Miss Barbara. So were the 
friends of Ulysses conducted to the palace of An- 
tiphates, the Laestrigonian, by that monarch's 
daughter. But mine is no palace, neither am I 
a giant, iieither did I devour any one of the par- 
ty — on the contrary, I gave them chocolate, and 
permitted them to depart in peace. I was much 
pleased both with the young man and his tutor. 
In the countenance of the former I saw much 
Bagotism, and not less in manners. I will leave 
you to gMess what I mean by that expression. 
Physiognomy is a study of which I have almost 
as high an opinion as Lavater himself^ the profes- 
sor of it, and for this good reason, because it never 
yet deceived me. But perhaps I shall speak more 
truly if I say that I am somewhat of an adept in 
the art, although I have never studied it; for 
whether I will or not, I judge of every human 
creature by the countenance, and, as I say, have 
never yet seen reason to repent of my judgment. 
Sometimes I feel myself powerfully attracted, as 
I was by your nephew, and sometimes with equal 
vehemence repulsed, which attraction and repul- 
sion have always been justified in the sequel. 

I have lately read, and with more attention than 
I ever gave them before, Milton's Latin poems. 
But these I must make the subject of some future 



358 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 363, 364, 365, 366. 



letter, in which it will be ten to one that your 
friend Samuel Johnson gets another slap or two 
at the hands of your humble servant. Pray read 
them yourself, and with as much attention as I 
did ; then read the Doc^tor's remarks if you have 
them, and then tell me what you think of both. 
It will be pretty sport for you on such a day as this, 
which is the fourth that we have had of almost 
incessant rain. The weather, and a cold, the 
effect of it, have confined me ever since last Thurs- 
day. Mrs. Unwin however is well, and joins me 
in every good wish to you and your family. I am, 
my good friend. Most truly yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. MR. BUCHANAN. 

MY DEAR SIR, Westou, May 11, 1791. 

YoD have sent me a beautiful poem, wanting 
nothing but metre. I would to Heaven that 
you would give it that requisite yourself; for he 
who could make the sketch, can not but be well 
qualified to finish. . But- if you will not, I will ; 
provided always nevertheless, that God gives me 
ability, fbr it will require no common slaare toA) 
justice to your conceptions; 

I am much yours, W. C. 

Your little messenger vanished before I could 
catch him. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, May 18, 1791. 

MY DEAREST COZ, 

Has another of my letters fallen short of its 
destination; or wherefore is it, that thou writ- 
est nof? One letter in five Weeks is a poor alloW' 
ance for your friends at "Weston. One that 
I received two or three days since from Mrs. Frog, 
has not at all enlightened me on this head. But' 
I wander in a wilderness of vain conjecture. 

I have had a letter lately from New York^ from 
a Dr. Cogswell of that place to thank me for my 
fine verses, and to tell me, which pleased mc par- 
ticularly, that after having read the Task, my first 
volume fell into his hands, which he read also, and 
was equally pleased with. This is the only in- 
stance I can recollect of a reader, who has done 
justice to my first effusions : for I am sure, that in 
point of expression they do not fall a jot below my 
second, and that in point of subject they are for 
the most part superior. But enough, and too 
much of this. The Task, he tellsme, tias been 
reprinted in that city. 

Adieu ! my dearest coz. 

We have blooming scenes under wintry skies, 
and with icy blasts to fan them. 

Ever thine, W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

Weston, May 23, 1791. 

MY DEAREST JOHNNY, 

' Did I not know that you are never more in your 
clement, than when you are exerting yourself in 
my cause, I should congratulate you on the hope 
there seems to be that your labour will soon have 
an end. 

You will wonder perhaps, my Johnny, that 
Mrs. Unwin, by my desire, enjoined you to secre- 
cy concerning the translation of the Frogs and 
Mice. Wonderful it may well seem to you that I 
should wish to hide for a short time from a few, 
what I am just going to publish to all. But I had 
more reasons than on« for this mysterious man- 
agement; that is to say, I had two. In the first 
place, I wished to surprise my readers agreeably; 
and secondly, I wished to allow none of my friends 
an opportunity to object to the measure, who might 
think it perhaps a measure more bountiful than 
prudent. But I have had my sufficient reward, 
though not a pecuniary one. It is a poem of much 
humour, and accordingly I found the translation 
of it very amusing. It struck me too, that I must 
cither make it part of the present publication, or 
never publish it at all; it would have been so ter- 
ribly out of its place in any other volume. 

1 long for the time that shall bring you once 
more to Weston, and all your et ce/ei'as with you. 
Ol what a mOnth of May has this been! Let 
never poet, English poet at least, give himself to 
the praises of May again. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST COZ, ' The Lodge, May 37, 1791. 

I, WHO am neither dead, nor sick, nor idle, 
should have no excuse, were I as tardy in answer- 
ing, as you in writing. I live indeed where leisure 
abounds; and you, where leisure is not: a differ- 
ence that accounts sufficiently both for your silence 
and my loquacity. 

When you told Mrs. -. — , that my Homer 

would come forth in May, you told her what you 
believed, and therefore no falsehood. But you told 
her at the same time what will not happen, and 
therefore not a truth. There is a medium between 
truth and falsehood; and (I believe) the word mis- 
take expresses it exactly. I will therefore say 
that you were mistaken. If instead of May you 
had mentioned June, I flatter myself that you 
would have hit the mark. For in June there is 
every probability that we shall publish. You will 
say, " hang the printer !— for it is his fault !" But 
stay, my dear, hang him not just now ! For to 
execute him, and find another, will cost us time, 



Let. 367, 368. 



LETTERS. 



359 



and so much too, that I question if, in that case, 
we should publish sooner than in August. To 
say truth, I am not perfectly sure that there will 
be any necessity to hang him at all ! though that 
is a matter which I desire to leave entirely at your 
discretion, alleging only in the mean time, that 
the man does not appear to me during the last 
half-year to have been at all in fault. His re- 
mittance of sheets in all that time has been punc- 
tual, save and except while the Easter holidays 
lasted, when (I suppose) he found it impossible to 
keep his devils to their business. I shall however 
receive the last sheet of the Odyssey to-morrow, and 
have already sent up the Preface, together with 
all the needful. You see therefore that the pub- 
lication of this famous work can not be delayed 
much longer. 

As for politics, I reck not, having no room in 
my head for any thing but the Slave-bill. That 
is lost ; and all the rest is a trifle. I have not seen 
Paine's book, but refused to see it when it was 
offered to me. No man shall convince me that I 
am improperly governed, while I feel the contrary. 
Adieu! W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

Weston, June 1, 1791. 

MY DEAREST JOHNNY, 

Now you may rest — Now I can give you joy 
of the period, of which I gave you hope in my 
last ; the period of all your labours in my service. 
— But this I can foretell you also, that if you per- 
severe in serving your friends at this rate, your 
life is Ukely to be a life of labour: — yet persevere! 
your rest will be the sweeter hereafter! In the 
mean time I wish you, if at any time you should 
find occasion for him, just such a friend as you 
have proved to me! W. C. 



TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. 

MY DEAR SIR, Westou, June 13, 1791. 

I OUGHT to have thanked you for your agreeable 
and entertaining letter much sooner, but I have 
many correspondents, who will not be said, nay ; 
and have been obhged of late to give my last atten- 
tions to Homer. The very last indeed; for yes- 
terday I despatched to town, after revisuig them 
carefully, the proof sheets of subscribers' names, 
among which I took special notice of yours, and 
am much obliged to you for it. We have con- 
trived, or rather my bookseller and printer have 
contrived (for they have never waited a moment 
for me,) to publish as critically at the wrong time, 
as if my whole interest and success had depended 
upon it. March., April, and May, said Johnson 
24 



|to me in a letter that I received from him in Febru- 
ary, are the best months for publication. There' 
fore now it is determined that Homer shall come 
out on the first of July; that is to say, exactly at 
the moment when, except a few lawyers, not a 
creature will be left in town who will ever care 
one farthing about him. To which of these two 
friends of mine I am indebted for this manage- 
ment, I know not. It docs hot please ; but I would 
be a philosopher as well as a poet, and therefore 
make no complaint, or grumble at all about it. 
You, I presume, have had dealings with them 
both — how did they manage for youl And if as 
they have for me, how did you behave under it % 
Some who love me complain that I am too passive ; 
and I should be glad of an opportunity to justify 
myself by your example. The fact is, should I 
thunder ever so loud, no efforts of that sort will 
avail me now ; therefore like a good economist of 
my bolts, I choose to reserve them for more pro- 
fitable occasions. 

1 am glad to find that your amusements have 
been so similar to mine; for in this instance too I 
seemed to have need of somebody to keep me in 
countenance, especially in my attention and at- 
tachment to animals. All the notice that we lords 
of the creation vouchsafe to bestow on the crea- 
tures, is generally to abuse them; it is well there- 
fore that here and there a man should be found a 
little womanish, or perhaps a httle childish in this 
matter, who will make some amends, by kissing, 
and coaxing, and laying them in one's bosom. 
You remember the little ewe lamb, mentioned by 
the prophet Nathan; the prophet perhaps invented 
the tale for the sake of its application to David's 
conscience ; but it is more probable that God in- 
spired him with it for that purpose. If he did, it 
amounts to a proof that he does not overlook, but 
on the contrary much notices such httle partiali- 
ties and kindness to his dumb creatures, as we, 
because we articulate, are pleased to call them. 

Your sisters are fitter to judge than I, whether 
assembly rooms are the places of all others, in 
which the ladies may be studied to most advan- 
tage. I am an old fellow, but I had once my 
dancing days, as you have now; yet I could never 
find I learned half so much of a woman's real 
character by dancing with her, as by conversing 
with her , at home, where I could observe her be- 
haviour at the table, at the fireside, and in all the 
trying circvmistances of domestic hfe.. We are all 
good when we are pleased; but she is the good 
woman, who wants not a fiddle to sweeten her. 
If I am wrong, the young ladies will set me right; 
in the mean time I wall not tease you with graver 
arcfuments on the subject, especially as Ihave a 
hope that years, and the study of the Scripture, 
and His Spirit, whose word it is, will, in due time, 
brintr you to my way of thinking. I am not one 



360 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 369, 370/ 



of those sages, who require that young men should 
be as old as themselves before they have flme to 
be so. 

With my love to your fair sisters, I remain, 
Dear sir, most truly yours, W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

The Lodge, June 15, 179L 

MV DEAR FRIEND, 

If it will afford you any comfort that you have 
a share in my affections, of that comfort you may 
avail yourself at all times. You have acquired it 
by means which, unless I should become worthless 
myself, to an uncommon degree, will always se- 
cure you from the loss of it. You are learning 
what all learn, though few at so early an age, that 
man is an ungrateful animal; and that benefits 
too often, instead of securing a due return, operate 
rather as provocations to ill treatment. This I 
take to be the summum malum of the hvunan 
heart. Towards God we are all guilty of it more 
or less ; but between man and man, we may thank 
God for it, there are some exceptions. He leaves 
this peccant principle to operate in some degree 
against himself in all, for our humiliation I sup 
pose; and because the pernicious effects of it in 
reaUty can not injure him, he can not suffer by 
them ; but he knows that unless he should restrain 
its influence on the dealings of mankind with each 
other, the bonds of society would be dissolved, and 
all charitable intercourse at an end amongst us. It 
was said of Archbishop Cranmer, "Do him an ill 
turn, and you make him your friend for ever ;" 
of others it may be said, "Do them a good one, 
and they will be for ever your enemies." It is the 
Grace of God only that makes the difference. 

The absence of Homer (for we have now shaken 
hands and parted) is well supplied by three rela- 
tions of mine from Norfolk. My cousin Johnson, 
an aunt of his, and his sister. I love them all 
dearly, and am well contented to resign to them 
the place in my attentions so lately occupied by the 
chiefs of Greece and Troy. His aunt and I have 
spent many a merry day together, when we were 
some forty years younger; and we make shift to be 
merry together still. His sister is a sweet young 
woman, graceful, good-natured, and gentle, just 
what I had imagined her to be before I had seen 
her. Farewell. W. C. 



TO DR. JAMES COGSWELL, 

NEW YORK. 

Weston Underwood, near Olney, Bucks, 
DEAR SIR, June lb, 1791. 

Your letter and obliging present from so great 
a distance deserved a speedier acknowledgment, 



and should not have wanted one so long had not 
circumstances so fallen out since I received them 
as to make it impossible for me to write sooner. It 
is indeed but within this day or two that I have 
heard how, by the help of my bookseller, I may 
transmit an answer to you. 

My title page, as it well might, misled you. . It 
speaks me of the Inner Temple, and so I am, but 
a member of that society only, not as an inhabi- 
tant. I live here almost at the distance of sixty 
miles from London, which I have not visited these 
eight and twenty years, and probably never shall 
again. Thus it fell out that Mr. Morewood had 
«aiJed again for America before your parcel reached 
me, nor should I (it is likely) have received it at 
all, had not a cousin of mine, who lives in the 
Temple, by good fortune, received it first, and 
opened your letter; finding for whom it was in- 
tended, he transmitted to me both that and the 
parcel. Your testimony of approbation of what I 
have published, coming from another quarter of 
the globe, could not but be extremely flattering, as 
was your obliging notice, that the Task had been 
reprinted in your city. Both volumes, 1 hope, have 
a tendency to discountenance vice, and promote 
the best interests of mankind. But how far they 
shall be effectual to these invaluable purposes, de- 
pends altogether on his blessing, whose truths I 
have endeavoured to inculcate. In the mean tiriie 
i have suflicient proof that readers may be pleased, 
may approve, and yet lay down the book unedified. 

During the last five years I have been occupied 
with a work of a very different nature, a transla- 
tion of the IHad and Odyssey into blank verse, 
and the work is now ready for publication. I 
undertook it partly because Pope's is too lax a 
version, which has lately occasioned the learned 
of this country to call aloud for a new one, and 
partly because I could fall on no better expedient 
to amuse a mind too much addicted to melan- 
choly. 

I send you in return for the volumes with which 
you favoured me, three on rehgious subjects, popu- 
lar productions that have not been long pubUshed, 
and that may not therefore yet have reached your 
country; The Christian Officer's Panoply, by a 
marine officer^-The Importance of the Manners 
of the Great, and an Estimate of the Religftn of 
the Fasliionable World. The two last are said to 
be written by a lady. Miss Hannah More, and are 
universally read by people of that rank to wliich 
she addresses them. Your manners I suppose may 
be more pure than ours, yet it is not unlikely that 
even among you may be found some to whom her 
strictures are applicable. I return you my thanks, 
sir, for the volumes you sent me, two of which I 
have read with pleasure, Mr. Edwards' book, and 
the Conquest of Canaan. The rest I have not 
had time to read, except Dr. Dwight's Sermon, 



LfiT. 371, 372. 



LETTERS. 



361 



which pleased me almost more than any that I 
have either seen or heard. 

I shall account a correspondence with you an 
honour, and shall remain, dear sir, 

Your obliged and obedient servant, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER, BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, WestoTl, Aug. 2, 1791. 

I WAS much obliged, and still feel myself much 
obliged to Lady Bagot, for the visit with which 
she favoured me. Had it been possible that I 
could haVc seen Lord Bagot too, I should have 
been completely happy. For, as it happened, I 
was that morning in better spirits than usual ; and 
though I arrived late, and after a long walk, and 
«xtremely hot, which is a circumstance very apt 
to disconcert me, yet I was not disconcerted half so 
much as I generally am at the sight of a stranger, 
especially of a stranger lady, and more especially 
at the sight of a stranger lady of quality. "When 
the servant told me that lady Bagot was in the 
parlour, I felt my spirits sink ten degrees ; but the 
moment I saw her, at least when I had been a 
minute in her company, I felt them rise again, 
and they soon rose above their former pitch. I 
know two ladies of fashion now, whose manners 
have this effect upon me. The lady in question, 
and the lady Spencer. I am a shy animal, and 
want much kindness to make me easy. Such I 
shall be to my dying day. 

Here sit J, calling myself shy, yet have just pub- 
lished by the by, two great volumes of poetry. 

This reminds me of Ranger's observation in the 
Suspicious Husband, who says to somebody, I for- 
get whom — " There is a degree of assurance in 
you modest men, that toe impudent fellows can- 
never arrive at !" — Assurance indeed ! Have you 
seen 'em.1 What do you think they are? Nothing 
less I can tell you than a translation of Homer. Of 
the sublimest poet in the world. That's all. Can 1 
ever have the impudence to call myself shy again? 

You.live, I think, in the neighbourhood of Bir- 
mingham? What must you not have felt on the 
late alarming occasion! 'You I suppose could see 
the fires from your windows. We, who only heard 
the news of them have trembled. Never sure was 
religious zeal more terribly manifested, or more 
to the prejudice of its own cause. 

Adieu, my dear friend. I am, with Mrs. Un- 
win's best compliments. Ever yours, W. C. - 



TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. 

MY DEAR SIR, 'Weston,.Aug. 9, 1791. 

I NEVER make a correspondent wait for an an- 
swer through idleness or want of proper respect 
for him; but if I am silent it is because I am busy. 



or not well, or because I stay till something occur, 
that may make my letter at least a little better 
than mere blank paper. I therefore write speedily 
in reply to yours, being at present neither much 
occui)icd, nor at all indisposed, nor forbidden by a 
dearth of materials. 

I wish always when I have a new piece in hand 
to be as secret as you, and tliere was a time when 
I could be so. Then 1 hved the life of a solitary, 
was not visited by a single neighbour, because I 
had none with whom I could associate; nor ever 
had an inmate. This was when I dwelt at 01- 
ney; but since I have removed to Weston the case 
is diflerent. Here I am visited by all around me, 
and study in a room exposed to all manner of in- 
roads. It is on the ground floor, the room in which 
we dine, and in which I am sure to be found by all 
who seek me. They find me generally at my desk, 
and with my work, whatever it be, before me, un- 
less perhaps I have conjured it into its hiding 
place before they have had time to enter. This 
however is not always the case, and consequently, 
sooner or later, I can not fail to be detected. Pos- 
sibly you, who I suppose have a snug study, would 
find it impracticable to attend to any thing closely 
in an apartment' exposed as mine; but use has 
made it familiar to me, and so familiar, that neither 
servants going and coming disconcert me; nor even 
if a lady, with an oblique glance of her eye, catches 
two or three hnes of my MS., do I feel myself in- 
clined to blush, though naturally the shyest of man- 
kind. 

You did well, I believe, to cashier the subject 
of which you gave me a recital. It certainly wants 
those agremens, which are necessary to the suc- 
cess of any subject in verse. It is a curious story, 
and so far as the poor young lady was concerned 
a very affecting one ; but there is a coarseness in 
the character of the hero, that would have spoiled 
all. In fact, I find it myself a much easier matter 
to write, than to get a convenient theme to write on. 

I am obliged to you for comparing me as you go 
both with Pope and with Homer. It is impossible 
ir; any other way of management to know whether 
the Translation be well executed or not, and if 
well, in what degree. It was in the course of such 
a process, that 1 first became dissatisfied with 
Pope. More than thirty years since, and when I 
was a young Templar, I accompanied him with 
his original, line by line, through both poems. A 
fellow student of mine, a person of fine classic 
taste, joined himself with me in the labour. We 
were neither of us, as you may imagine, very dili- 
gent in our proper business. 

I shall be glad if my Reviewers, whosoever they 
may be, will be at the pains to read me as you do. 
I want no praise that I am not entitled to ; but 
of that to which I am entitled I should be loth ta 
lose a tittle, having worked hard to earn it. 



362 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 373, 374, 375. 



I- would heartily second the bishop of Salisbury 
in recommending to you a close pursuit of your 
Hebrew studies, were it not that I wish you to 
publish what I may understand. Do both, and 1 
shall be satisfied. 

Your remarks, if I may but receive them soon 
enough to serve me in case of a new edition, will 
be extremely welcome. W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

MY DEAREST JOHNNY, WestoU, Aug. 9, 1791. 

The little that I have heard about Homer my- 
self has been equally, or more flattering than Dr. 

's intelligence, so that I have good reason 

to hope that I have not studied the old Grecian, 
and how to dress him, so long, and so intensely, to 
no purpose. At present I am idle, both on ac- 
count of my eyes, and because I know not to what 
to attach myself in particular. Many different 
plans and projects are recommended to me. Some 
call aloud for original verse, others for more trans- 
lation, and others for other things. Providence, I 
hope, will direct me in my choice'; for other guide 
I have none, nor wish for another. 

God bless you, my dearest Johnny. W. C* 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, The Lodge, Sept. 14, 1791. 

Whoever reviews me will in fact have a labo- 
rious task of it, in the performance of which he 
ought to move leisurely, and to exercise much 
critical discernment. In the mean time my cou- 
rage is kept up by the arrival of such testimonies 
in my favour, as give me the greatest pleasure; 
coming from quarters the most respectable. I 
have reason therefore to hope that our periodical 
judges will not be very adverse to me, and that 
perhaps they may even favour me. If one man 
of taste and letters is pleased, another man so 
quahfied can hardly be displeased ; and if critics 
of a different description grumble, they will not 
however materially hurt me. 

You, who know how necessary it is to me to be 
employed, will be glad to hear that I have been 
called to a new literary engagement, and that I 
have not refused it. A Milton that is to rival, 
and if possible to exceed in splendour Boydell's 
Shakspeare, is in contemplation, and I am in the 
editor's office. Fuscli is the painter. My busi- 
ness will be to select notes from others, and to 
write original notes; to translate the Latin and 



* The translation alluded to in this letter was that of the 
Latin and Italian poetry of Milton, which Cowpet was re- 
quested by liis bookseller to undertake. 



Italian poems, and to give a correct text. I shall 
have years allowed me to do it in. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Sept. 21, 1791, 

Of all the testimonies in favour of my Homer 
that I have received, none has given me so sin- 
cere a pleasure as that of Lord Bagot. It is an. 
unmixed pleasure and without a drawback: be- 
cause I know him to be perfectly, and in all re- 
spects, whether erudition, or a fine taste be in 
question, so well qualified to judge me, that I can 
neither expect nor wish a sentence more valuable 
than liis — 

iuok' a.uT/ui>i 

'Ev o-Twflso-o-/ fXinlf X.Ctl jUOt (flKct yHVAT^ opcofit. 

I hope by this time you have received your vo- 
lumes, and are prepared to second the applauses 
of your brother — else, wo be to you ! I wrote to 
Johnson immediately on the receipt of your last, 
giving him a strict injunction to despatch them to 
you without delay. He had sold some time since 
a hundred of the unsubscribed-for copies. 

I have not a history in the world except Baker's 
Chronicle, and that I borrowed three years ago 
from Mr. Throckmorton. Now the case is this; 
I am translating Milton's third Elegy — his Elegy 
on the death of the Bishop of Winchester. He 
begins it with saying that while he was sitting^ 
alone, dejected, and musing on many melancholy 
themes ; first, the idea of the plague presented it- 
self to his mind, and of the havoc made by it 
among the great. — Then he proceeds thus; 

Turn memini clarique ducis, fratrisque verendi 

Intempestivia ossa cremata rogis : 
Et memini Heroum, quos vidit ad aethera raptos. 

Flevit et amissos Belgia tota duces. 

I can not learn from my only oracle. Baker, who 
this famous leader and Ms reverend brother were. 
Neither does he at all ascertain for me the event 
alluded to in the second of these couplets. I am 
not yet possessed of Warton, who probably ex- 
plains it, nor can be for a month to come. Con- 
sult him for me if you have him, or if you have 
him not consult some other. Or you may find 
the intelligence perhaps in your own budget ; no 
matter how you come by it, only send it to me if 
you can, and as soon as you can, for I hate to 
leave unsolved difficulties behind me. In the 
first year of Charles the First, Milton was seven- 
teen years of age, and then wrote this Elegy. 
The period therefore to which I would refer 
you, is the two or three last years of- James the 
First. 

Ever yours, W. C. 



Let. 376, 377, 378. 



LETTERS. 



363 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, WestOU,. Oct. 25, 1791. 

Your unexpected and transient visit, like every 
thing else that is past, has now the appearance of 
a dream; but it was a pleasant one, and I heartily 
wigh that such dreams could recur more frequent- 
ly. Your brother Chester repeated his visit yes- 
terday, and I never saw him in better spirits. At 
such times he has, now and then, the very look 
that he had when he was a boy ; and when I see 
it, I seem to be a boy myself, and entirely forget 
for a short moment the years that have intervened 
since I was one. The look that I mean is one 
that you, I dare say, have observed. — Then we 
are at Westminster again. He left with me that 
poem of your brother Lord Bagot's, which was 
mentioned when you were here. It was a treat 
to me, and I read it to my cousin Lady Hesketh 
and to Mrs. Unwin, to whom it was a treat also. 
It has great sweetness of numbers, and much ele- 
gance of expression, and is just such a poem as I 
should be happy to' have composed myself about 
a year ago, when I was loudly called upon by a 
certain nobleman, to celebrate the beauties of his 
villa. But I had two insurmountable difficulties 
to contend with. One was, that I had never seen 
his villa ; aAd the other, that I had no eyes at that 
time for any thing but Homer. Should I at any 
time hereafter undertake the task, I shall now at 
least know how to go about it, which, tiU I had 
seen Lord Bagot's poem, I verily did not. I was 
particularly charmed with the parody of those 
beautiful lines of Milton. 

" The song was partial, but the harmony — 

(What could it less, when spirits immortal sing 7) 
Suspended HeD, and toolc.with ravishment 
Tlie thronging audience." 

There's a parenthesis for you ! The parenthesis 
it seems is out of fashion, and perhaps the moderns 
are in the right to proscribe what they can not 
attam to. I will answer for it that, had we the 
art at this day of insinuating a sentiment in this 
graceful manner, no reader of taste would quarrel 
■with the practice. Lord Bagot showed his by 
selecting the passage for his imitation. 

I would beat Warton if he were hving, for sup- 
posing that Milton ever repented of his compli- 
ment to the memory of Bishop Andrews. . I nei- 
ther do, nor can, nor will believe it. Milton's 
mind could not be narrowed by any thing; and 
though he quarrelled with episcopacy .in the 
church of England idea of it, I am persuaded that 
a good bishop, as well as any other good' man, of 
whatsoever rank or order, had always a share of 
his veneration. Yours, my dear friend, 

Very affectionately, W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa 

MY DEAR JOHNNY, Weston, Oct. 31, 1791, 

Your kind and affectionate letter well deserves 
my thanks, and should have had them long ago, 
had I not been obliged lately to give my attention 
to a mountain of unanswered letters, which I have 
just now reduced to a molehill; yours lay at the 
bottom, and I have at last worked my way down 
to it. 

It gives me great pleasure that you have found 
a house to your minds. ' May you all three be 
happier in it than the happiest that ever occupied 
it before you! But my chief delight of all is to 
learn that you and Kitty are so completely cured 
of your long arid threatening maladies. I always 
thought higlily of Dr. Kerr, but his extraordinary 
success in your two instances has even inspired 
me with an affection for him. 

My eyes are much better than when L wrote 
last, though seldom perfectly well many days to- 
gether. At this season of the year I catch perpe- 
tual colds, and shall continue to do so, till I have 
got the better of that tenderness of habit with 
which the summer never fails to affect me. 

I am glad that you have heard vvell of my work 
in your country. Sufficient proofs have reached 
me from various quarters, that I have not plough- 
ed the field of Troy in vain. 

Were you here I v^ould gratify you with an 
enumeration of particulars; but since you are not, 
it must content you to be told, that I have every 
reason to be satisfied. 

Mrs. Unwin, I think, in her letter to cousin 
Balls, made merition of my new engagement. I 
have just entered on it, and therefore can at pre- 
sent say little about it. 

It is a very creditable one in itself; and may 1 
but acquit myself of it with sufficiency, it. will do 
me honour. The commentator's part however is 
a new one to me, and one that I little thought to 
appear in. 

Remember your promise, that I shall" see,you in 
the spring. 

The Hall has been fall of company ever since 
you went, and at present my Catharina is there 
singing arid playing like an angel. W.C.. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, NoV. 14, 1791. 

I HAVE waited and wished for your opinion with 
the feelings that belong to the value I have for it, 
and am very happy to find it so favourable. In 
my table drawer I treasure up a bundle of suffra- 
ges, sent me by those of whose approbation I was 



364 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 379, 380. 



most ambitious, and shall presently insert yours 
among them, 

I know not why we sliould quarrel with com- 
pound epithets ; it is certain at least they are as 
acrrecable to the genius of our language as to that 
of the Greek, which is sufficiently proved by their 
beincr admitted into our comuion and colloquial 
dialect. Black-eyed, nut-brown, crook-shankedj 
hump-backed, are all compound epithets, and, to- 
gether with a thousand other such, are used con- 
tinually, even by those who profess a dislike to 
such combinations in poetry. Why then do they 
treat with so much familiarity a thing that they 
say disgusts them 1 I doubt if they could give this 
question a reasonable answer ; unless they should 
answer it by confessing themselves unreasonable. 

I have made a considerable progress in the trans- 
lation of Milton's Latin poems. I give them, as 
opportunity ofl'ers, ail the variety of measure that 
I can. Some 1 render in heroic rhyme, some in 
stanzas, some in seven, and some in eight syllable 
measure, and some in blank verse. They will, 
altogether, I hope, make an agreeable miscellany 
for the English reader. -They are certainly good 
in themselves, and can not . fail to please, but by 
the fault of their translator. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT, 
West on- Underwood, Dec. 5, 1791. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

Your last brought n\e two cordials ; for what 
can better deserve that name than the cordial ap- 
probation of two such readers as your brother, the 
bishop, and your good fiiend and neighbour, the 
clergyman? The former I have ever esteemed 
and honoured with the justest cause, and am as 
ready to honour and esteem the latter as you can 
wish me to be, and as his virtues and talents de- 
serve. Do I hate a parson? Heaven forbid! I 
love you all when you are good for any thing ; and 
as to the rest, I would mend them if 1 could, 
and that is the worst of my intentions towards 
them. 

I heard above a month since, that this first edi- 
tion of my work .was at that time nearly sold. It 
will not therefore, I presume, be long before 1 must 
go to press again. This 1 mention merely from an 
earnest desire to avail myself of all other strictures, 
that either your good neighbour, Lord Bagot, the 
bishop, or yourself, . 

may happen to have made, and will be so good as 
to favour me with. Those of the good Evandcr 
contained in your last have served me well, and 1 
have already, in the three different places referred 
to, accommodated the text to them. And this I 



have done in one instance, even a little against the 

j bias of my own opinion. 

....... iyo) (Te mv cwroi 'iKa>y.ctt 

The sense 1 had given of these words is the sense 
in which an old scholiast has understood them, as 
appears in Clarke's note in loco. Clarke indeed 
prefers the othtr, but it does not appear plain to 
me that he does it with good reason against the 
judgment of a very ancient commentator, and a 
Grecian. And I am the rather inclined to this 
persuasion, because Achilles himself seems to have 
apprehended that Agamemnon would not content 
himself with Briseis only, when he says, 

But I have other precious things on board, 

Of tliese take none away without my leave, &c. 

It is certain that the words are ambiguous, and 
that the sense of them depends altogether on the 
punctuation. But I am always under the correc- 
tion of so able a critic as your neighbour, and 
have altered, as I say, my version accordingly. 

As to Milton, the die is cast. I am engaged, 
have bargained with Johnson, and can not recede, 
I should othervvise have been glad to do as you 
advise, to make the translation of his Latin and 
Italian, part of another volume ; for, with such an 
addition, I have nearly as much verse in my 
budget as would be required for the purpose. This 
squabble, in the mean time, between Fuseli and 
Boydell, does not interest me at all; let it ter- 
minate as it may, I have only to perform my job, 
and leave the event to be decided by the comba- 
tants. 

Suave mari magno turbantibus tpquora ventis 
E terra ingentem alteriiw spectare laborem. 

Adieu, my dear friend, I am most sincerely 
yours, W. C. 

Why should you suppose that I did not admire 
the poem you showed mel 1 did admire it, and 
told you so, but you cariied it oif in your pocket, 
and so doing, left me to forget it, and without tlie 
means of inquiry. 

I am thus nimble in answering, merely with a 
view to ensure myself the receipt of other re- 
marks in time for a new impression. 



TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. 

DEAR SIR, Weston, Dec. 10, 1791. 

I AM much obliged to you for wishing that 1 
were employed in some original work rather than 
in translation. To tell you the truth, I am of 
your mind ; and unless I could find another Ho- 
mer, I shall promise (I believe) and vow, when I 



Let. 381. 382. 



LETTERS. 



365 



have done with Milton, never to translate again. 
But my veneration for our great countryman is 
equal to what I feel for the Grecian ; and conse- 
quently I am happy, and feel myself honourably 
employed whatever I do for Milton. I am now 
translating his Epitaphium Damonis, a pastoral 
in my judgment equal to any of Virgil's Bucolics, 
but of vvliich Dr. Johnson (so it pleased liim) 
speaks, as I remember, contemptuously. But he 
who never saw any beauty in a rural scene was 
not likely to have much taste for a pastoral. In 
pace quiescat! 

I was charmed with your friendly offer to be 
my advocate with the public ; should I want one, 
I know not where I could find a better. The re- 
viewer in the Gentleman's Magazine grows more 
and more civil. Should he continue to sweeten at 
this rate, as he proceeds, I know not what will be- 
come of all the httle modesty 1 have left. I have 
availed myself of some of liis strictures, for I wish 
to learn from every body. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, The Lodge, Dec. 21, 1791. 

It gives me, after having indulged a little hope 
that I might see you in the hoUdays, to be obliged 
to disappoint myself The occasion too, is such as 
will ensure me your sympathy. 

On Saturday last, while I was at my desk near 
the window, and Mrs. Unwm at the fire-side op- 
posite to it, I heard her suddenly exclaim, " Oh ! 
Mr. Cowper, don't let me fall !" I turned and saw 
her actually falling together with her chair, and 
started to her side just in time to prevent her. She 
was seized with a violent giddiness, which lasted, 
though with some abatement, the whole day, and 
was attended too with some other very, very alarm- 
ing symptoms. At present however she is relieved 
from the vertigo, and seems in. all respects better. 

She has been my faithful and affectionate nurse 
for many years-, and consequently has a claimon 
all my attentions. She has them, and will have 
them as long as she wants them; which will pro- 
bably be, at the best a considerable time to come. I 
feel the shock, as you may suppose, in every nerve. 
God grant that there may be no repetition of it. 
Another such a stroke upon her would, I think, 
.overset me completely ; but at present I hold up 
bjavely. W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 
Weston- Underwood, Feb. 14, 1792. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, - . 

It is the only advantage I believe that they who 
bve each other, derive from Uving at a distance, 



that the news of such ills as may happen to either 
seldom reaches the other, till the cause of com- 
plaint is over. Had I been next neighbour I 
sliould have suffered with you during the whole 
indisposition of your two children and your own. 
As it is, I have nothing to do but to rejoice in 
your own recovery and theirs, wliich I do sincere- 
ly, and wish only to learn from yourself that it is 
complete. 

1 thank you for suggesting the omission of the 
line due to the helmet of Aclailles. How the omis- 
sion happened I know not, whether by my fault 
or the printer's ; it is certain however that I had 
translated it, and I have now given it its proper 
place. 

I purpose to keep back a second edition, till I 
have had an opportunity to avail myself of the re- 
marks both of friends and strangers. The ordeal 
of criticism stiU awaits me in the reviews, and 
probably they will, all in their turn mark many 
things that may be mended. By the Gentleman's 
Magazine I have already profited in several in- 
stances. My re^'iewer there, though favourable 
in the main, is a pretty close observer, and though 
not always right, is often so. . 

In the affair of Milton I will have no horrida 
bella, if I can help it. It is at least my present 
purpose to avoid them if possible. For which 
reason, unless I should soon see occasion to alter 
my plan, I shall confine myself merely to the busi- 
ness of an annotator, which is my proper province, 
and shall sift out of Warton's notes every tittle 
that relates to the private character, political or 
religious principles of my author. These are pro- 
perly subjects for a biographer's handling, but by 
no means, as it seems to me, for a commenta- 
tor's. 

In answer to your question if I have had a cor- 
respondence with the Chancellor — I reply — yes.' 
We exchanged three or four letters on the subject 
of Homer, or rather on the subject of my Preface. 
He was.doubtfiil whether or not my preference 
of blank verse, as affording opportunity for a closer 
version, was well founded. On this subject he 
wished to be convinced; defended rhyme with 
much learning, and much shrewd reasoning, but 
at last allowed me the honour of the victory, ex- 
pressing himself in these words: — / am clearly 
convinced that Homer Tnay be best rendered in 
blank verse, and you have succeeded in the passa- 
ges that I have looked into. 

Thus it is when a vnse man differs in opinion. 
Such a man will be candid; and conviction, not 
triumph, will be his object. 

Adieu!— The hard name I gave you I take to 
myself, and am your 

w. c. 



36G 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 383, 384. 



TO THE LORD THURLOW. 

MY LORD, 

A LETTER reached me yesterday from Henry 
Co\\-per, enclosing another from your Lordship to 
himself, of which a passage in my work formed the 
subject. It gave me the greatest pleasure; your stric- 
tures arc perfectly just, and here follows the speech 
of Achilles accommodated to them *** + + ** 

I did not expect to find your Lordship on the 
side of rhyme, remembering well with how much 
energy and interest I have heard you repeat pas- 
sages from the Paradise Lost, which you could 
not have recited as you did, unless you had been 
perfectly sensible of their music. It comforts me 
therefore to know that if you have an ear for 
rhyme you have an ear for blank verse also. 

It seems to me that I may justly complain of 
rhyme as an inconvenience in translation, even 
though I assert in the sequel that to me it has 
been easier to rhyme than to write without, be- 
cause I always suppose a rhyming translator to 
ramble, and always obliged to do so. Yet I allow 
your Lordship's version of this speech of Achilles 
to be very close, and closer much than mine. But 
I believe that should either your Lordship or I 
give them burnish or elevation, your lines would 
be found, in measure as they acquired stateliness, 
to have lost the merit of fidelity. In which case 
nothing more would be done than Pope has done 
already. 

I can not ask your Lordship to proceed in your 
strictures, though I should be happy to receive 
more of them. Perhaps it is possible that when 
you retire into the coimtry, you may now and then 
amuse yourself with my Translation. Should your 
remarks reach me, I promise faithfully that they 
shall be all most welcome, not only as yours, but 
because I am sure my work will be the better for 
them. , 

With sincere and fervent wishes for your Lord- 
ship's health and happiness, 

I remain, my Lord, &c. W. C* 

* TO WILLIAM COWPER, ESa. 

From Lord Thurlow. 

DEAR COWPER, 

On coming to town this morning, I was sur- 
prised, particularly at receiving from you an an- 
swer to a scrawl I sent Harry, which I have forgot 
too much to resume now. But I tliink I could 
not mean to patronise rhyme. I have fancied, 
that it was introduced to mark the measure in 
modern languages, because thoy are less numer- 
ous and metrical than the ancient ; and the name 
seems to import as much. Perhaps there was 
melody in ancient song, without straining it to 
musical notes ; as the common Greek pronuncia- 
tion is said to have had the compass of five parts 



TO THE LORD THURLOW. 

MT LORD, 

We are of one mind as to the agreeable effect 
of rhyme or euphony Ln the lighter kinds of poetry. 



of an octave. But surely that word is only figura- 
tively applied to modern poetry: euphony seems 
to be the highest term it will bear. I have fancied 
also, that euphony is an impression derived a good 
deal from habit, rather than suggested by nature: 
therefore in some degree accidental, and conse- 
quently conventional. Else why can't we bear a 
drama with rhyme ; or the French one without 
itl Suppose the Rape of the Lock, Windsor 
Forest, L' Allegro, II Penseroso, and many other 
Uttle poems which please, stripped of the rhyme, 
which might easily be done, would they please as 
well! it would be unfair to treat rondeaus, ballads, 
and odes in the same manner, because rhyme 
makes in some sort a part of the conceit. It Was 
this way of thinking, which made me suppose, 
that habitual . prejudice would miss the rhyme: 
and that neither Dryden nor Pope would have 
dared to give their great authors in blank verse. 

I wondered to hear you say you thought rhyme 
easier in original compositions ; but you explained 
it, that you could go further a-field, if you were 
pushed for want of a rhyme. An expression pre- 
ferred for the sake of the rhyrne looks as if it were 
worth more than you allow. But to be sure in trans- 
lation the necessity of rhyme imposes very heavy 
fetters upon those who mean translation, not para- 
phrase. Our common heroic metre is enough ; 
the pure iambic, bearing only a sparing introduc- 
tion of spondees, trochees, &c. to vary the mea- 
sure. 

Mere translation I take to be impossible, if no 
metre were required. But the difference of iambic 
and heroic measure destroys that at once. It is 
also impossible to obtain the same sense from a 
dead language, and an ancient author, which 
those of his own time and country conceived; 
words and phrases contract, from time and use, 
such strong shades of difference from their original 
impor.t. In a living language, with the familiari- 
ty of a whole hfe, it is not easy to conceive truly 
the actual sense of current expressions; much less 
of older authors. No two languages fiarnish equi- 
potlent words; their phrases differ, their syntax 
and their idioms still more widely. But * trans- 
lation strictly so called requires an exact jconformi- 
ty in all those particulars, and also in numbers: 
therefore it is impossible. I really think at present, > 
notwithstanding the opinion expressed in your 
Preface, that a translator asks himself a good ques- 
tion. How would my author have expressed the 
sentence, I am turning, in English 1 for every idea 
conveyed in the original should be expressed in 
English, as literally, and fully, as the genius, and 
use, and character of the language will admit of 

In the passage before us wrret was the fondling 
expression of childhood to its parent; and to those 
who first translated the lines conveyed feelingly 
that amiable sentiment. Te^etn expressed the re- 
verence which naturally accrues to age; 

AiciTfu^nc implies an history. Hospitality was 
an article of religion, strangers were supposed to 



Let. 385. 



LETTERS. 



• 367 



The pieces which your lordship mentions would 
certainly be spoiled by the loss of it, and so would 
all such. The Alma would lose all its neatness 
and smartness, and Hudibras all its humour. But 
in grave poems of extreme length I apprehend that 
the case is different. Long before I thought of 
commencing poet myself, I have complained and 
heard others complain of the wearisomeriess of such 
poems. Not that I suppose that ttedium the ef- 
fect of rhyme itself, but rather of the perpetual re- 
currence of the same pause and cadence, unavoida- 
ble in the English couplet. 

I hope 1 may say truly, it was not in a spirit 
of presumption that I undertook to do what, in 
your Lordship's opinion, neither Dryden nor Pope 
would have dared to do. On the contrary, I see 
not how I could have escaped that imputation, 
had I followed Pope in his own way. A closer 
translation was called for. I verily believe that 
rhyme had betrayed Pope into his deviations. For 
me therefore to have used his mode of versifying 



be sent by God, and honoured accordingly. Jbve's 
altar was placed in ^ivoJ'o^uov. PhoBuix had been 
describing that as his situation in the court of Pe- 
leps: and his AtorpKpic refers to it. — But you must 
not translate that literally — 

" Old daddy Phoenix, a God-send for us to maintain." 

Precious limbs was at first an expression of 
great feeling; till vagabonds, draymen, &c. brought 
upon it the character of coarseness and ridicule! 

It would run to great length, if I were to go 
through this one speech thus — this is enough for 
an example of my idea, and to prove the necessity 
of further deviation ; which still is departing from 
the author, and. justifiable only by strong necessity, 
such as should not be admitted, till the sense of the 
original had been laboured to the utmost, and been 
found irreducible. 

I will end this by giving you the strictest trans- 
lation I can invent, leaving you the double task 
of bringing it closer, and of poUshing it into the 
style of poetry. 

Ah ! Phoenix, aged Father, guest of Jove ! 
I relish no such honours : for my hope 
Is to be honour'd by Jove's fated will, 
Which Iveeps me close beside these sable ships, 
liOng aa the breath shall in my bosom stay, 
Or as my precious Itnees retain their spring. 
Further I say ; and cast it in your mind ! 
Melt riot my spicit down by weeping thus, 
.^d waihng, only for that great man's sake, 
■ Atrides : neither ought you love that man, 
Lest 1 should hatij the friend I love so well. 
With me united 'tis your nobler part 
To ^all his spirit, who has galled mine. 
Wim me reign equal, half my honours share. 
These will report ; stay you here, and repose 
On a soft bed ; and with the beaming morn 
Consult we, whether to go home, or stay. 

I have thought, that hero has contracted a dif- 
ferent sense than it had in Homer's time, and is 
better rendered great man: but 1 am aware that 
the encliticks and other little words, falsely called 
expletives, are not introduced even so much as the 
genius of our language would admit. The euphony 
1 leave entirely to you, Adieu ! 



would have been to expose myself to the same 
miscarriage, at the same time that I had not his 
talents to atone for it. 

I agree with your Lordship that a" translation 
perfectly close is impossible, because time has sunk 
the original strict import of a thousand phrases, 
and we have no means of recovering it. But if we 
can not be unimpeachably faithful, that is no rea- 
son why we should not be as faithful as we can; 
and if blank verse affords the fairest chance, then 
it claims the preference. 

Your lordship, I will venture to say, can com- 
mand me nothing in which I will not obey with 
the greatest alacrity. 

E/ J'uvttfiui TiKifcu yt KM it TiTiXia-fxtvov itrri. 
But when, having made as close a translation as 
even you can invent, you enjoin me to make it still 
closer, and in rhyme too, I can only reply as Hor- 
ace to Augustus, 

cupidum, pater optime, vires 



I have not treacherously departed from my pat- 
tern that I might seem to give some proof of the 
justness of my own opinion, but have fairly and 
honestly adhered as closely to it as I could. Yet 
your lordship will not have to compliment me on 
my success, either in respect of the poetical merit 
of my hnes, or of their fidelity. They have just 
enough of each to make them deficient iu the 
other. 

Oh Phosnix, father, friend, guest sent from Jove ! 
Me no such honours as they, yield can move, 
For I expect my honotus from above. 
Here Jove hasfix'd me ; and while breath and sense 
Have place within mc, I will never hence. 
Hear too, and mark we well— Haimt not mine ears 
With sighs, nor seek to melt .me with tliy tears 
For yonder chief, lest urging such a plea 
Through love of him, thou hateful prove to me. 
Thy friendship for thy friend shall brighter shine 
Wounding his spirit who has wounded mine. 
Divide with me the honours of my throne — 
These shall return, and make their tidings known ; 
But go not thou — tliy couch shall here be dress'd 
With softest fleeces for thy easy rest. 
And with the earliest blush of op'ning day 
We will consult to seek our home, or stay. 

Since I wrote these I have looked at Pope's. I 
am certainly somewhat, closer to the original than 
he, but further I say not. — I shall wait with im- 
patience for your lordship's conclusions from these 
premises, and remain in the mean time with great 
truth, My Lord, &c. W. C. 



TO THE LORD THURLOW. 

MY LORD, 

I HAUNT you with letters, but will trouble you 
now with a short line only to tell your lordship 



368 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 386, 387. 



how happy I am that any part of my work has 
pleased you. — 1 have a comfortable consciousness 
that the whole has been executed with equal in- 
dustry antf attention; and am, ray Lord, with 
many thanks to you for snatching such a hasty 
moment to write to me,* 

Your Lordship's obhged and affectionate 
humble servant, 

WM. COWPER. 



TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. 

MY DEAR SIR, Weston, Feb. 21, 1792. 

. My obligations to you on the score of your kind 
and friendly remarks demanded from me a much 
more expeditious acknowledgment of the numerous 
pacquets that contained them; but I have been 
liindered by many causes, each of which you 
would admit as a sufficient apology, but none of 
which I will mention, lest I should give too much 
of my paper to the subject. My acknowledgments 
are liltevvise due to your fair sister, who has tran- 
scribed so many sheets in so neat a hand, and 
with so much accuracy. 

At present I have no leisure for Homer, but 
shall certainly find leisure to examine him with a 
reference to your strictures, before I send him a 
second time to the printer. Tliis I am at present 
unwilling to do, choosing rather to wait, if that 
may be, till I shall have undergone the discipline 
of all the reviewers; none of whom yet have taken 
me in hand, the Gentleman's Magazine excepted. 
By several of his remarks I have benefited, and 
shall no doubt be benefited by the remarks of all. 

Milton at present engrosses mealtogetherr . His 
Latin pieces I have translated, and have begun 
with the Italian. These are few, and will not 



* TO WILLIAM COWPER, ESa. 
From Lord Thurlow. 

DEAR COWPER, 

I HAYE received your letter on my journey 
through London, and as the chaise waits I shall 
be short. , _ 

I did not mean it as a sign of any. presumption 
that you have attempted what neither Dryden nor 
Pope would have dared ; but merely as a proof of 
their addiction to rhyme; for I am clearly con- 
vinced that Homer may be better translated than 
into rhyme, and that you have succeeded in the 
places 1 have looked into. But I have fancied that 
it might have been still more literal, preserving 
the ease of genuine English and melody, and some 
degree of that elevation which Homer derives from 
simplicity. But I could not do it, or even near 
cnougli to form a judgment, or more than a fancy 
about it. Nor do I fancy it could be done " staiis 
pcde in \uio." But when the mind has been fully 
impregnated with the origiual passage, often re- 
volving it and waiting for a happy moment may 
still be necessary to the best trained mind. Adieu. 



detain me long. I shall then proceed immediately 
to deliberate upon, and to settle the plan of my 
commentary, which I have hitherto had but httle 
time to consider. I' look forward to it, for this 
reason, with some anxiety. I trust at least that 
this anxiety will cease when I have once satisfied 
myself about the best manner of conducting it. 
But after all I seem to fear more the labour to 
which it calls me, than any great difficulty with 
which it is likely to be attended. To the labours 
of versifying I have no objection, but to the labours 
of criticism I am new, and apprehend that I shall 
find them wearisome. Should that be the case, I 
shall be dull, and must he contented to share thfe 
censure of being so, with almost all the commen- 
tators that have ever existed. 

1 have expected, but not wondered that I have 
not received Sir Thomas More and the other MSS. 
you promised me, because my silence has been 
such, considering how loudly 1 was called upon to 
write, that you must have concluded me- either, 
dead or dying, and did not choose perhaps to trust 
them to executors. W. C.' 



TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. 

MY DEAR SIR, WestoTi, March 2, 1792. 

I HAVE this moment finished a comparison of 
your remarks with my text, and feel so sensibly 
my obligations to your great accuracy and kind- 
ness, that 1 can not deny myself the pleasure of 
expressing thcrh immediately. I only wish that 
instead of revising the two first books of the Iliad, 
you could -have found leisure to revise the whole 
two poems, sensible how much my work would 
have benefited. ' ■ 

I have not always adopted your lines, though 
often perhaps at least as good as my own ; because 
there will and must be dissimilarity of manner be- 
tween two so accustomed to the pen as we are. 
But I have let few passages go unamended, which 
you seemed to tliink exceptionable; and this not 
at all from complaisance; for in such a cause I 
would not sacrifice an iota on that principle, but 
on clear conviction. 

I have as yet heard nothing from Johnson about 
the two MSS. you announce, but feel ashamed 
that I should want your letter to remind me of your 
oliliging offer to inscribe Sir Thomas More to me, 
should you resolve to publish him Of my consent 
to such a measure you need not doubt. I ani co- 
vetous of respect and honour from all such as you. 

Tame hare, at present, 1 have none. But to 
make amends, I have a beautiful little spaniel, 
called Beau, to whom 1 will give the kiss your 
sister Sally intended for the former. Unless she 
shoidd command me to bestow it elsewhere j it 
shall attend on her directions. 



Let. 388, 389, 390. 



LETTERS. 



3G9 



I am going to take a last dinner with a most 
agreeable family, who have been my only neigh- 
bours ever since I have lived at Weston. On 
Monday they go to London, and in the summer 
to an estate in Oxfordshire, which is to be their 
home in future. The occasion is not at all a plea- 
sant one to me, nor does it leave me spirits to add 
more than that I am, dear sir. 

Most truly yours, W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

MY DEAREST JOHNNY, Westou, March 11, 1792. 

You talk of primroses that you pulled o^n Can- 
dlemas day ; but what think you of me who heard 
a nightingale on New Year's day 1 Perhaps I 
am the only man in England who can boast of 
such good fortune ; good indeed, for if it was at 
all an omen, it could not be an mifavourable one. 
The winter, however, is now making himself 
amends, and seems the more peevish for having 
been encroached on at so undue a season. No- 
thing less than a large slice out of the spring will 
satisfy him. • 

Lady Hesketh left us yesterday. She intended 
indeed to have left us four days sooner; but in the 
evening before the day fixed for her departure, 
snow enough fell to occasion just so much delay 
of it. 

We have faint hopes that in the month of May 
we shall see her again. I know that you have 
had a letter from her, and you will no doubt have 
the grace not to make her wait long for an answer. 

We expect Mr. Rose pn Tuesday ; but he stays 
with us only till the Saturday following. With 
him I shall have some conferences on the subject 
of Homer, respecting a new edition I mean, and 
some perhaps on the subject of Milton; on him I 
have not yet begun to ^comment, or even fix the 
time when I shall. 

Forget not your promised visit! W. C. 



TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. 

MY DEAR SIR, Westou, March 23; 1792. 

I HAVE read your play carefully, and with great 
pleasure; it seems now to be a performance that 
can not fail to do you much credit. Yet, unless 
my memory deceives me, the scene between Cecilia 
and Heron in the garden has lost something that 
pleased me much when I saw it first; and I am 
not sure that yoa have not lUiewise obhterated an' 
account of Sir Thomas's execution, that I found 
very pathetic. It would be strange if in these 
two particulars I should seem to miss what never 
existed; you will presently know whether I am as 
good at remembering what I never saw, as I am 



at forgetting what I have seen. But if I am right, 
1 can not help rccomniending the omitted passages 
to your reconsideration. If the play were designed 
for representation, I should be apt to think Ceci- 
ha's first sijccch rather too long, and should" prefer 
to have it broken into dialogue, by an interposition 
now and then from one of her sisters. But since 
it is designed, as I understand, for the closet only, 
that objection seems of no importance; at no rate 
however would 1 expunge it; because it is both 
prettily imagined, and elegantly written. 

I have read your cursory remarks, and am much 
pleased both with the style and the argument. 
Whether the latter be new or not, I am not com- 
petent to judge; if it be, you arc entitled to much 
praise for the invention of it. Where other data 
are wanting to ascertain the time when an author 
of many pieces wrote each in particular, there can 
be no better criterion by which to determine the 
point, than the more or less proficiency manifested 
in the composition. Of this proficiency, where it 
appears, and of those plays in which it appears 
not, you seem to me to have judged well and truly; 
and consequently I approve of your arrangement. 

I attended, as you desired me, in reading the 
character of Cecilia, to the hint you gave me con- 
cerning your sister Sally, and give you joy of such 
a sister. This however not exclusively of the rest, 
for though they may not be all Cecilias, I have a 
strong persuasion that they are all very amiable. 

W. C. ' 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST coz, , The Lodge, Marches, 1792. 
• Mr. Rose's longer stay than he at first intended 
was the occasion of the longer delay of my answer 
to your date, as you may both have' perceived by 
the date thereof, and learned from his information. 
It was a daily trouble to me to see it lying in the 
window seat, while I knew you were in expecta- 
tion of its arrival. By this time I presume you 
have seen him, and have seen likewise Mr. Hay- 
ley's friendly letter and complimentary sonnet, as 
well as the letter of the honest CLuaker; all of 
which, at least the two former, I shall be glad to 
receive again at a fair opportunity. Mr. Hayley's 
letter slept six weeks in Johnson's custody. It was 
necessary I should answer it without delay, and 
accordingly I 'answered it the very evening on 
which I received it, giving him to understand, 
among other things, how much vexation the book- 
seller's folly had cost me, who had detained it so 
long; especially on account of the distress that I 
knew it must have occasioned to him also. From 
his reply, which the return of the post brought me, 
I learn that in • the long interval of my noncorres- 
pondence he had suflered anxiety and mortification 



370 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 391, 392, 393. 



enough; so much that I Jare say he made twenty 
vows never to liazard again either letter or compli- 
ment to an unknown author. What indeed could 
he imagine less, than that I meant by such an ob- 
stinate silence .to tell him that I valued neither 
him nor his praises, nor lais proffered friendship; 
in sliort that I considered him as a rival, and 
therefore, like a true author, hated and despised 
him? He is now however convinced that I love 
him, as indeed I do, and 1 account him the chief 
acquisition that ray own verse has ever procured 
me.. Brute should I be if I did not, for he promises 
me every assistance in his power. 

I have likewise a very pleasing letter from Mr. 
Park, which I wish you were here to read ; and a 
Tery pleasing poem that came enclosed in it for 
my revisal, written when he was only twenty 
jears of age, yet wonderfully well written, though 
wanting some correction. 

To Mr. Hurdis I return Sir Thomas More to- 
morrow ; having revised it a second time. He is 
now a very respectable figure, and will do my 
friend, who gives liim to the public this spying, 
.considerable credit. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY BEAR FRIEND, March 30, 1792. 

My mornings, ever since you went, have been 
given to my correspondents; this morning I have 
already written a long letter to Mr. Park, giving 
my opinion of his poem, which is a favourable one. 
I forget whether I showed it to you when you 
were here, and even whether I had then received 
it. He has genius and delicate taste; and if he 
were not an engraver might be one of our first 
hands in poetry. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

Weston, April 5, 1792. 

You talk, my dear friend, as John Bunyan says, 
like one that has the egg-shell still upon his head. 
You' talk of the mighty favours that you have re- 
ceived from me, and forget entirely those for which 
I am indebted to you ; but though you forget them, 
I shall not, nor ever think that I have requited 
you, so long as any opportunity presents itself of 
rendering you the smallest service ; small indeed 
is all that I can ever hope to render. 

You now perceive, and sensibly, that not with- 
out reason I complained as I used to do of those 
tiresome rogues the printers. Bless yourself that 
you have not two thick quartos to bring forth as 
I had. My vexation was always much increased 
by this reflection ; they are every day, and all day 
long, employed in printing for somebody, and why 



not for mel This was adding mortification tO 
disappointment, so that I often lost all patience. 

The suffrage of Dr. Robertson makes more 
than amends for the scurvy jest passed upon me 
by the wag unknown. I regard him not; nor, 
except for about two moments after I first heard 
of his doings, have I ever regarded him. I have 
somewhere a secret enemy ; I know not for what 
cause he should be so, but he I imagine supposes 
that he has a cause; it is well however to have 
bul one ; and I will take all the care I can not .to 
increase the number. 

I have begun my notes, and am playing the 
commentator manfully. The worst of it is that 
I am anticipated in almost all my opportunities to 
shine by those who have gone before me. 

W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, April 6, 1792. 

God grant that this friendship of ours may be 
a comfort to us all the rest of our days, in a world 
where true friendships are rarities, and especially 
where suddenly formed they are apt soon to ter- 
minate! But as I said before, I feel a disposition 
of heart toward you that I never felt for one whom 
I had never seen; and that shall prove itself I 
trust in the event a propitious omen. 

Horace says somewhere, though I may quote 
it amiss perhaps, for I have a terrible memory, 

Utrumque nostrum incredibili modo 
Consentit astruin.— : 

* * * * Our stars consent, at least have had an in- 
fluence somewhat similar in another, and more 
important article. * * * 

It gives me the sincerest pleasure that I may 
hope to see you at Weston ; for as to any migra- 
tions of mine, they must, I fear, notwithstanding 
the joy I should feel in being a guest of yours, be 
still considered in the light of impossibilities. 
Come then, my friend, and be as welcome, as the 
country people say here, as the flowers in May ! 
I am happy, as I say, in the expectation, but the 
fear, or rather the consciousness that I shall not 
answer on a nearer view, makes it a trembling 
kind of happiness, and a doubtful. 

After the privacy which I have mentioned 
above, I went to Huntingdon ; soon after my ar- 
rival there, I took up my quarters at the house of 
the Rev. Mr. Unwin : I lived with him whilfe he 
lived, and ever since his death have lived with his 
widow. Her, therefore, you will find mistress of 
the house; and I judge of you amiss, or you will 
find her just such as you would wish. To me 
she has -been often a nurse, and invariably the 



Let. 394, 395. 



LETTERS. 



371 



kindest friend, through a thousand adversities 
that I have had to grapple with in the course of 
almost thirty years. I thought it better to intro- 
duce her to you thus, than to present her to you 
at your coming quite a stranger. 

Bring with you any books that you think may 
be useful to my commentatorship, for with you 
for an interpreter I shall be afraid of none of 
them; And in truth, if you think that you shall 
want them, you must bring books for^^our own 
use also, for they are an article with which I am 
heinously unprovided ; being much in the con- 
dition of the man whose library Pope describes as 

No mighty store ! 
His own works neatly bound, and little more! 

You shall know how this has come to pass here- 
after. 

TeU me, my friend, are your letters in your own 
handwriting; if so, I am in pain for your ej'es, lest 
by such frequerlt demands upon them I should 
hurt them. I had rather write you three letters, for 
one, much as I prize your letters, than i/ia^should 
happen. And now, for the present, adieu — I am 
going to accompany Milton into the lake of fire 
and brimstone, having just begun my annotations. 

w. c. ■ 



TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. 

MY DEAR SIR, Westou, April 8, 1792. 

Your entertaining and pleasant letter, resem- 
bUng in that respect all that 1 receive from you, 
deserved a more expeditious answer; and should 
have had what it so well deserved, had it not 
reached me at a time when deeply in debt to 
all my correspondents, I had letters to write wdth- 
out number. Like autumnal leaves that strew 
the brooks in Vallambrosa, the unanswered far- 
rago lay before me. If I quote at all, you must 
expect me henceforth to quote none but Milton, 
since for a long time to come I shall be occupied 
with him only. 

I was much pleased with the extract you gave 
me from your sister Eliza's letter; she writes very 
elegantly, and (if I might say it without seeming 
to flatter you) I should say much in the manner 
of her brother. It is well for your sister Sally, 
that gloomy Dis is already a married man;, else 
perhaps finding her, as he found Proserpine, stu- 
dying botany in the fields, he might transport her 
to his own flowerless abode, where all her hopes 
of improvement in that science would be at an end 
for ever. 

What letter of the tenth of December is that 
which you say you have not answered"? Consider 
it is April liow, and I never remember any thing 
that I write half so long. But perhaps it relates 



toCalchas, for I do remember that you have not 
yet furnished me with the secret history of him 
and his family, which I demanded from you. 

Adieu. Yours, most sincerely, W. C. 

I rejoice that you are so well with the learned 
Bishop of Sarum, and well remember how he fer- 
reted the vermin Lauder out of all his hidings, 
when I was a boy at Westminster. 

I have not yet studied with your last remarks 
before me^ but hope soon to find an opportunity. 



TO LADY THROCKMORTON, 

Weston, April 16, 1793. 

MY DEAR LADY FROG, ' 

I THANK you for your letter, as sweet as it was 
short, and as sweet as good news could make it. 
You encourage a hope that has made me happy 
ever since I have entertamed it. And if my wish- 
es can hasten the event, it will not be long sus- 
pended. As to your jealousy, I mind it not, or 
only to be pleased with it ; I shall say no more on 
the subject at present than this, that of all ladies 
living, a certain lady, whom I need not name, 
would be the lady of my choice for a certain gen- 
tleman, were the whole sex submitted to my elec- 
tion. 

What a delightful anecdote is that which you 
tell me of a young lady detected in the very 
act of steahng our Catharina's praises ; is it pos- 
ble that she can survive the shame, the mortifica- 
tion of .such a discovery! Can she ever seethe 
same company again, or any company that she cart 
suppose by the remotest probability, may have 
heard the tidings 1 If she can, she must have an 
assurance equal to her vanity. A lady in Lon- 
don stole my song on the broken Rose, or rather 
would have stolen, and have passed it for her own. 
But she. too was unfortunate in her attempt ; for 
there happened to be a female cousin of mine in 
company, who knew that I had written it. It is 
very flattering to a poet's pride, that the ladies 
should thus hazard every thing for the sake of ap- 
propriating his verses. I may say with Milton, 
that I am fallen on evil tongues, and evil days, 
being not only plundered of that which belongs to 
me, but being charged with that wliich does not. 
Thus it seems (and I have learned it from more 
quarters than one) that a report is, and has been 
some time current in this and the neighbouring 
counties, that though I have given myself the air 
of declaiming against the Slave Trade in the 
Task, I am in reality a friend to it ; and last night 
I received a letter from Joe Rye, to inform me 
that I have been much traduced and caliunniated 
on this account. Not knowing how I could better 
or more eflfectually refute the scandal, I have thb 



372 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 396, 397. 



mornin<r sent a copy to the Northampton paper, 
prefaced by a "Short letter to the printer, specifying 
the occasion. The verses are in honour of Mr. 
Wilbcrforco, and sufficiently expressive of my 
present scnthncnts on the subject. You are a 
wicked foir one for disappointing us of our ex- 
pected ^isit, and therefore out of mere spite I will 
not insert them. I have been very ill these ten 
days, and for the same spite's sake will not tell 
you what ailed me. But lest you should' die of a 
fright, I will have the mercy to tell you that I am 
recovering. 

Mrs. G and her little ones are gone, 

but your brother is still here. He told me that he 
had some expectation of Sir John at Weston ; if 
he come, I shall most heartily rejoice once more 
to see him at a table so many years his own. 

W. C. 



TO THE REV. J. JEKYLL RYE. 

MY D-EAR SIR, Weston, April 16, 1792. 

I AM truly sorry that you should have suiiered 
any apprehensions, such as your letter indicates, 
to molest you for a moment. I believe you to be 
as honest a man as lives, and consequently do not 
believe it possible that you could in your letter to 
Mr. Pitts, or any othervsnise wilfully misrepresent 
me. In fact you did not ; my opinions on the sub- 
ject in question were, when I had the pleasure of 
seeing you, such as in that letter you stated them 
to be, and such they still continue. 

If any man concludes, because I allow myself 
the use of sugar and rum, that therefore I am a 
friend to the Slave Trade, he concludes rashly, 
and does me great wrong ; for the man' Uves not 
who abhors it more than I do. My reasons for 
my own practice are satisfactory to myself, and 
they whose practice is contrary, are, I suppose, 
satisfied with theirs. So far is good. Let every 
man act according to his own judgment and con- 
science ; but if we condemn another for not seeing 
with our eyes, we are unreasonable ; and if we 
reproach him on that account, we are uncharita- 
ble, which is a still greater evil. 

I had heard, before I received the favour of 
yours, that such a report of me, as you mention, 
had spread about the country. But my informant 
told me that it was founded thus : The people of 
Olney petitioned Parliament for the abolition — my 
name was sought among the subscribers, but was 
not found — a question was asked, how that hap- 
pened 1 Answer was made, that I had once in- 
deed been an enemy to the Slave Trade, but had 
changed my mmd ; for that lately having read a 
liistory or an account of Africa, I had seen it there 
asserted, that till the commencement of that traffic 



the negroes, multiplying at a prodigious rate, were 
necessitated to devour each other ; for which rea- 
son I had judged it better, that the trade should 
continue, than that they should be again. reduced 
to so horrid a custom. 

Now all this' is a fable. I have read no such 
history ; I never in my life read any such asser- 
tion ; nor, had such an assertion presented Itself to 
me, should I have draviTi any such conclusion from 
it : on th^ontrary, bad as it were, I think it would 
be better the negroes should have eaten one 
another, than that we should carry them to mar- 
ket. The single reason why I did not sign the 
petition was, because I was never asked to do it ; 
and the reason why I was never asked was, be- 
cause I am not a parishioner of Olney. 

Thus stands the matter. You will do me the 
justice, I dare, say, to speak of me as a man who 
abhors the commerce, which is now I hope in a. 
fair way to be abolished, as often as you shall find 
occasion. And I beg you henceforth to do your- 
self the justice to believe it impossible, that I should 
for a moment suspect you of duphcity or misre- 
presentation. I have been grossly slandered, but 
neither by you, nor in consequence of any thing 
that you have either said or written. I remain 
therefore, still as heretofore, with great respect, 
Much and truly yours, W. C 

Mrs. Unwin's compliments attend you. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST coz, Weston, May 5, 1793. 

I REJOICE, as thou reasonably supposest me to 
do, in the matrimonial news communicated in your 
last. Not that it was. altogether news to me, for 
twice I had received broad hints of it from Lady 
Frog by letter, and several times viva voce while 
she was here. But she enjoined me secrecy as 
well as you, and you know that all secrets are 
safe with me ; safer far than the winds in the bags 
of iEolus. I know not in fact the lady whom it 
would give m.e more pleasure to call Mrs. Courte- 
nay, than the lady in question ; partly because I 
know her, but especially because I know her to 
be all that I can wish in a neighbour. 

I have often observed that there is a regular al- 
ternation of good and evil in the lot of men, so 
that a favourable incident may be considered as 
the harbinger of an unfavourable one, and vice 
versa. Dr. Madan's experience witnesses to the 
truth of this observation. One day he gets a 
broken head, and next a mitre to heal it. I re- 
joice that he has met with so effectual a cure, 
though my joy is not unmingled with concern : for 
till now I had some hope of seeing him, but since 



Let. 898, 399. 



LETTERS. 



373 



I live in the North, and his episcopal call is in 
the West, that is a gratification I suppose which 
I must no longer look for. 

My sonnet, which I sent you, was printed in 
the Northampton paper last week, and this week 
it produced me a complimentary one in the same 
paper, which served to convince me at least by 
the matter of it, that my ovvn was not published 
without occasion, and that it had answered its 
purpose. 

My correspondence with Hayley proceeds brisk- 
ly, and is very afiectionate on both sides. I expect 
him here in about a fortnight, and wish heartily, 
with Mrs. Unwin, that you would give him a 
meeting. I have promised him indeed that he 
shall find us alone, but you are one of the family. 

I wish much to print the following lines in one 
of the daily papers. Lord S's vindication of the 
poor culprit in the affair of Cheit-Sing has con 
firmed me in the belief that he has been injurious- 
ly treated, and I think it an act merely of justice 
to take a little notice of him. 

TO 

WARREN HASTINGS, ESa 

BY 
AN OLD SCHOOLFELLOW OP HIS AT WESTMINSTER. 

HASTINGS! I knew thee young, and of a mind, 
While young, humane, conversable, and kind 
Nor can I well believe thee, gentle then, 
Now grown a villain, and the worst of men. 
But rather some suspect, who have oppress'd 
And worried thee, as not themselves the best. 

If thou wilt take the pains to send them to thy 
news-monger, I hope thou wilt do well. Adieu ! 

W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

Weston, May 20, 1792. 

MY DEAREST OP ALL JOHNNIES, 

I AM not sorry that your ordination is post- 
poned. A year's learning and wisdom, added to 
your present stock, will not be more than enough 
to satisfy the demands of your function. Neither 
ajQ I sorry that you find it difficult to fix your 
thoughts to the serious point at all times. It proves 
at least that you attempt, and wish to do it, and 
these are good symptoms. Woe to those who en- 
ter on the ministry of the Gospel wdthout having 
previously asked at least from God a mind and 
spirit suited to their occupation, and whose expe^ 
rience never diflfers from itself, because they are 
always alike vain, light, and inconsiderate. It is 
therefore matter of great joy to ipe to hear you 
complain of levity, and such it i^ to Mrs, Un- 
win. She is, I thank God, tolerably well, and 
loves you. As to the time of your journey hither, 



the sooner after June the better; till then we shall 
have company. 

I forgot not my debts to your dear sister, and 
your aunts Balls. Greet them both with a brother's 
kiss, and place it to my account. I will write to 
them when Milton and a thousand other engage- 
ments will give me leave. Mr. Hayley is here on 
a visit. We have formed a friendship that I trust 
will last for life, and render us an edifying exam- 
ple to all future pOcts. 

Adieu! Lose no time in coming after the time 
mentioned. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Weston, May 24, 1792. 

I WISH with all my heart, my dearest Coz"; 
that I had not ill news for the subject of the 
present letter. My friend, my Mary, has again 
been attacked by the same disorder that threat- 
ened me last year with the loss of her, and of 
which you were yourself a witness. Gregson 
would not allow that first stroke to be paralytic, 
but this he acknowledges to be so ; and with re- 
spect to the former, I never had myself any doubt 
that it was ; but this has been much the severest. 
Her speech has been almost unintelligible from 
the moment that she was struck; it is with diffi- 
culty that she opens her eyes, and she can not 
keep them open; the muscles necessary to the 
purpose being contracted ; and as to self-moving 
powers, frorn place to place, and the use of her 
right hand and arm, she has elitirely lost them. 

It has happened well, that of all men living the 
■man most qualified to assist and comfort me is 
here, though till within these few days I never 
saw him, and a few weeks since had no expecta- 
tion that I ever should. You have already guessed 
that I mean Hayley, Hayley who loves me as 
if he had known me from my cradle. When he 
returns to town, as he must, alas! too soon, he 
will pay his respects to you. 

I will not conclude without adding that our poor 
patient is beginning, I hope, to recover from this 
stroke also; but her amendment is slow, as must 
be expected at her tune of fife and in such a dis- 
order. I am as well myself as you have ever 
known me in a time of much trouble, and even 
better. 

It was not possible to prevail on Mi-s. Unwin 
to let me send for Dr. Kerr, but Hayley has writ- 
ten to liis friend Dr. Austin a representation of 
her case, and we expect his opinion and advice 
to-morrow. In the mean time, we have borrowed 
an electrical machine from our neighbour Socket, 
the eflect of which she tried yesterday, and the 
day before, and we think it has been of material 
service. 



374 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 400, 401, 402, 403. 



She was seized while Hayley and I were walk- 
ing, and Mr. Greathecd, who called while we 
"were absent, was with her. 

I fororot in my last to thank thee for the pro- 
posed amendments of thy friend. Whoever he is, 
make my corapUments to him, and thank him. 
The passages to which he objects have been all 
altered ; and when he shall see them new dressed, 
1 hope he will hke them better. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

The Lodge, May 26, 1792. 

MY DEAREST CO0SIN, 

Knowing that you will be anxious to learn how 
we go on, I write a few lines to inform you that 
Mrs. Unwin daily recovers a little strength, and a 
little power of utterance; but she seems strongest, 
and her speech is most distinct, in a morning. 
Hayley has been all in all to us on this very afflic- 
tive occasion. Love him, I charge you, dearly 
for ray sake. Where could I have found a man, 
except himself, who could have made himself so 
necessary to me in so short a time, that I abso- 
lutely know not how to live without him % 

Adieu, my dear sweet Coz. Mrs. Unwin, as 
plainly as her poor lips can speak, sends her best 
love, and Hayley threatens in a few days to lay 
close siege to your affections in person. 

W. C. 

There is some hope, I find, that the Chancellor 
may continue in office, and I shall be glad if he 
does ; because we have no single man worthy to 
succeed him. 

I open my letter again to thank you, my dearest 
Coz, for yours just received. Though happy, as 
you well know, to see you at all times, we have 
no need, and I trust shall have none, to trouble 
you with a journey made on purpose; yet once 
again I am wilHng and desirous to believe, we 
shall be a happy trio at Weston; but unless ne- 
cessity dictates a journey of charity, I wish all 
yours hither to be made for pleasure. Farewell. — 
Thou shalt know how we go on. 



TO MRS. BODHAM. 

MY DEAREST ROSE, Westoti, Juue 4, 1792. 

I AM not such an ungrateful and insensible ani- 
mal, as to have neglected you thus long without 
a reason. 

:^ ^ ^ ^ :^ ^f ^c 

I can not say that I am sorry that our dear 
Johnny finds the pulpit door shut against him at 
present. He is young, and can afford to wait an- 
other year; neither is it to be regretted, that his 



time of preparation for an office of so much im- 
portance as that of a minister of God's word should 
have been a little protracted. It is easier to direct 
the movements of a great army, than to guide a 
few souls to Heaven ; the way is narrow, and full 
of snares, and the guide himself has the most dif- 
ficulties to encounter. But I trust he will do well. 
He is single in his views, honest hearted, and de- 
sirous, by prayer and study of the Scripture, to 
qualify himself for the service of his great Master, 
who vrill suffer no such man to fail for want of his 
aid and protection Adieu. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

all's well; Weston, June 4, 1792. 

Which words I place as conspicuously as pos- 
sible, and prefix them to my letter, to save you the 
pain, my friend and brother, of a moment's anxious 
speculation. Poor Mary proceeds in her amend- 
ment still, and improves, I think, even at a swifter 
rate than when you left her. The stronger she 
grows, the faster she gathers strength, which is 
perhaps the natural course of recovery. She walk- 
ed so well this morning, that she told me at my 
first visit she had entirely forgot her illness ; and 
she spoke so distinctly, and had so much of her 
usual countenance, that, had it been possible, she 
would have made me forget it too. 

Returned from my walk, blown to tatters — found 
two dear things in the study, your letter, and ray 
Mary! She is bravely well, and your beloved epis- 
tle does us both good. I found your kind pencil 
note in my song-book, as soon as I came down in 
the morning of your departure; and Mary was 
vexed to the heart, that the simpletons who watch- 
ed her supposed her asleep, when she was not; 
for she learned soon after you were gone, that you 
would have peeped at her, had you known her to 
have been awake. I perhaps might have had a 
peep too, and therefore was as vexed as she; but 
if it please God, we shall make ourselves large 
amends for. all lost peeps by and by at Earthara. 

W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Weston, June 5, 1792. 
Yesterday was a noble day with us — speech 
almost perfect — eyes open almost the whole day, 
without any effort to keep them so; and the step 
wonderfully improved. But the night has been 
almost a sleepless one, owing partly I believe to 
her having hac^as much sleep again as usual the 
night before; for even when she is in tolerable 
health she hardly ever sleeps well two nights to- 
gether. I found her accordingly a little out of 



Let. 404, 405. 



LETTERS. 



375 



spirits this morning, but still insisting on it that to advance in her recovery. So in fact she docs, 



she is better. Indeed she always tells me so, and 
will probably die with those very words upon her 
lips. They will be true then at least, for then she 
will be best of all. She is now (the clocl^ has just 
struck eleven) endeavouring, I believe, to get a 
little sleep, for which reason I do not yet let her 
know that I have received your letter. 

Can I ever honour you, enough for your zeal to 
serve me"? Truly I tlnnk not: I am however so 
sensible of the love i owe*you on this account, that 
I every day regret the acutcncss of your feelings 
for me, Convinced that they expose you to laiuch 
trouble, mortilication, and disappointment. I have 
in short a poor opinion of my destiny, as I told 
you when you were here ; and though I believe 
that if any man living can do me good, you will, I 
can not y^*^ persuade myself that even you will be 
successful in attempting it. But it is no matter, 
you are 3'(3urself a good which I can never value 
enough, and whether rich or poor in other respects, 
I shall always account myself better provided for 
than I deserve, with such a friend at my back as 
you. Let it please God to continue to me my 
William and Mary, and I will be more reasonable 
than to grumble. 

I rose this morning wrapped round with a cloud 
of melancholy, and with a heart full of fears; but 
if I see Mary's amendment a little advanced when 
she rises, I shall be better. 

I liave just been with her again. Except that 
she is fatigued for want of sleep, she seems as well 
as yesterday. The post brings me a letter from 
Hurdis, who is broken-hearted for a dying sister. 
Had we eyes sharp enough, we should see the ar- 
rows of Death flying in all directions, and account 
it a wonder that we and our friends escape them 
q, single day, W. C. 



and has performed several little feats to-day, such 
as either she could not perform at all, or very 
feebly, while you were with us. 

I shall be glad if you have seen Johnny, as I 
call him, my Norfolk cousin; he is a sweet lad, but 
as shy as a bird. It costs him always two'or three 
days to open his mouth before a stranger; but 
when he docs, he is sure to please by the innocent 
cheerfulness of his conversation. His sister too is 
one of my idols, for the resemblance she bears to 
my mother. 

Mary and you have all my thoughts ; and how 
should it be otherwise 1 She looks well, is better, 
and loves you dearly. Adieu, my brother. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Weston, June 7, 1792. 
Of what materials can you suppose me made, 
if after all the rapid proofs that you have given me 
of your friendship, I do not love you with all my 
heart, and regret your absence continually 1 But 
you must permit me nevertheless to be melancholy 
now and then; or if you will not, I must be so 
without your permission; for that sable thread is 
so intermixed with the very thread of my existence, 
as to be inseparable from it, at least while I exist 
in the body. Be content therefore ; let me sigh 
and groan, but always be sure that I love }'ou ! 
You will be well assured that I shovdd not have 
indulged myself in the rhapsody about myself, and 
my melancholy, had my present mood been of that 
complexion, or had not our poor Mary seemed still 
25 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. 

Weston, June 10, 1792. 

I DO indeed anxiously wish that every thing you 
do may prosper; and should I at last prosper by 
your means, shall taste double sweetness in pros- 
perity for that reason. 

I rose this morning, as I usually do, with a 
mind all in sables. In this mood I presented my- 
self to Mary's bedside, whom I found, though after 
many hours lying awake, yet cheerful, and not to 
be affected with my desponding humour. It is a 
great blessing to us both that, poor feeble thing as 
she is, she has a most invincible .courage, and a 
trust in God's goodness that nothing shakes. She 
is now in the study, and is certainly in some de- 
gree better than she was yesterday, but how to 
measure that little I know not, except by saying 
that it is just perceptible. 

I am glad that you have seen my Johnny of 
Norfolk, because I know it will be a comfort to 
you to have seen your successor. He arrived, to 
my great joy, yesterday; and not having bound 
himself to any particular time of going, will, I hope, 
stay long with us. You are now once more snug 
in your retreat, and I give you joy of your return 
to it, after the bustle in vvhich you have lived since 
you left Weston. Weston mourns your absence, 
and wiU mourn it till she sees you again. What 
is to become of Milton I know not; I do nothing 
but scribble to you, and seem to have no relish 
for any other employment. I have however in 
pursixit of your idea to compliment Darwin, put a 
few stanzas* together, which I shall subjoin; you 
will easily give them all that you find they want, 
and match the song with another. 

I am now going to walk with Johiujy, much 
cheered since I began writing to you, and by Ma- 
il's looks and good spirits. W, C. 



Lines ad«li"eseed to Dr. Dai'win. See Poems. 



376 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 406, 407, 408, 



TO LADY IIESKETH. 
MY DEAREST coz, WestoTi, June 11, 1792. 

Thou art ever in my thoughts, whether I am 
writincr to thee or not; and my correspondence 
seems to grow upon me at such a rate, that I am 
not able to address thee so often as I would. In 
fact, I live only to write letters. Hayley is as you 
see added to the number, and to him I write almost 
as duly as I rise in the morning ; nor is he only 
added, but his friend Carwardine also — Carwar- 
dine the generous, the disinterested, the friendly. 
I seem in short to have stumbled suddenly on a 
race of heroes, men who resolve to have no interests 
of their own till mine are served. 

But I will proceed to other -matters, that concern 
nle more intimately, and more immediately, than 
all that can be done for me either by the great or 
the small, or by both united. Since 1 wrote last, 
Mrs. Unwin has been continually improving in 
strength, but at so gradual a rate that I can only 
mark it by saying that she moves about every 
day with less support than the former. Her re- 
covery is most of all retarded by want of sleep. On 
the whole I believe she goes on as well as could be 
expected, though not quite well enough to satisfy 
me. And Dr. Austin, speaking from the reports 
I have made of her, says he has no doubt of her 
restoration. 

During the last two months, I seem to myself to 
have been in a dream. It has been a most event- 
ful period, and fruitful to an uncommon degree, 
both in good and evil. I have been very ill, and 
suffered excruciating pain. I recovered, and be- 
came quite well again. I received within my doors 
a man, but lately an entire stranger, and who now 
loves me as his brother, and forgets himself to serve 
me. Mrs. Unwin has been seized with an illness 
that for many days threatened to deprive me of her, 
and to cast a gloom, an impenetrable one, on all 
my future prospects. She is now granted to me 
again. A few days since I should have thought 
the moon might have descended into my purse as 
likely as any emolument, and now it seems not 
impossible. All this has come to pass with such 
rapidity as events move with in romance indeed 
but not often in real life. Events of all sorts creep 
or fly exactly as God pleases. 

To the foregoing I have to add in conclusion 
the arrival of my Johnny, just when I wanted him 
most, and when only a few days before I had no 
expectation of him. He came to dinner on Satur- 
day, and I hope I shall keep him long. What 
comes next I know not; but shall endeavour, as 
you exhort me, to look for good, and I know I 
shall have your prayers that I may not be disap- 
pointed. 

Haley tells me you begin to be jealous of him, 
lest I should love him more than I love you, and 



bids me say, "that should I do so, you in revenge 
must love him more than I do." — Him I know 
you wdll love, and me, because you have such a 
habit of doing it that you can not help it. 

Adieu! My knuckles ache with letter writing. 
With my poor patient's affectionate remem- 
brances, and Johnny's, 

I am ever thine, W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HALEY, ESa. 

Weston, June 19, 1792. 
* ♦ * Thos have I filled a whole 
page to my dear William of Eartham, and have 
not said a syllable yet about my Mary. A sure 
sign that she goes on well. Be it known to you - 
that we have these four days discarded our sedan 
with two elbows. Here is no more carrying, or 
being carried, but she walks up stairs boldly, with 
one hand upon the balustrade, and the other under 
my arm, and in like maimer she comes down in a 
morning. Still I confess she is feeble, and misses 
much of her former strength. The weather too 
is sadly against her: it deprives her of many a 
good turn in the orchard, and fifty times have I 
wished this very day, that Dr. Darwin's scheme 
of giving rudders and sails to the Ice-islands, that 
spoil all our summers, were actually put in preic- 
tice. So should we have gentle airs instead of 
churlish blasts; and those everlasting sources of 
bad weather being once navigated into the south- 
ern hemisphere, ray Mary would recover as fast 
again. We are both of your mind respecting the 
journey to Eartham, and think that July, if by 
that time she have strength for the journey, will 
be better than August. We shall have more 
long days before us, and them we shall want as 
much for our return as for our going forth. This 
however must be left to the Giver of all good. If 
our visit to you be according to his will, he will 
smooth our way before us, and appoint the time 
of it; and thus I speak, not because I wish to 
seem a saint in your eyes, but because my poor 
Mary actually is one, and would not set her foot 
over the threshold, to save her life, unless she had, 
or thought she had, God's free permission. With 
that she would go through floods and fire, though 
without it she would be afraid of every thing:— 
afraid even to visit you, dearly as she loves, and 
much as she longs to see you. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HALEY, ESa. 

Weston, June 27, 1792. 
Well then — let us talk about this journey to 
Eartham. You wish me to settle the time of it, 
and I wish with all ray heart to be able to do so, 



Let. 409, 410, 411. 



LETTERS. 



377 



living in hopes meanwhile that I shall be able to 
do it soon. But soine little time must necessarily 
intervene. Our Mary must be able to walk alone 
to cut her own food, to feed herself, and to wear 
her own shoes, for at present she wears mine 
All things considered, my friend and brother, you 
will see the expediency of waiting a litle before 
we set off to Eartham. We mean indeed before 
that daj' arrives to make atrial of the strength of 
her head, how far it may be able to bear the mo- 
tion of a carriage, a motion that it has not felt 
these seven years. I grieve that we are thus cir- 
cumstanced, and that we can not gratifj' ourselves 
in a delightful and innocent project without all 
these precautions; but when we have leaf-gold to 
handle, we must do it tenderly. 

I thank j^ou, my brother, both for presenting 
my authorship to youf friend Guy, and for the ex- 
cellent verses with which you have inscribed your 
present. There are none neater or better turned 
— with what shall I requite you 1 I have nothing 
to send you but a gimcrack, wliich I have pre- 
pared for my bride and bridegroom neighbours, 
who are expected to-morrow. You saw in my 
book a poem entitled Catharina, which concluded 
with a wish that we had her for a neighbour ; this 
therefore is called Catharina; the second part. 
On her marriage to George Courtenay, Esq.* 



TO WILLIAM HALEY, ESa. 

Weston, July 4, 1792. 
I KNOW not how you proceed in your life of 
Milton, but I suppose not very rapidly, for while 
you were here, and since you left us, you have had 
no other theme but me. As for myself, except 
my letters to you, and the nuptial song I mserted 
in my last, I have literally done nothing since I 
saw you. Nothing 1 mean in the writing way, 
though a great deal in another; that is to say, in 
attending my poor Mary, and endeavouring to 
nurse her up for a journey to Eartham. In this 
I have hitherto succeeded tolerably well, and had I you 



TO WILLIAM HALEY, ESQ. 

Weston, July 15, 1792. 

The progress of the old nurse in Terence is very 
much like the progress of my poor patient in the 
road of recovery. I can not indeed say that she 
moves, but advances not, for advances are cer- 
tainly made, but the progress of a week is hardly 
perceptible. I know not therefore at present what 
to say about this long postponed journey. The 
utmost that it is safe for me to say at this moment 
is this — You know that you are dear to us both; 
true it is that 3'ou are so, and equally true that 
the very instant we feel ourselves at liberty we 
will fly to Eartham. I have been but once within 
the Hall door since the Courtenays came home, 
much as I have been pressed to dine there, and 
have hardly escaped giving a little offence by de- 
clining it; but though I should offend all the world 
by my obstinacy in this instance, I would not leave 
my poor Mary alone. Johnny serves rae as a re- 
presentative, and him I send without scruple. As 
to the affair of Milton, I know not what will be- 
come of it. I wrote to Johnson a week since, to 
tell him that the interruption of Mrs. Unwin's 
illness still continuing, and being likely to con- 
tinue, I knew not when I should be able to' pro- 
ceed. The translations (I said) were finished, 
except the revisal of a part. 

God bless your dear little boy and poet ! I thank 
him for exercising his drawing genius upon me, 
and shall be still happier to thank him in person. 

Abbot is painting me so true 
That (trust me) you would stare, 

And hardly know, at the first view, 
If I were here, or there. 

I have sat twice ; and the few, who have seen the 
copy of me, are much struck with the resem- 
blance. He is a sober, quiet man, which, consi- 
dering that r must have him at least a week 
longer for an inmate, is a great comfort to me. 

My Mary sends you her best love. She can 

walk now, leaning on my arm only, and her 

speech is certainly much improved. I long to see 

Why can not you and dear Tom spend the 



rather carry this point completely, than be the 
most famous editor of Milton that the world has 
ever seen, or shall see. 

Your humorous descant upon m}'' art of wish- 
ing made us merry, and consequently did good to 
us both.- I sent my wish to the Hall yesterday. 
They are excellent neighbours, and so friendly to 
me, that I wished to gratify them. When 1 went 
to pay my first visit, George flew into the court to 
meet me, and when I entered the parlour, Catha- 
rina sprang into my arms. W. C. 



See Poems. 



remainder of the summer with usl We might 
then all set off for Eartham merrily together. 
But I retract this, conscious that I am unreasona- 
ble. It is a wretched world, and what we would, 
is. almost always what we can not. 

Adieu ! Love me, and be sure of a return. 

W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Weston, July 22, 1792. 
This important affair, my dear brother, is at last 
decided, and we are coming. Wednesday ee'n- 



378 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 412, 413. 



night, if nothing occur to make a later day neces- 
sary, is the day fixed tor our journey. Our rate 
of traveling must depend on Mary's ability to bear 
it. Our mode of traveling will occupy three days 
unavoidably, for we sliall come in a coach. Ab- 
bot finishes my picture to-morrow ; on Wednesday 
he returns to town, and is commissioned to order 
one down for us, with four steeds to draw it ; 

" Hollow pamper'd jatlcs of Asia, 

That can not go but forty miles a day." 
Send us our route, for I am as ignorant of it al- 
most as if I were in a strange country. We shall 
reach St. Alban's I suppose the first day ; say 
where we must finish our second day's journey, 
and at what inn we may best repose 1 As to the 
end of the third day, we know where that will find 
us, viz. in the arms, and under the roof of our be- 
loved Hayley. 

General Cowper, having heard a rumour of this 
intended migration, desires to meet me on the road, 
that we may once more see each other. He lives 
at Ham, near Kingston. Shall we go through 
Kingston, or near it 1 For I vvould give him as 
little trouble as possible, though he offers very kind- 
ly to come as far as Bamet for that purpose. Nor 
must I forget Carwardine, who so kindly desired 
to be informed what way we should go. On what 
point of the road will it be easiest for him to find 
us 1 On all these points you must be my oracle. 
My friend and brother, we shall overwhelm you 
with our numbers ; this is all the trouble that I 
have left. My Johnny of Norfolk, happy in the 
thought of accompanying us, would be broken- 
hearted to be left behind. 

In the midst of all these soHcitudes I laugh to 
think what they are made of, and what an impor- 
tant thing it is for me to travel. Other men steal 
away from their homes silently, and make no dis- 
turbance; but when I move, houses are turned 
upside down, maids are turned out of their beds, 
all the counties through which I pass appear to be 
in an uproar — Surry greets me by the mouth of 
the General, and Essex by that of Carwardine. 
How strange does all this seem to a man who has 
seen no bustle, and made none, for twenty years 
together. Adieu. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Weston, July 29, 1792. 
Through floods and flames to your retreat, 

I win my desp'rate way, 
And when we meet, if e'er we meet, 
Will echo your huzza ! 
You will wonder at the word desp'rate in the 
second line, and at the if in the third ; but could 
you have any conception of the fears I have had 
to battle with, of the dejection of spirits that I have 
Eufiered concerning this journey, you would won- 



der much more that I still courageously persevere 
in my resolution to imdertake it. Fortunately for 
my intentions, it happens that as the day approach- 
es my terrors abate ; for had they continued to be 
what they were a week since, I must after all have 
disappointed you ; and was actually once on the 
verge of doing it. I have told you something of 
my nocturnal experiences, and assure you now that 
they were hardly ever more terrific than on this 
occasion. Prayer has, however, opened my pas- 
sage at last, and obtained for me a degree of con- 
fidence that I trust will prove a comfortable viati- 
cum to me all the way. On Wednesday, there- 
fore, we set forth. 

The terrors that I have spoken of" would appear 
ridiculous to most ; but to you they will not, for 
you are a reasonable creature, and know well that 
to whatever cause it be owing (whether to consti- 
tution,, or by God's express appointment) I am 
hunted by spiritual hounds m the night season. I 
can not help it. You will pity me, and wish it 
were otherwise ; and though you may think that 
there is much of the imaginary in it, will not deem 

it for that reason an evil less to be lamented 

So much for fears and distresses. Soon I hope 
they shall all have a joyful termination, and I, my 
Mary, my Johnny, and my dog, be skipping with 
deUght at Eartham 1 

Well ! this picture is at last finished, and well 
finished, I can assure you. Every creature that 
has seen it has been astonished at the resemblance. 
Sam's boy bowed to it, and Beau walked up to it, 
wagging his tail as he went, and evidently show- 
ing that he acknowledged its likeness to his mas- 
ter. It is a half length, as it is technically, but 
absurdly called ; that is to say, it gives all but the 
foot and ankle. To-morrow it goes to town, and 
will hang some months at Abbot's, when it will be 
sent to its due destination in Norfolk. 

I hope, or rather wish, that at Eartham I may 
recover that habit of study, which, inveterate as it 
once seemed, I now seem to have lost- — lost to such 
a degree that it is even painful to me to think of 
what it will cost me to acquire it again. 

Adieu ! my dear, dear Hayley ; God give us a 
happy meeting. Mary sends her love — She is in 
pretty good plight this morning, having slept well, 
and for her part has no fears at all about the jour- 
ney. Ever yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. MR. GREATHEED. 

MY DEAR SIR, Eartham, Aug. 6, 1792. 

Having first thanked you for your aflfectionate 
and acceptable letter, I will proceed, as well as I 
can, to answer your equally aflectionate request 
that I would send you early news of our arrival at 
Eartham. Here wc are in the most elegant man- 



Let. 414, 415. 



LETTERS. 



379 



aion that I have evci" inhabited, and surrounded by 
liic most delightful pleasure grounds that I have 
ever seen ; but w]iich, dissipated as my powers of 
thought are at present, I will not undertalce to de- 
scribe. It shall suffice me to say that they occu- 
py three sides of a hill, which in Buckinghamshire 
might well pass for a mountain, and from the sum- 
mit of which is beheld a most ma§pificent landscape 
bounded by the sea, and in one part of it liy the 
Isle of Wight, which may also be seen plainly from 
the window of the library in which I am writing. 

It pleased God to carry us both through the jour- 
ney with far less difficulty and inconvenience than 
I expected. I began it indeed with a thousand 
fears, and when we arrived the first evening at 
Barnet, found myself oppressed in spirit to a de- 
gree that could hardly be exceeded. I saw Mrs. 
Unwin weary, as she might well be; and heard 
such a variety of noises, both within the house and 
without, that I concluded she would get no rest. 
But I was mercifully disappointed. She rested, 
though -not well, yet sufficiently ; and when we 
finished our next day's journey at Ripley, we were 
both in better" condition, both of body and mind, 
than on the day preceding. At Ripley we found 
a quiet inn, that housed, as it happened, that night, 
no company but ourselves. There we slept well, 
and rose perfectly refreshed. And except some 
terrors that I felt at passing over the Sussex hills 
by moonlight, met with little to complain of till we 
arrived about ten o'clock at Eartham. Here we 
are as happy as it is in the power of terrestrial 
good to make us. It is almost a Paradise in which 
we dwell ; and our reception has beeri the kindest 
that it was possible for friendship and hospitality 
to contrive. Our host mentions jou with great 
respect, and bids me tell you that he esteems you 
liighly. Mrs. Unwin, who is, I think, in some 
points, already the better for her excursion, unites 
with mine her best compUments both to yourself 
and Mrs. Greatheed. I have much to see and en- 
. joy before I can be perfectly apprised of all the de- 
lights of Eartham, and will therefore now subscribe 
myself, 

Yours, my dear sir. with great sincerity, W. C. 



TO MRS. COURTENAY. 

Eartham, August 12, 1792 

MY DKAREST CATHARINA, 

Though I have traveled far, nothing did I see 
in my travels that surprised me half so agreeably 
as your kind letter ; for high as my opinion of your 
good-nature is, I had no hopes of hearing from you 
till I should have written first. A pleasure which 
1 intended to allow myself the first opportunity. 

After three days' confinement in a coach, and 



sullering as we went all that could be sudi-red 
from excessive heat and dust, we found ourselves 
late in llie evening ot tlie door of our friend Hay- 
ley. In every other respect the journey was ex- 
tremely pleasant. At the Mitre in Barnet, where 
wc lodged tlie first evening, wc found our friend 
Mr. Rose, who had walked thither from his house 
in Chancery-lane to meet us; and at Kingston, 
W'herc we dined the second day, I found my old 
and much valued friend General Cowper, whom 1 
had not seen in thirty years, and but for this jour- 
ney should never have seen again. Mrs. Unwin. 
on whose account I had a thousand fears before we 
set out, suficred as little from fatigue as myself 
and begins I hope already to feel some beneficial 
effects from the air of Eartham, and the exercise 
that she takes in one of the most delightful plea- 
sure-grounds in the world. They occupy three 
sides of a hill, lofty enough to command a view of 
the sea, which skirts the horizon to a length of 
many miles, with the Isle of Wight at the end of it. 
The inland scene is equally beautiful, consisting 
of a large and deep valley well cultivated, and en- 
closed by magnificent hills, all crowned with wood. 
I had, for my part, no conception that a poet could 
be the owner of such a Paradise ; and his house is 
as elegant as his scenes are charming. 

But think not, my dear Catharina, that amidst 
all these beauties I shall lose the remembrance of 
the peaceful, but less splendid Weston. Your 
precincts will be as dear to me as ever, when I re- 
turn; though when that day will arrive I know 
not, our host being determined, as I plainly see, to 
keep us as long as possible. Give my best love to 
your husband. Thank him most kindly for his 
attention to the old bard of Greece, and pardon me 
that I do not send you now an epitaph for Fop. I 
am not sufficiently recollected to compose even a 
bagatelle at present; but in due time you shall re- 
ceive it. 

Hayley, who will some time or other I hope see 
you at Weston, is already prepared to love you 
both, and being passionately fond of music, longs 
much to hear you. Adieu-! W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Eartham, Aug. 14, 1792. 

RoMNEY is here; it would add much to my hap- 
piness if you were of the party; I have prepared 
Hayley to tliink highly, that is justly of you, and 
the time I hope will come, when you wdll supersede 
all need of my recommendation. 

Mrs. Umvin gathers strength. I have indeed 
great hopes from the air and exercise which this 
fine season affords her opportunity to use, that ere 
we return she will be herself again. W. C 



380 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



LET.41G, 417, 418. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

Eartham, August 18, 1792. 

Wishes in this world are generally vain, and in 
the next we shall make none. Every day I wLsh 
you were of our party, knowing how happy you 
would be in a place where we have nothing to do 
but enjoy beautiful scenery, and converse agreeably. 

Mrs. Unwin's health continues to improve; and 
even I, who was well when I came, find myself still 
better. Yours, W, C. 



add in the way of news, except that Romney has 
drawn me in crayons; by the suflfrage of all here, 
extremely like. W. C. 



TO MRS. COURTENAY. 

Eartham, August 25, 1792. 

Without waiting for an answer to my last, I 
send my dear Catharina the epitaph she desired, 
composed as well as I could compose it in a place 
where every object, being still new to me, distracts 
my attention, and makes me as awkward at verse 
as if I had never dealt in it. Here it is.* 

I am here, as I told you in my last, delightfully 
situated, and in the enjoyment of all that the most 
friendly hospitality can impart; yet do I neither 
forget Weston, nor my friends at Weston ; on the 
contrary, I have at length, though much and 
kmdly pressed to make a longer stay, determined 
on the day of our departure — on the seventeenth 
of September we shall leave Eartham ; four days 
will be necessary to bring us home again, for I am 
imder a promise to General Cowper to dine with 
him on the way, which can not be done comforta- 
bly, cither to him or to ourselves, unless we sleep 
that night at Kingston. 

The air of this place has been, I believe, benefi- 
cial to us both. I indeed was in tolerable health 
before I set out, but have acquired since 1 came 
both a better appetite, and a knack of sleeping al- 
most as much in a single night as formerly in two. 
Whether double quantities of that article will be 
favourable to me as a poet, time must show. About 
myself however 1 care'little, being made of mate- 
rials so tough, as not to threaten me even now, at 
the' end of so many lustrums, with any tiling hke 
a speedy dissolution. My chief concern has been 
about Mrs. Unwin, and my chief comfort at this 
moment is, that she likewise has received I hope 
considerable benefit by the journey. 

Tell my dear George that I begin to long to be- 
hold him again; and did it not savour of ingrati- 
tude to the friend, under whose roof I am so happy 
at present, should be impatient to find myself once 
more under yours. 

Adieu, my dear Catharina. I have nothing to 



* Epitaph on Fop, a dog belongins to Lady Throckmorton. 
See Poems. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

•Eartham, August 26, 1792. 

I KNOW not how it is, my dearest Coz, but in a 
new scene, and surrounded by strange objects, I 
find my powers of thinking dissipated to a degree 
that makes it difficult to me eyen to write a let- 
ter, and even a letter to you ; but such a letter as I 
can, I will, and have the fairest chance to succeed 
this morning, Hayley, Romney, Hayley's son, and 
Beau, being all gone together to the sea for bathing. 
The sea, you must know, is nine miles ofl!", so that 
unless stupidity prevent, I shall have an opportu- 
nity to write not only to you, but to poor Hurdis 
also, who is broken-hearted for the loss of his fa- 
vourite sister, lately dead : and whose letter, giving 
an account of it, which I received yesterday, drew 
tears from the eyes of all our party. My only 
comfort respecting even 3^ourself is, that you write 
in good spirits, and assure me that you are in a 
state of recovery; otherwise I should mourn npt 
only for Hurdis, but for myself, lest a certain event 
should reduce me, and in a short tirne too, to a 
situation as distressing as his; for though nature 
designed you only for my cousin, you have had a 
sister's place in my affections ever since I knew 
you. The reason is, 1 suppose, that having no 
sister, the daughter of nty own mother, I thought 
it proper to have one, the daughter of yours. Cer- 
tain it is, that I can by no means afford to lose 
you ; and that unless you will be upon honour with 
me, to give me always a true account of yourself, 
at least when we are not together,- 1 shall always be 
unhappy, because always suspicious that you de- 
ceive me. 

Now for ourselves. I am, without the least dis- 
simulation, in good health; my spirits are about as . 
good as you have ever seen them; and if increase 
of appetite and a double portion of sleep be advan- 
tageous , such are the advantages that 1 have re- 
ceived from this migration. As to that gloominess 
of mind, which I have had these twenty years, it 
cleaves to me even here ; and could I be translated 
to Paradise, unless I left my body behind me, 
would cleave to me even there also. It is my com- 
panion for life, and nothing will ever divorce us. 
So much for myself. Mrs. Unwin is evidently the 
better for her jaunt, though by no means as she 
was before this last attack ; still wanting help when 
she would rise from her seat, and a support in 
walking ; but she is able to use more exercise than 
she could at home, and moves witli rather a less 
tottering step. God knows what he designs for 
me ; but when I see those, who are dearer to me 



Let. 419, 420. 



LETTERS. 



3S1 



than myself, distempered and enfeebled, aTid my- 
self as strong as in the days of my youth, I tremble 
for the solitude in which a few years may place 
me. I wish her and you to die before me, indeed, 
but not till I am more likely to follow unmediately. 
Enough of this! 

Romney has drawn me in crayons, and in the 
opinion of all here, with his best hand, and with 
the most exact resemblance possible. 

The seventeenth of September is the day on 
which I intend to leave Eartham. We shall then 
have been six weeks resident here ; a holiday time 
long enough for a man who has much to do. And 
now farewell ! W. C. 

P. S. Hayley, whose love for me seems to be 
truly that of a brother, has given me his picture, 
drawn by Romney about fifteen years ago; an 
admirable likeness. 



TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. 

MY DEAR SIR, Eartham, August 26, 1790. 

Your kind but very affecting letter found me 
not at Weston, to which place it was directed, but 
in a bower of my friend Hayley's garden at Ear- 
tham, where I was sitting with Mrs. Unwin. We 
both knew the moment we saw it from whom it 
came; and observing a red seal, both comforted 
ourselves that all was well at Burwash : but we 
soon felt that we were called not to rejoice, but fo 
mourn with you — we do indeed sincerely mourn 
with you ; and if it will afford you any consolation 
to know it, you may be assured that every eye 
here has testified what our hearts have suffered 
for you. Your loss is great, and your disposition 
I perceive such as exposes you to feel the whole 
weight of it; I will not add to your sorrow by a 
vain attempt to assuage it; your own good sense 
and the piety of your principles will, of course, 
suggest to you the most powerful motives of acqui- 
escence in the will of God. You will be sure to 
recollect that the stroke, severe as it is, is not the 
stroke of an enemy, but of a father; and will find 
I trust hereafter that like a father he has done you 
good by it. Thousands have been able to say, and 
myself as loud as any of them, it has been good for 
me that I was afflicted ; but time is necessary to 
work us to this persuasion, and in due time it shall 
be yours. Mr. Hayley, who tenderly sympathises 
with you, has enjoined me to send you as pressing 
an invitation as I can frame, to join me at this 
place. I have every motive to wish your consent. 
Both your benefit and my own, which I beUeve 
would be abundantly answered by your coming, 
ought to make me eloquent in such a cause. Here 
you will find silence and retirement in perfection, 
when you would seek them ; and here such com- 



pany as I have no doubt would suit you; all cheer- 
ful, but not noisy; and all ahke disposed to love 
you : you and I seem to have here a fair opportu- 
nity of meeting. It were a pity we should be in 
the same county, and not come together. I am 
here till the seventeenth of September, an interval 
that will afford you time to make the necessary 
arrangements, and to gratify me at last with an 
interview which I have long desired. Let me hear 
from you soon, that I may have double pleasure, 
the pleasure of expecting as well as that of seeing 
you. 

Mrs. Unwin, I thank God, though still a sufferer 
by her last illness, is much better, and has received 
considerable benefit by the air of Eartham. She 
adds to mine her affectionate compliments, and 
joins me and Hayley in this invitation. 

Mr. Romney is here, and a young man, a cou- 
sin of muie. I tell you who we are, that you may 
not be afraid of us. 

Adieu ! May the Comforter of all the afflicted 
who seek him, be yours. God bless you. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, Eartham, Sept. 9, 1792. 

I DETERMINE, if possible, to Send you one more 
letter, or at least, if possible, once more to send you 
something like one, before we leave Eartham. But 
I am in truth so unaccountably local in the use 
of my pen, that, like the man in the fable, who 
could leap well no where but at Rhodes, I am in- 
capable of writing at all, except at Weston. This 
is, as I have already told you, a delightful place; 
more beautifiil scenery I have never beheld, nor 
expect to behold ; but the charms of it, uncommon 
as they are, have not in the least alienated my 
affections from Weston. The genius of that place 
suits me better, it has an air of snug concealment, 
in which a disposition Uke mine feels itself pecu- 
liarly gratified ; whereas here I see from every win- 
dow, woods like forests, and hills like mountains, a 
wildness, in short, that rather increases my natural 
melancholy, and which, were it not for the agree- 
ables I find within, would soon convince me that 
mere change of place can avail me httle. Accord- 
ingly I have not looked out for a house in Sussex, 
nor shall. 

The intended day of our departure continues to 
be the seventeenth. I hope to reconduct Mrs. Un- 
win to the Lodge with her health considerably 
mended : but it is in the article of speech cliiefly, 
and in her powers of walking, that she is sensible 
of much improvement. Her sight and her hand 
still fail her, so that she can neither read nor work ; 
mortifying circumstances both to her, who is never 
willingly idle. 

On the eighteenth I purpose to dine with the 



382 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 421, 422, 423. 



General, and to rest tiiat night at Kingston; but 
the pleasure I shall have in the interview will 
hardly be greater than the pain I shall feel at the 
end of it, for wc shall part probably to meet no 
more. 

Johnny, I know, has told you that Mr. Hurdis 
is here. Distressed by the loss of his sister, he has 
renounced the place where she died for ever, and 
is about to enter on a new course of life at Oxford. 
You would admire him much He is gentle in Ids 
manners, and delicate in his person, resembling 
our poor friend Unwin, both in face and figure, 
more than any one I have ever seen. But he has 
not, at least he has not at present, his vivacity. 

I have corresponded since I came here with 
Mrs. Courtenay, and had yesterday a very kind 
letter from her. 

Adieu, my dear: may God bless you. Write 
to me as soon as you can after the twentieth. I 
shall then be at Weston, and indulging myself in 
the hope that I shall ere long see you there also. 

W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

The Sun, at Kingston, Sept. 18, 1792. 

MY DEAR BROTHER, 

With no sinister accident to retard or terrify 
us, we find ourselves, at a quarter before one, ar- 
rived safe at Kingston. I left you with a heavy 
heart, and with a heavy heart took leave of our 
dear Tom, at the bottom of the chalk-hill. But 
soon after this last separation my troubles gushed 
from my eyes, and then I was better. 

We must now prepare for our visit to the Ge- 
neral. I add no more therefore than our dearest 
remembrances and prayers that God may bless you 
and yours, and reward you an hundred-fold for 
all your kindness. Tell Tom I shall always hold 
him dear for his affectionate attentions to Mrs. 
Unwin. From her Jieart the memory of him can 
never be erased. Johnny loves you all, and has 
his share in all these acknowledgments. Adieu. 

W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

MY DEAR HAYLEY, WcstOTl, Sept. 21, 1792. 

Chaos himself, even the Chaos of Milton, is not 
surrounded with more confusion, nor has a mind 
more completely in a hubbub, than I experience at 
the present moment. At our first arrival, after 
long absence, we find an hvmdrcd oi'dcrs to ser- 
vants necessary, a thousand things to be restored 
to their proper places, and an endless variety of 
minutiaj to be adjusted ; which; though indi vid ually 
of little importance, arc most momentous in the 



aggregate. In these circumstances I find myself 
so indisposed to writing, that save to yourself I 
would on no account attempt ib; but to you I will 
give such a recital as I can of all that has passed 
since I sent you that short note from Kingston, 
knowing that if it be a perplexed recital, you will 
consider the cause, and pardon it. I will begin 
with a remark in which I am inchned to thinli you 
will agree with me, that there is sometimes more 
true heroism passing in a corner, and on occasions 
tliat make no noise in the world, than has often 
been exercised by those whom that world esteems 
her greatest heroes, and on occasions the most il- 
lustrious ; I hope so at least ; for all the heroism I 
have to boast, and all the opportunities I have of 
displaying any, are of a private nature. After writ- 
ing the note I immediately began to prepare for 
my appointed visit to Ham; but the struggles that' 
I had with my ovm spirit, labouring as I did under 
the most dreadful dejection, are never to be told. I 
would have given the world to have been excused. 
I went, however, and carried my point against 
myself with a heart riven asunder — I have reasons 
for all this anxiety which I can not relate now. The 
visit however passed off well, and we returned in 
the dark to Kingston. I wdth a lighter heart than 
I had known since my departure from Eartham, 
and Mary too, for she had suffered hardly less 
than myself, and clucfly on my account. That 
night we rested well in our inn, and at twenty 
minutes after eight next morning set off for Lon- 
don; exactly at ten we reached Mr. Rose's door; 
we drank a dish of chocolate with him, and pro- 
ceeded, Mr. Rose riding with us as far as St. Al- 
ban's. From this time we met with no impedi- 
ment. In the dark, and in a storm, at eight at 
night, we found ourselves at our own back door. 
Mrs. Unwin was very near slipping out of the 
chair in wliich she was taken from the chaise, but 
at last was landed safe. We all have had a good 
night, and are all well tliis mornuig. 

God bless you, my dearest brother. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

MY DEAR HAYLEY, Wcston, Oct. 2', 1792. 

A BAD night, succeeded by an cast wind, and a 
sky all in sables, have such an effect upon my 
spirits, that if I did not consult my own comfort 
more than yours, 1 should not write tOrday, for I 
shall not entertain you much: yet your letter, 
though containing no very pleasant tidings, has 
afforded me some relief It tells me, indeed, that 
you have been dispirited yourself, and that poor 
little Tom, the faithful squire of my Mary, has 
been seriously indisposed; all this grieves me, but 
then there is a warmth of heart, and a kindness 
in it, that do me good. I will endeavour not to 



Let. 424, 425, 426. 



LETTERS. 



383 



repay you in notes of sorrow and despondence, 
though all my sprightly chords seem broken. In 
truth, one day excepted, I have not seen the day 
when I have been cheerful, since I left you. My 
spirits, I think, are almost constantly lower than 
they were : the approach of winter is perhaps the 
cause; and if it is, I have nothing better to ex 
pect for a long time to come. 

Yesterday was a day of assignation with my- 
self, the day of which I said some days before it 
came, when that day comes I will begin my dis- 
sertations. Accordingly when it came I prepared 
to do so; filled a letter-case with fresh paper, fur- 
nished myself with a pretty good pen, and reple- 
nished my ink-bottle; but partly from one cause, 
and partly from another, chiefly however from 
distress and dejection, after writing and obliterat- 
ing about six lines, in the composition of which I 
spent near an hour, I was obliged to relinquish 
the attempt. An attempt so unsuccessful could 
have no other efiect than to dishearten me, and it 
has had that effect to such a degree that I know 
not when I shall find courage to make another. 
At present I shall certainly abstain, since at pre- 
sent I can not well afford to expose myself to the 
danger of a fresh mortification. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Weston, Oct. 13, 1192. 

I BEGAN a letter to you yesterday, my dearest 
brother, and proceeded through two sides of the 
sheet ; but so much of my nervous fever found its 
way into it, that looking it over this morning I de- 
termined not to send it. 

I have risen, though not in good spirits, yet in 
better than I generally do of late, and therefore 
will not address you in the melancholy tone that 
belongs to ray worst feehngs. 

I began to be restless about your portrait, and 
to say, how long shall I have to wait for it 1 I 
wished it here for many reasons: the sight of it 
will be a comfort to me, for I not only love, but 
am proud of you, as of a conquest made in my 
old age. Johnny goes to town on Monday, on 
purpose to call on Romney, to whom he shall 
give all proper information concerning its convey- 
ance hither. The name of a man, whom I es- 
teem as I do Romney, ought not to be unmusical 
in my ears ; but his name will be so, till I shall 
have paid him a debt justly due to him, by doing 
such poetical honours to it as I intend. Heaven 
knows when that intention will be executed, for 
the Muse is still as obdurate and as coy as ever. 

Your kind postscript is just arrived, and gives 
me great pleasure. When I can not see you. my- 
self, it seems some comfort however that you 
have been seen by another known to me; and 



who will tell me in a few days that he has seen 
you. Your wishes to disperse my melancholy 
would, I am sure, prevail, did that event depend 
on the warmth and sincerity with which you 
frame them; but it has baffled both wishes and 
prayers, and those the most fervent that could be 
made, so many years, that the case seems hope- 
less. But no more of this at present. 

Your verses to Austen are as sweet as the 
honey that they accompany; kind, friendly, witty, 
and elegant. When shall I be able to do the like 1 
perhaps when my Mary, like your Tom, shall 
cease to l)e an invalid, I may recover a power at 
least to do something. I sincerely rejoice in the 
dear little man's restoration. My Mary continues, 
I hope, to mend a little. W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

MY DEAREST JOHNNY, . WestOTl, Oct. 19, 1792. 

You are too useful when you are here not to be 
missed on a "hundred occasions daily: and too 
much domesticated with us not to be regretted al- 
ways. I hope therefore that your month or six 
weeks will not be like many that I have known, 
capable of being drawn out into any length what- 
ever, and productive of nothing but disappoint- 
ment. 

I have done nothing since you went, except that 
I have composed the better half of a sonnet to 
Ronmey; yet even this ought to bear an earher 
date, for I began to be haunted with a desire to 
do it long before we came out of Sussex, and 
have daily attempted it ever since. 

It would be well for the reading part of the 
world, if the writing part were, many of them, as 
dull as I am. Yet even this small produce, which 
my steril intellect has hardly yielded at last, may 
serve to convince you that in point of spirits I am 
not worse. 

In fact, I am a little better. The powders and 
the laudanum together have, for the present at 
least, abated the fever that consumes them; and 
in measure as the fever abates, I acquire a less 
discouraging view of things, and with it a little 
power to exert myself. 

In the evenings I read Baker's Chronicle to 
Mrs. Unwin, having no other history, and hope 
in time to be as well versed in it as his admirer 
Sir Roger de Coverley. W. C. 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

MY DEAR JOHNNY, Westou, Oct. 22, 1792. 

Here am I with I know not how many letters 
to answer, and no time to do it in. I exhort you, 
therefore, to set a proper value on this, as proving 



384 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 427, 428, 429. 



your priority in my attentions, though in other 
respects likely to be of little value. 

You do well to sit for your picture, and give 
very sufficient reasons for doing it ; you will also, 
I doubt not. take care that when future genera- 
tions shall look at it, some spectator or other shall 
say, this is the picture of a good man, and a use- 
ful one. 

And now God bless you, my dear Johnny. I 
proceed much after the old rate; rising cheerless 
and distressed in the morning, and brightening a 
little as the day goes on. Adieu. W. C. 

TO WILLIAM HALEY, ESa. 

Weston, Oct. 28, 1792. 

Nothing done, my dearest brother, nor likely 
to be done at present; yet I purpose in a day or 
two to make another attempt, to which however I 
shall address mj'self with fear and trembling, like 
a man who, having sprained his wrist, dreads to 
use it. I have not, indeed, like such a man, in- 
jured myself by any extraordinary exertion, but 
seem as much enfeebled as if I had. The con- 
sciousness that there is so much to do, and nothing 
done, is a burthen that I am not able to bear. 
Milton especially is my grievance, and 1 might 
almost as well be haunted by his ghost, as goaded 
with such continual reproaches for neglecting him. 
I will therefore begin ; I will do my best ; and if, 
after all, that best prove good for nothing, I will 
even send the notes, worthless as they are, that I 
have made already, a measure very disagreeable 
to myself, and to which nothing but necessity 
shall compel me. I shall rejoice to see those new 
samples of your biography, which you give me to 
expect. 

Aliens ! Courage ! — Here comes something how- 
ever ; produced after a gestation as long as that of 
a pregnant woman. It is the debt long unpaid; 
the compliment due to Romney ; and if it has your 
approbation, I will send it, or you may send it for 
me. I must premise, however, that I intended 
nothing less than a sonnet when I began. 1 know 
not why, but I said to myself, it shall not be a 
sonnet; accordingly I attempted it in one sort of 
measure, then in a second, then in a third, till I 
had made the trial in half a dozen different kinds 
of shorter verse, and behold it is a sonnet at last. 
The fates would have it so.* W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, WestOTl, NoV. 9, 1792. 

I WISH that I were as industrious, and as much 



" Here followed the Sonnet to George Uomney, Esq. See 
Poems. 



occupied as you, though in a different way ; but it is 
not so with me. Mrs. Unwin's great debihty (who 
is not yet able to move without assistance) is of 
itself a hindrance such as would effectually disa- 
ble me. Till she can work and read, and fill up 
her time as usual (all which is at present entirely 
out of her power,) I may now and then find time 
to write a letter, but I shall write nothing more. 
I can not sit with my pen in my hand, and my 
books before me, while she is in effect in solitude, 
silent, and looking at the fire. To this liindrance 
that other has been added, of which you are al- 
ready aware, a want of spirits, such as I have 
never known, when I was not absolutely laid by, 
since I commenced an author. How long I shall 
be continued in these uncomfortable circumstances 
is known only to Him who, as he will, disposes 
of us all. I may be yet able perhaps to prepare 
the first book of the Paradise Lost for the press 
before it will be wanted; and Johnson himself 
seems to think there will be no haste for the se- 
cond. But poetry is my favourite employment, 
and all my poetical operations are in the mean time 
suspended, for while a work to which I have 
bound myself remains unaccomplished I can do 
nothing else. 

• Johnson's plan of prefixing my phiz to the new 
edition of my Poems is by no means a pleasant 
one to me, and so I told him in a letter I sent him 
from Eartham, in which I assured him that my 
objections to it would not be easily surmounted. 
But if you judge that it may really have an effect 
in advancing the sale, I would not be so squeam- 
ish as to suffer the spirit of prudery to prevail in 
me to his disadvantage. Somebody told an author, 
I forgot whom, that there was more vanity in re- 
fusing his picture, than in granting it, on which 
he instantly complied. I do not perfectly feel all 
the force of the argunrent, but it shall content me 
that he did. 

I do most sincerely rejoice in the success of your 
publication, and have no doubt that my prophecy 
concerning your success in greater matters will 
be fulfilled. We are naturally pleased when our 
friends approve what we approve ourselves; how 
much then must I be pleased, when you speak so 
kindly of Johnny ! I know him to be all that you 
think him, and love him entirely. 

Adieu ! We expect you at Christmas, and shall 
therefore rejoice when Christmas comes. Let no- 
thing interfere. Ever yours, W. C. 



TO JpHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

Weston, Nov. 20, 1792. 

MY DEAREST JOHNNY, 

I GIVE you many thanks for your rhymes, and 
for your verses without rhyme; for your poetical 



Let. 430, 431. 



LETTERS. 



385 



dialogue between wood and stone; between Ho- 
mer's head, and the head of Samuel; kindly in- 
tended, I know well, for my amusement, and that 
' amused me much 

The successor of the clerk defunct, for whom I 
used to write mortuary verses, arrived here this 
morning, with a recommendatory letter for Joe 
Rye, and an humble petition of his own, entreat 
ing me to assist him as I had assisted his prede- 
cessor. I have undertaken the service, although 
with no little reluctance, being involved in many 
arrears on other subjects, and having very little 
dependence at present on my ability to write at all. 
I proceed exacty as when you were here — a letter 
now and then before breakfast, and the rest of my 
time all hohday; if holiday it may be called, that 
is spent chiefly in moping and musing, and "fore- 
casting the fashion of uncertain evils." 

The fever on my spirits has harassed me much, 
and I have never had so good a night, nor so quiet 
a rising, since you went, as on this very morning. 
A relief that I account particularly seasonable and 
propitious, because I had, in my intentions, de- 
voted this morning to you, and could not haveful- 
jfilled those intentions, had I been as spiritless as 
I generally am. 

I am glad that Johnson is in no haste for Mil- 
ton, for I seem myself not likely to address myself 
presently to that concern, with any prospect of 



new clerk ; he came to solicit the same service as 
I had rendered his predecessor, and I reluctantly 
complied; doubtful, indeed, whether I was capa- 
ble. I have however achieved that labour, and I 
hope nothing more. I am just sent for up to Mary, 
dear Mary ! Adieu ! she is as well as when I left 
you, I would I could say better. Remember us both 
aflectionately to your sweet boy, and trust me for 
being Most truly yours, W. C. 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MY DE.4R SIR, Weston, Dec. 16, 1792. 

We differ so little, that it is pity we should not 
agree. The possibility of restoring our diseased 
government is, I think, the only point on which 
we are not of one mind. If you are right, and it 
can not be touched in the medical way, without 
danger of absolute ruin to the constitution, keep 
the doctors at a distance, say I — and let us Uve as 
long as we can. But perhaps physicians might 
be found of skill sufficient for the purpose, were 
they but as willing as able. Who are theyl Not 
those honest blunderers the mob, but our governors 
themselves. As it is in the power of any indivi- 
dual to be honest if he will, any body of men are, 
as it seems to me, equally possessed of the same 
option. For I can never persuade myself to think 



success; yet something now and then, like a se-|the world so constituted by the author of it, and 
cret whisper, assures and encourages me that it human society, which is his ordinance, so shabby 



will yet be done. 



W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY ESa. 

Weston, Nov. 25, 1792. 



a business, that the buying and selling of votes 
and consciences should be essential to its existence. 
As to multiplied representation, I know not that 
I foresee any great advantage likely to arise from 
that. Provided there be but a reasonable number 
of reasonable heads laid together for the good of 



How shall I thank you enough for the interest the nation, the end may as well be answered by 
you take in my future Miltonic labours, and the five hundred, as it would be by a thousand, and 
assistance you promised me in the performance perhaps better. But then they should be honest 
of them 1 I will some time or other, if I live, and as well as wise; and in order that they may be 
live a poet, acknowledge your friendship in some so, they should put it out of their own power to be 
of my best verse; the most suitable return one otherwise. This they might certainly do, if they 
poet can make to another; in the mean time, I love would ; and would they do it, I am not convinced 
you, and am sensible of all your kindness. You that any great mischief would ensue. You say, 
wish me warm in my work, and I ardently wish " somebody must have influence," but I see no 
the same ; but when I shall be so, God only knows, necessity for it. Let integrity of intention and a 
My melancholy, which seemed a little alleviated due share of ability be supposed, and the influence 
for a few days, has gathered about me again, with will be in the right place, it will all centre in the 
as black a cloud as ever; the consequence is abso- zeal and good of the nation. That will influence 
lute incapacity to begin. I their debates and decisions, and nothing else ought 

I was for some years dirge writer to the town to do it. You will say perhaps that, wise men 
of Northampton, being employed by the clerk of and honest men as they are supposed, they are 
the principal parish there, to furnish him with an yet liable to be split into almost as many differ- 
annual copy of verses proper to be printed at the ences of opinion as there are individuals : but I 
foot of his bill of mortahty; but the clerk died, rather think not. It is observed of Prince Eugene 
and hearing nothing for two years from his sue- and the Duke of Marlborough, that each always 
cessor, I well hoped that I was out of my office, approved and seconded the plans and views of the 
The other morning however Sam announced the other: and the reason given for it is, that they 



386 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 432,433, 434. 



were men of equal ability. The same cause that 
could make two unanimous, would make twenty 
so; and would at least secure a majority among 
as many hundreds. As to the reformation of the 
church, I want none, unless Ly a better provision 
for the inferior clergy; and if that could be brought 
about by emaciating a little some of our too corpu- 
lent dignitaries, I should be well contented. 

The dissenters, I think, catholics and others, 
have all a right to the privileges of all other Eng- 
lishmen, because to deprive them is persecution ; 
and persecution on any account, but especially on 
a religious one, is an abomination. But after all, 
valeat respublica. I love my country, I love my 
king, and I wish peace and prosperity to Old Eng- 
land. ■ Adieu. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Weston, Dec. 26, 1792. . 

That I may not be silent till my silence alarms 
you, I snatch a moment to tell you that although 
ioujours triste I am not worse tha?! usual, but my 
opportunities of writing are paucijied, as perhaps 
Dr. Johnson would have dared to say, and the few 
that I have are shortened by company. 

Give my love to dear 1'om, and thank him for 
his very apposite extract, which I sliould be happ}'' 
indeed to turn to any account. How often do I 
wish, in the course of every day, that I could be 
employed once more in poetry, -and how often of 
course that this Miltonic trap had never caught me ! 
The year ninety-two shall stand chronicled in my 
remen^brance as the most melancholy that 1 have 
ever known, except the few weeks that I spent at 
Eartham ; and such it has been principally, because 
being engaged to Milton, I felt myself no longer 
free for any other engagement. That ill-fated 
work, impracticable in itself, has made every thing 
else impracticable. 

* * * I am very Pindaric, and obliged to be 
so by the hurry of the hour. My friends are come 
down to breakfast. Adieu. W. C. 



TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. 

MY DEAR SIR, Weston, Jan. G, 1793. 

I SEIZE a passing moment merely to say that I 
feel for your distresses, and sincerely pity you ; and 
I shall be happy to learn from your next, that your 
sister's amendment has superseded the necessity 
you feared of a journey to London. Your candid 
account of the effect that your afflictions have both 
on your spirits and temper 1 can perfectly under- 
stand, having laboured much in that lire myself, 
and perhaps more than any man. It is in such a 



school, however, that we must learn, if we ever 
truly learn it, the natural depravity of the human 
heart, and of our own in particular, together with the 
consequence that necessarily follows such wretch- 
ed premises ; our indispensable need of the atone- 
ment, and our inexpressible obligations to him who 
made it. This reflection can not escape a think- 
ing mind, looking back on those ebullitions of fret- 
fulness and impatience, to which it has yielded in 
a season of great affliction. 

Having lately had company who left us only on 
the fourth, I have done nothing indeed, since my 
return from Sussex, except a trifle or two, which 
it was incumbent upon me to write. Milton hangs 
in doubt, neither spirits nor opportunity suffice me 
for that labour. I regret continually that I ever 
suffered myself to be persuaded to undertake it. 
The most that I hope to effect is a complete revi- 
sal of my own Homer. .Johnson told my friend, 
who has just left me, that it will begin to be re- 
viewed in the next Analytical, and that he hoped 
the review of it would not offend me. By this I 
understand that if I am not offended, it will be 
owing more to my own equanimity, than to the 
mildness of the critic. So be it ! He will put an 
opportunity of victory over myself into my hands, 
and I will endeavour not to lose it ! Adieu. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa 

MY DEAR BROTHER, WestoTi, Jan. 20, 1793. 

Now I know that you are safe, I treat you, as 
you see, with a philosophical indiflference, not ac- 
knowledging your kind and immediate atiswer to 
anxjous inquiries, till it suits my own convenience. 
I have learned, however, from my late solicitude, 
that not only you, but yours, interest me to a de- 
gree, that, should any thing happen to either of 
you, would be very inconsistent with my peace. 
Sometimes I thought that you were extremely ill, 
and once or twice that you were dead. As often 
some tragedy reached my ear concerning Uttle Tom. 
" O, vancD mentes hominum !" How hable are we 
to a thousand impositions, and how indebted to ho- 
nest old Tmie, who never fails to undeceive us ! 
Whatever you had in prospect you acted kindly 
by me not to make me partaker of your expecta- 
tions, for I have a spirit, if not so sanguine as 
yours, yet that would have waited for your coming 
with anxious impatience, and have been dismally 
mortified by the disappointment. Had you come, 
and come without notice too, you would not have 
surprised us more, than (as the matter was man- 
aged) we were surprised at the arrival of your pic- 
ture. It reached us in the evening, after the shut- 
ters were closed, at a time when a chaise might 
actually have brought you without giving us the 



Let. 435, 436, 437, 438. 



LETTERS. 



387 



least previous intimation. Then it was, that Sa- 
muel, with his cheerful countenance, appeared at 
the study door, and with a voice as cheerful as his 
looks, exclaimed, " Mr. Hayley is come. Madam!" 
We both started, and in the same moment cried, 
"Mr. Hayley come! and where is hcT' The 
next moment corrected our mistake, and finding 
Mary's voice grow suddenly tremulous, I turned 
and saw her weeping. 

I do nothing, notwithstanding «11 your exhorta- 
tions : my idleness is a proof against them all, or 
to speak more truly, my difficulties are so. Some- 
thing indeed I do. I play at pushpin with Homer 
every morning before breakfast, fingering and po- 
lishing, as Paris did his armour. I have lately had 
a letter from Dublin on that subject, which has 
pleased me. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

MY DEAREST HAYLEY, Wcston, Jan. 29, 1793. 

I TKULY sympathize with you under your weight 
of sorrow for the loss of our good Samaritan. But 
be not broken-hearted, my friend ! Remember, 
the loss of those we love is the condition on which 
we live ourselves ; and that he who chooses his 
friends wisely from among the excellent of the 
earth, has a sure ground to hope concerning them 
when they die, that a merciful God has made them 
far happier than they could be here, and that we 
shall join them soon again. This is solid comfort, 
could we but avail ourselves of it ; but I confess 
the difficulty of doing so. Sorrow is like the deaf 
adder, " that hears not the voice of the charmer, 
charm he never so wisely ;" and I feel so much 
myself for the death of Austin, that my own chief 
consolation is, that I had never seen him. Live 
yourself, I beseech you, for I have seen so much of 
you, that 1 can by no means spare you, and will 
live as long as it shall please God to permit. I 
know you set some value on me, therefore let that 
promise comfort you, and give us not reason to say, 
like David's servant, " We know that it would 
have pleased thee more if all we had died, than 
this one, for whom thou art inconsolable." You 
have still Romney and Carwardine, and Guy, and 
me, my poor Mary, and I know not how many 
beside ; as many, 1 suppose, as ever had an oppor- 
tunity of spending a day with you. He who has 
the most friends must necessarily lose the most, 
arid he whose friends are numerous as yours may 
the better spare a part of them. It is a changing 
transient scene : yet a little while, and this poor 
dream of life will be over with all of us — The liv- 
ing, and they who live unhappy, they are indeed 
subjects of sorrow. Adieu, my beloved friend. 
Ever yours, W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

Weston, Feb. 5, 1793. 
In this last revisal of my work (the Homer) t 
have made a number of small improvements, and 
am now more convinced than ever, having exercis- 
ed a cooler judgment upon it than before I could, 
that the translation will make its way. There 
must be time for the conquest of vehement and 
long rooted prejudice; but without much self-par- 
tiality, I believe that the conquest will be made; 
and am certain that I should be of the .same opi- 
nion, were the work another man's. I shall soon 
have finished the Odyssey, and when I have, will 
send the corrected copy of both to Johnson. Adieu. 

W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Feb. 10, 1793. 
My pens are all split, and my inkglass is dry ; 
Neither wit, common sense, nor ideas have I. 

In vain has it been that I have made several at- 
tempts to write since I came from Sussex; unless 
more comfortable days arrive than I have the con- 
fidence to look for, there is an end of all writing 
with me. I have no spirits : when the Rose came, 
I was obliged to prepare for his coming by a night- 
ly dose of laudanum — twelve drops suffice; but 
without them I am devoured by melancholy. 

A-propos of the Rose ! His wife in her political 
notions is the exact counterpart of yourself — loyal 
in the extreme. Therefore, if you find her thus 
inclined, when you become acquainted with her, 
you must not place her resemblance of yourself to 
the account of her admiration of you, for she is 
your likeness ready made. In fact, we are all of 
one mind, about government matters, and not- 
withstanding your opinion, the Rose is himself a 
Whig, and I am a Whig, and you, my dear, are 
a Tory, and all the Tories now-a-days call all the 
Whigs Republicans. How the deuce you came 
to be a Tory is best known to yourself; you have 
to answer for this novelty to the shades of your 
ancestors, who were always Whigs ever since we 
had any. Adieu. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Feb. 17, 1793. 

I HAVE read the critique of my work in the Ana- 
lytical Review, and am happy to have fallen into 
the hands of a critic, rigorous enough indeed, but 
a scholar and a man of sense, and who does not 
deliberately intend me mischief I am better 



388 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 439, 440. 



pleased indeed that he censures some tilings, than 
I should have been with unmixed commendation, 
for his censure will (to use the new diplomatic 
term) accredit his praises. In his particular re- 
marks he is for the most part right, and I shall 
be the better for them ; but in his general ones I 
think he asserts too largely, and more than he 
could prove. With respect to inversions in parti- 
cular, I know that they do not abound. Once they 
did, and I had Milton's example for it, not dis- 
approved by Addison. But on 's remon- 
strance against them, I expunged the most, and 
in my ne\v edition shall have fewer still. I know 
that they give dignity, and am sorry to part with 
them, but, to parody an old proverb, he who lives 
in the year ninety-three, must do as in the year 
ninety-three is done by others. The same remark 
I have to make on his censure of inharmonious 
lines. I know them to be much fewer than he as- 
serts, and not more in number than I accounted 
indispensably necessary to a due variation of ca- 
dence. I have, however, now in conformity with 
modern taste, (overmuch delicate in my mind) 
given to a far greater number of them a flow as 
smooth as oil. A few I retain, and will, in com- 
pliment to my own judgment. He thinks me too 
faithful to compound epithets in the introductory 
lines, and I know his reason. He fears, lest the 
English reader should blame Homer, whom he 
idolizes, though hardly more than I, for such con- 
stant repetition. But them I shall not alter. They 
are necessary to a just representation of the origi- 
nal. In the affair of Outis, I shall throw .him 
flat on his back by an unansw^erable argument, 
which I shall give in a note, and with which I am 
furnished by Mrs. Unwin. So much for hyper- 
criticism, .which has run away with all my paper. 

This critic by the way is , I know him by 

infallible indications. W. C. 



TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. 

MY DEAR Sin, Weston, Feb. 23, 1793. 

My eyes, which have long been inflamed, will 
hardly serve me for Homer, and oblige me to make 
all my letters short. You have obliged me much 
by sending me so speedily the remainder of your 
notes. I have begun with them again, and find 
them, as before, very much to the purpose. More 
to the purpose they could not have been, had you 
been poetry professor already. I rejoice sincerely 
in the prospect you have of that office, which, 
whatever may be your own tliouglits of the mat- 
ter, I am sure you will fill with great sufficiency. 
Would that my interest and power to serve you 
were greater ! One string to my bow I have, and 
one only, wliich shall not be idle for want of my 
exertions. I thank you likewise for your very en- 



tertaining notices and remarks in the natural way. 
The hurry in which I write would not suffer me 
to send you many in return, had I many to send, 
but only tvvp or three present themselves. 

Frogs will feed on worms. I saw a firog gather- 
ing into his gullet an earth-worm as long as him- 
self; it cost him time and labour, but at last he 
succeeded. 

Mrs. Unwin and I, crossing a brook, saw from 
the foot-bridge sip^evvhat at the bottom of the wa- 
ter which had the appearance of a flower. Ob- 
serving it attentively, we found that it consisted 
of a circular assemblage of minnows ; their heads 
all met in a centre; and their tails diverging at 
equal, distances, and being elevated above their 
heads, gave them the appearance of a flower half 
blown. One was longer tiian the rest; and as often 
as a straggler came in sight, he quitted his place 
to pursue him, and having driven him away, he 
returned to it again, no other minnow offering to 
take it in his absence. This we saw him do se- 
veral times. The object that had attached thera 
all was a dead minnow, which they seemed to be 
devouring. 

After a very rainy day, I saw on one of the 
flower borders what seemed a long hair, but it 
had a waving, twining motion. Considering more 
nearly, I found it alive, and endued with sponta- 
neity, but could not discover at the ends of it either 
head or tail, or any distinction of parts. I carried 
it into the house, when the air of a warm room 
dried and lulled it presently. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Feb. 24, 1793. 

Your letter (so full of kindness, and so exactly 
in unison with my own feelings for you) should 
have had, as it deserved to have, an earlier an- 
swer, had I not been perpetually tormented with 
inflamed eyes, which are a sad hindrance to me in 
every thing. But to make amends, if I do not 
send you an early answer, I send you at least a 
speedy one, being^obliged to write as fast as my 
pen can trot, that I may shorten the time of poring 
upon paper as much as possible. ' Homer too has 
been another hindrance, for always when I can 
see, which is only about two hours every morning, 
and not at all by candlelight, I devote myself to 
him, being in haste to send him a second time to 
the press, that nothing may stand in the way of 
Milton. By tlie wa}'^, where are my dear Tom's 
remarks, which I long to have, and must have 
soon, or they will come too latel 

Oh ! you rogue ! what would you give to have 
such a dream about Milton, as I had about a week 
since 1 I dreamed that being in a house in the city, 
and with much company, looking to>vards the 



Let. 441, 442. 



LETTERS. 



389 



lower end of the room from the upper end of it, I 
descried a figure which I immediately knew to be 
Milton's. He was very gravely, but very neatly 
attired in the fashion of his day, and had a coun- 
tenance which filled me with those feelings that 
an aflfectionate child has for a beloved father, such, 
for instance, as Tom has for you. My first thought 
was wonder, where he could have been concealed 
so many years; my second, a transport of joy to 
find him still alive; my third, another transport to 
find myself in his company ; and my fourth, a re- 
solution to accost him. I did so, and he received 
me with a complacence, in which I saw equal 
sweetness and dignity. I spoke of his Paradise 
Lost, as every man must, who is worthy to speak 
of it at all, and told him a long story of the man- 
ner in which it affected me, when I fir.st discovered 
it, being at that time a schoolboy. He answered 
me by a smile, and a gentle inclination of his head. 
He then grasped my hand affectionately, and with 
a smile that charmed me, said, "Well^ you for 
your part will do well also;" at last recollecting 
his great age (for I understood him to be two hun- 
red years old) I feared that I might fatigue him by 
much talking, I took my leave, and he took his, 
with an air of the most perfect good-breeding. 
His person, his features, his manner, were all so 
perfectly characteristic, that I am persuaded an 
apparition of him could not represent him more 
completely. This may be said to have been one 
of the dreams of Pindus, may it nof? 

How truly I rejoice that you have recovered 
Guy; that man won my heart the moment I saw 
him; give my love to him, and tell him I am truly 
glad he is alive again. 

There is much sweetness in tliose lines from 
the sonneteer of Avon, and not a little in dear 
Tom's, an earnest, I trust, of good things to come. 

With Mary's kind love, I must now conclude 
myself, 

My dear brother, ever yours, LIPPUS. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Wcston, March 4, 1793. 

Since I received your last I have been much 
indisposed, very blind, and very busy. But I have 
not suffered all these evils at one and the same 
time. While the winter lasted I was miserable 
with a fever on my spirits ; when the spring began 
to approach I was seized with an inflammation in 
my eyes; and ever since I have been able to use 
them, have been employed in giving more last 
touches to Homer, who is on the point of going to 
the press again. 

Though you are Tory, I beUeve, and I am 
Whig, our sentiments concerning the madcaps of 
France are much the same. They are a terrible 



race, and I have a horror both of them and their 
principles. Tacitus is certainly living now, and 
the quotations you sent me can be nothing but ex- 
tracts from some letter of his to yourself 

Yours sincerely, W. C. 



TO MR. THOMAS HAYLEY, 

Weston, March 14, 1793. 

MY DEAR LITTLE CRITIC, 

I THANK you heartily for your observations, on 
which I set an higher value, because they have 
instructed me as much, and have entertained me 
more than all the other strictures of our public 
judges in these matters. Perhaps I am not much 
more pleased with shameless wolf, &c. tlian you. 
But what is to be done, my little man? Coarse as 
the expressions are, they are no more than equiva- 
lent to those of Homer. The invective of the an- 
cients was never tempered with good manners, as 
your papa can tell you : and my business, you 
know, is, not to be more polite than my author, but 
to represent him as closely as I cart. 

Dishonovr'd foul I have wiped away for the 
reason you give, which is a very just one, and the 
present reading is this. 

Who had dar'd dishonour thus 
The life itself, &c. 

Your objection to kindler oj" the fires of Heaven 
I had the good fortune to anticipate, and expunged 
the dirty ambiguity some time since, wondering 
not a little that I had ever admitted it. 

The fault you find with the two first verses of 
Nestor's speech discovers such a degree of just 
discernment, that but for your papa's assurance to 
the contrary, I must have suspected him as the 
author of that remark: much as I should have re- 
spected it, if it had been so, I value it, I assure 
you, my little friend, still more as yours. In the 
new edition the passage will be found thus al- 
tered : 

Alas ! great sorrow falls on Greece to-day, 
Priam, and Priam's. sons, with all in Troy — 
Oh ! how will they exult, and in their hearts 
Triumph, once hearing of this liroil between 
The prime of Greece, in council, and in arms. 

Where the word reel suggests to you the idea 
of a drunken mountain, it performs the service to 
which I destined it. It is a bold metaphor; but 
justified by one of the sublimest passages in scrip- 
ture, compared with the sublimity of which even 
that of Homer suffers humiliation. 

It is God himself, who, speaking, I think, by the 
prophet Isaiah, says, 

" The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunk- 
ard." With equal boldness, in the same scripture, 
the poetry of which was never equalled, mountains 
are said to skip, to break out into singing, and the 



390 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 443, 444, 445. 



Jtields to clap their hands. I intend, therefore, that 
my Olympus shall be still tipsy. 

The accuracy of your last remark, in which 
you convicted nic of a bull, delights me. A fig for 
all critics but you! The blockheads could not find 
it. It shall stand thus, . 

First sjjake Polydamas — 

Homer was more upon his guard than to coimnit 
such a blunder, for he says. 

And now, my dear Ifttle censor, once more ac- 
cept my thanks. I only regret that your strictures 
are so few, being just and sensible as they are. 

Tell your papa that he shall hear from me soon; 
accept mine, and my dear invalid's aftectionate re- 
membrances. Ever yours. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

MY DEAR HAYLEY, WestoTH, March 19, 1793. 

I AM so busy every mornmg before breakfast 
(my only opportunity), strutting and stalking in 
Homeric stilts, that you ought to account it an in- 
stance of marvellous grace and favour, that I con- 
descend to write even to you. Sometimes 1 am 
seriously almost crazed with the multiplicity of the 
matters before me, and the little or no fime that I 
have for them; and sometimes I repose myself 
after the fatigue of that distraction on the pillow 
of despair; a pillow which has often served me in 
time of need, and is become, by frec[,uent use, if not 
very comfortable, at least convenient I So reposed 
I laugh at the world, and say, "Yes, you may 
gape and expect both Homer and Milton from me, 
but I'll be hanged if ever you get them." 

In Homer you must know I am advanced as far 
as the fifteenth book of the Iliad, leaving nothing 
behind me that can reasonably offend the most 
fastidious: and I design him for public appearance 
in his new dress as soon as possible, for a reason 
which any poet may guess, if he will hut thrust 
his hand into his pocket. ' . 

You forbid me to tantalize you with an invita- 
tion to Weston, and yet invite me to Eartham! — 
No! no! there is no such happiness in store for 
me at present. Had I rambled at rf.ll, I. was under 
promise to all my dear mother's kindred to go to 
Norfolk, and they are dying to see me; but I have 
told them, that die they must, for I can not go; and 
ergo, as you will perceive, can go. nowhere else. 

Thanks for Mazarine's epitaph I it is full of wit- 
ty parodox. and is written with a force and severity 
which sufficiently bespeak the author. I account 
it an inestimable curiosity, and shall l)e happy 
when time shall serve, with your aid, to make a 
good translation of it. But that will be a stubborn 



business. Adieu! The clock strikes eight; and 
now for Homer. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Wcston, March 27, 1793. 

I MasT send you a Une of congratulation on the 
event of your transaction with Johnson, smce you 
I know partake with me in the pleasure I receive" 
from it. Eew of my concerns have been so hap- 
pily concluded. I am now satisfied with my book- 
seller, as I have substantial cause to be, and ac- 
count myself in good hands; a circumstance as 
pleasant to me as any other part of my business; 
for I love dearly to be able to confide with all my 
heart in those with whom I am connected, of what 
kind soever the connexion may be. 

The question of printing or not printing the al- 
terations, seems difficult to decide. If they are not 
printed, I shall perhaps disobhge some purchasers 
of the first edition; and if they are, many others 
of them, perhaps a great majority, will never care 
about them. As far as I have gone I have made 
a fair copy, and when I have finished the whole, 
will send them to Johnson, together with tlie in- 
terleaved volumes. He will see "in a few minutes 
what it will be best to do, and by his judgment I 
shall be determined. The opinion to which I most 
incline is, that they ought to be printed separately, 
for they are many of them rather long, here and 
there a whole speech, or a whole simile, and the 
verbal and hneal variations arc so numerous, that 
altogether, I apprehend, they will give a new air 
to the work, and I hope a much improved one. 

I forgot to say in the proper place that some 
notes, although but very few, I have added already, 
and may perhaps see here and there opportunity 
for a few more. But notes being little wanted, es- 
pecially by people at all conversant with classical 
literature, as most readers of Homer are, I am per- 
suaded that, were they numerous, they would be 
deemed an incumbrance. I shall write to Johnson 
soon, perhaps to-morrow, and then shall say the 
same thing -to him. 

In point of health we continue much the same. 
Our united love, and many thaiiks for your pros- 
perous negotiations, attend yourself and whole 
family, and especially my little namesake. Adieu. 

W. C 



TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESa. 

The Lodge, April 11, 1793. 

MY DEAREST JOHNNY, 

The long muster-roll of my great and small (in- 
cestors I signed, and dated, and sent up to' Mr. 
Blue-mantle, on Monday, according to your desire. 



Let. 446, 447, 448. 



LETTERS. 



391 



Such a pompous affair, drawn out for my sake, 
reminds me of the old fable of the mountain in par- 
turition, and a mouse tlie produce. Rest xmdis- 
turbed, say I, their lordly, ducal, and 1-oyal dust! 
Had they left me sometliing handsome, I should 
have respected them more. But perhaps they did 
not know that such a one as I should have the 
honour to be nmnbered among their descendants. 
"Well! I have a little bookseller that makes me 
some amends for their deficiency. He has made 
me a present ; an act of hberahty wliich I take 
every opportunity to blazon, as it well deserves. 
But you I suppose have learned it ahready from 
Mr. Rose. 

Fear not, my man. You will acquit yourself 
very well I dare say, both in standing for your de- 
gree, and wlien you have gained it. A httle tre- 
mor, and a little shamefacedness in a.stripUng, like 
•you, are recommendations rather than otherwise; 
and so they ought to be, being symptoms of an in- 
genuous mind rather unfrequent in this age of 
brass. 

What you say of your determined pm-pose, with 
God's help, to take up the cross, and despise the 
shame, gives us both real pleasm-e. In our pedi- 
gree is fouiid one at least who did it before you. 
Do you the Uke : and you will meet him in Hea- 
ven, as sure as the Scripture is the word of God. 

The quarrel that the world has with evangelic 
men and doctrines, they would have with a host 
of angels in the human form. For it is the quar- 
rel of owls with sunshine ; of ignorance with divine 
illumination. 

Adieu, my dear Johimy ! We shall expect you 
with earnest desire of your coming, and receive 
you with much dehght. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Weston, April 23, 1793. 

MY DEAR FRIEND AND BROTHER, 

Better late than never, and better a little than 
none at all ! Had I been at liberty to consult my 
inclinations, I would have answered your truly 
kind and affectionate letter immediately. But I 
am the busiest man ahve ; and when this epistle is 
despatched, you will be the only one of my corres- 
pondents to whom I shall not be indebted. While 
I write this, my poor Mary sits mute ; which I can 
not well bear, and which, together with want of 
time to write much, will have a curtailing effect on 
my epistle. 

My only studying time is still given to Homer, 
not to correction and amendment of him (for that 
is all over) but to writing notes. Johnson has ex- 
pressed a wish for some, that the unlearned may 
be a Kttle illuminated concerning classical story 
and the mythology of the ancients j and his be- 
26 



haviour to me has been so liberal, that I can refuse 
him notliing. Poldng into the old Greek com- 
mentators blinds me. But it is no matter. I am 
the more like Homer. 

Ever yours, my dearest Hayley, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Westou, jTfay 4, 1793. 

While your sorrow for our common loss was 
fresh in your mind, I would not write, lest a letter 
on so distressing a subject should be too painful 
both to you and me ; and now that I seem to have 
reached a proper time for doing it, the multiplicity 
of my literary business will hardly afford me leisure. 
Both you and I have tliis comfort when deprived 
of those we love — at our time of life we have every 
reason to believe that the deprivation can not be 
long. Our sun is setting too; and when the hour 
of rest arrives we shall rejoin your brother, and 
many whom we have tenderly loved, our forerun- 
ners into a better country. 

I will say no more on a theme which it will be 
better perhaps to treat wdth brevity ; and because 
the introduction of any other might seem a transi- 
tion too violent, I will only add that Mrs. Unwin 
and I are about as well as we at any time have 
been within the last year. Truly yours. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, May 5, 1793.- 

My delay to answer your last kind letter, to 
which likewise you desired a speedy reply, must 
have seemed rather difficult to explain on any other 
supposition than that of illness ; but illness has not 
been the cause, although to say the truth I can 
not boast of having been lately very well. Yet 
has not this been the cause of my silence, but your 
own advice, very proper and earnestly given to 
me, to proceed in the revisal of Homer. To this 
it is owing that instead of giving an hour or two 
before breakfast to my correspondence, I allot that 
time entirely to my studies. I have nearly given 
the last touches to the poeti-y, and am now busied 
far more laboriously in writing notes at the request 
of my honest bookseller, transmitted to me in the 
first instance by you, and afterwards repeated by 
hunself. I am therefore deep in the old Schoha, 
and have advanced to the latter part of Iliad nine, 
explaining, as I go, such passages as may be diffi- 
cult to unlearned readers, and such only; for notes 
of that kmd are the notes that Johnson desired. I 
find it a more laborious task than the translation 
was, and shall be heartily glad when it is over. In 
the mean time all the letters I receive remain un- 
answered, or if they receive an answer, it is al- 



392 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let, 449, 450. 



ways a short one. Such this must be. Johnny 
is here, having flown over London. 

Homer I believe will make a much more re- 
spectable appearance than before. Johnson now 
thinks it will be right to make a separate impres- 
sion of the amendments. 

W. C. 

I breakfast every morning on seven or eight 
pages of the Greek commentators. For so much I 
am obliged to read, in order to select perhaps three 
or four short notes for the readers of my transla- 
tion. 

Homer is indeed a tie upon me that must not 
on any account be broken, till all his demands are 
satisfied ; though I have fancied while the revisal 
of the Odyssey was at a distance, that it would ask 
less labour in the finishing, it is not unlikely that, 
when I take it actually in hand, I may find my- 
self mistaken. Of this at least I am sure, that 
uneven verse abounds much more in it than it 
once did in the Ihad, yet to the latter the critics 
objected on that account, though to the former 
never; perhaps because they had not read it. 
Hereafter they shall not quarrel with me on that 
score. The Iliad is now all smooth turnpike, and 
I will take equal care that there shall be no jolts 
in the Odyssey. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST coz, The Lodgc, May 7, 1793. 

You have thought me long silent, and so have 
many others. In fact I have not for many months 
written punctually to any but yourself, and Hay- 
ley. My time, the little I have, is so engrossed 
by Homer, that I have at this moment a bundle 
of unanswered letters by me, and letters Ukely to 
be so. Thou knowest, I dare say, what it is to 
have a head weary with thinking. Mine is so 
fatigued by breakfast tune, three days out of four, 
I am utterly incapable of sitting down to my desk 
again for any purpose whatever. 

I am glad I have convinced thee at least, that 
thou art a Tory. Your friend's definition of 
Whig and Tory may be just for aught I know, 
as far as the latter are concerned ; but respecting 
the former, 1 think him mistaken. There is no 
true Whig who wishes all power in the hands of 
his own party. The division of it which the 
lawyers call tripartite, is exactly what he desires; 
and he would have neither kings, lords, nor com- 
mons unequally trusted, or in the smallest degree 
predominant. Such a Whig am I, and such 
Whigs are the true friends of the constitution. 

Adieu! my dear, I am dead with weariness. 

W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY; ESa. 

MY DEAR 6R0THER, Wcston, May 21, 1793. 

You must either think me extremely idle, or 
extremely busy, that I have made your last very 
kind letter wait so very long for an answer. The 
truth however is, that I am neither; but have had 
time enough to have scribbled to you, had I been 
able to scribble at all. To explain tliis riddle I 
must give you a short account of my proceedings. 

I rise at six every morning, and fag till near 
eleven, when I breakfast. The consequence is, 
that I am so exhausted as not to be able to write 
when the opportunity offers. You will say — 
" breakfast before you work, and then your work 
will not fatigue you." I answer — "perhaps I 
might, and your counsel would probably prove 
beneficial; but I can not spare a moment for eat-, 
ing in the early part of the morning, having no 
other time for study." This uneasiness of which 
I complain is a proof that I am somewhat stricken 
in years ; and there is no other cause by which I 
can account for it, since I go early to bed, always 
between ten and eleven, and seldom faO to sleep 
well. Certain it is, ten years ago I' could have 
done as much, and sixteen years ago did actually 
much more, without suffering fatigue, or any in- 
convenience from my labours. How insensibly 
old age steals on, and how often is it actually ar- 
rived before we suspect it ! Accident alone ; some 
occurrence that suggests a comparison of our 
former with our present selves, affords the disco- 
very. Well ! it is always good to be undeceived, 
especially on an article of such importance. 

There has been a book lately published, enti- 
tled, Man as he is. I have heard a high charac- 
ter of it, as admirably wiitten, and am informed 
that for that reason, and because it inculcates 
Whig principles, it is by many imputed to you. 
I contradicted this. report, assuring' my informant 
that had it been yours, I must have known it, for 
that you have bound yourself to make me your 
father confessor on all such wicked occasions, and 
not to conceal from me even a murder, should you 
happen to commit one. 

I will not trouble you, at present, to send me 
any more books with a view to my notes on 
Homer. I am not without hopes that Sir John 
Throckmorton, who is expected here from Venice 
in a short time, may bring me Villoison's edition 
of the Odyssey. He certainly will, if he found it 
published, and that alone will be instar omnium. 

Adieu, my dearest brother ! Give my love to 
Tom, and thank him for his book, of which I be- 
lieve I need not haVe deprived him, intending that 
my readers shall detect the occult instruction con- 
tained in Homer's stories for themselves. 

W. C. 



Let. 451, 452, 453. 



LETTERS. 



393 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

MY DEAREST coosiN, Weslon, June 1, 1793. 

You will not, (you say) come to us now ; and 
you tell us not when you will. These assigna- 
tions sine die are such shadowy tilings, that I 
can neither grasp nor get any comfort from them. 
Know you not, that hope is the next best tiling 
to enjoyment? Give us then a hope, and a de- 
terminate time for that hope to fix on, and we will 
endeavour to be satisfied. 

Johnny is gone to Cambridge, called thither to 
take his degree, and is much missed by me. He 
is such an active little fellow in my service, that 
he can not be otherwise. In three weeks how- 
ever 1 shall hope to have liim again for a fortnight. 
I have had a letter from liim containing an inci- 
dent wluch has given birth to the following.* 

These are spick and span. Johnny himself has 
not yet seen them. By the way, he has filled 
your book completely; and I will give thee a 
guinea if thou wilt search thy old book for a cou- 
ple of songs, and two or three other pieces of 
which I know thou madest copies at the vicarage, 
and which I have lost. The songs I know are 
pretty good, and I would fain recover them. 

W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa.t 

Weston, June 29, 1793. 
What remains for me to say on this subject, 
my dear brother bard, I will say ui prose. There 
are other impediments which I could not comprise 
within the bounds of a sonnet. 
. My poor Mary's infirm condition makes it im- 
possible for me, at present, to engage in a work 
such as you propose. My thoughts are not suflS- 
ciently free, nor have I, nor can I, by any means, 
find opportunity; added to which, comes a difli- 
culty, which, though you are not at all aware of 
it, presents itself to me under a most forbidding 
appearance: Can you guess if? No, not you: 
neither perhaps will you be able to imagine that 
such a difficulty can possibly subsist. If your hair 
begins to bristle, stroke it down again, for there 
is no need why it should erect itself. It concerns 
me, not you. I know myself too well not to 
know that I am nobody in verse, unless in a cor- 
ner, and alone, and uncoimected in my operations. 
This is not owing to want of love for you, my 
brother, or the most consimimate confidence in 



* Verses to a Young Friend, &c. See Poems. 

t This Letter commenced with the Lines to William 
Hayley, Esq. begiiming, " Dear architect of fijie chateaux in 
jur." See Poems. 



you; for I have both in a degree that has not 
been exceeded in the experience of any friend you 
have, or ever had. But I am so made up; — I 
will not enter into a metaphysical analysis of my 
strange composition, in order to detect the true 
cause of this evil ;. but on a general view of the 
matter, I suspect that it proceeds from that shy- 
ness, which has been my effectual and almost fatal 
hindrance on many other important occasions ; and 
which I should feel, I well know, on this, to a 
degree that would perfectly cripple me. No! I 
shall neither do, nor attempt any thing of conse- 
quence more, unless my poor Mary get better; 
nor even then, unless it should please God to 
give mc another natm'e, in concert with any man 
— I could not even with my own father or bro- 
ther, were they now alive. Small game must 
serve mc at present, and till I have done with 
Homer and Milton, a sonnet or some such matter 
must content me. The utmost that I aspire to, 
and Heaven knows with how feeble a hope, is to 
\vrite at some better opportunity, and when my 
hands are fi-ee, The Four Ages. Thus I have 
opened my heart unto thee. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

MY DEAREST HAYLEY, JVeston, July 7, 1793. 

Ip the excessive heat of this day, which forbids 
me to do any tiling else, will permit me to scribble 
to you, I shall rejoice. To do this'is a pleasure 
to me at all times, but to do it now, a double one; 
because I am in haste to tell you how much I am 
delighted with your projected quadruple alUance, 
and to assure you that if it please God to aflTord 
me health, spirits, ability and leisure, I will not 
fail to devote them all to the production of my 
quota, The Four Ages. 

You are very kind to humour me as you do, 
and had need be a little touched yourself with all 
my oddities, that you may know how to administer 
to mine. All whom I love do so, and I believe it 
to be impossible to love heartily those who do not. 
People must not do me good in their way, but in 
my own, and then they do me good indeed. My 
pride, my ambition, and my friendship, for you, 
and the interest I take in my own dear self, will 
all be consulted and gratified by an arm-m-arm 
appearance with you in pubhc: and I shall work 
vdth more zeal and assiduity at Homer, and, 
when Homer is finished, at Milton, with the pros- 
pect of such a coalition before me. But what 
shall I do with a multitude of small pieces, firom 
which I intended to select the best, and adding 
them to The Four Ages, to have made a volume'? 
Will there be room for them upon your plan? I 
have retouched them, and will retouch them 
again. Some of them will suggest pretty devices 



394 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 454, 455. 



to a designer, and in short I have a desire not to 
lose them. 

I am at this moment, with all the imprudence 
natural to poets, expending nobody knows what, 
in cmbcUisliing my premises, or rather the pre- 
mises of my neighbour Courtenay, which is more 
poetical still. I have built one summer-house al- 
ready, with the boards of my old study, and am 
building another spick and span as they say. I 
have also a stone-cutter now at work, setting a 
bust of my dear old Grecian on a pedestal; and 
besides all this, 1 meditate still more that is to be 
done in the autumn. Your project therefore is 
most opportune, as any project must needs be that 
has so direct a tendency to put money into the 
pocket of one so likely to want it. 

Ah brother poet ! send me of your shade, 
And bid the Zephyrs hasten to my aid ! 
Or, lilce a worm unearth'd at noon, I go, ■ 
Despatch'd by sunshine, to the shades below. 

My poor Mary is as well as the heat will allow 
her to be, and whether it he cold or sultry, is al- 
ways aifectionately mindful of you and yours. 

W. C. 



TO THE REV. MR. GREATHEED. 

July 23, 1793. 
I WAS not without some expectation of a line 
firom you, my dear sir,- though you did not pro- 
mise me one at your departure; and am happy 
not to have been disappointed; still happier to 
learn that you and Mrs. Greatheed are well, and 
so delightfully situated. Your kind offer to us of 
sharing with you the house which you at present 
inhabit, added to the short but lively description 
of the scenery that surrounds it, wants nothing to 
win our acceptance, should it please God to give 
Mrs. Unwin a little more strength, and should I 
ever be master of my time so as to be able to gra- 
tify myself with what would please me most. 
But many have claims upon us, and some who 
can not absolutely be said to have any, would yet 
complain, and thinlc themselves sUghted, should 
we prefer rocks and caves to them. In short we 
are called so many ways, that these numerous de- 
mands are likely to operate as a remora, and to 
keep us fixt at home. Here we can occasionally 
have the pleasure of yours and Mrs. Greathecd's 
company, and to have it here must I believe con- 
tent us. Hayley in his last letter gives me reason 
to expect the pleasure of seeing him and his dear 
boy Tom, in the autumn. He will use all his 
eloquence to draw us to Eartham again. My 
cousin Johnny of Norfolk holds me under a pro- 
mise to make my first trip thither, and the very 



same promise I have hastily made to visit Sir 
Jolm and Lady Throckmorton, at Bucklands. 
How to reconcile such clashing promises, and give 
satisfaction to all, would puzzle me, had I nothing 
else to do ; and therefore, as I say, the result will 
probably be, that we shall find ourselves obliged 
to go no where, since we can not every where. 

:fc ;i: ;t: ;)c % 

Wishing you both safe at home again, and to 
see you, as soon as may be, here, * 

I remain, afl!ectionately yours, W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Weston, July 24, 1793; 
1 HAVE been vexed with myself, my deairest 
brother, and with every thing about me, not ex- 
cepting even Homer himself, that I have been 
obliged so long to delay an answer to 3'our last 
kind letter. If I listen any longer to calls another 
way, I shall hardly be able to tell you how happy 
we are in the hope of seeing you in the autumn, 
before the autumn will have anived. Thrice wel- 
come will you and your dear boy be to us, and 
the longer you will afford us your company, the 
more welcome. I have set up the head of Homer 
on a famous fine pedestal, and a very majestic ap- 
pearance he makes. I am now puzzled about a 
motto, and wish you to decide for me between two, 
one of which I have composed myself, a Greek 
one as follows: 

OuvofA.a. S'nTo; a.v»p a^SiTOv unv i)(tu 

The other is my own translation of a passage 
in the Odyssey, the original of which I have seen 
used as a motto to an engraved head of Homer 
many a time. 

The present edition of the lines stands thus : 

Him partially the muse, 
And dearly loved, yet gave him good and iU : 
She quench'd his sight, but gave him strains divine. 

Tell me by the way (if you ever had any specu- 
lations on the subject) what is it you suppose Ho- 
mer to have meant in particular, when he ascribed 
his blindness to the muse; for that he speaks of 
hiaiself under the name Demodocus in the eighth 
book, I believe is by all admitted. How could the 
old bard study himself blind, when books are ei- 
ther few, or none at all? And did he write his 
poems'? If neither were the cause, as seems rea- 
sonable to imagine, how could he incur his blind- 
ness by such means as could be justly imputable 
to the musel Would mere thinking blind himi 
I want to know: 

"Call up some spirit from the vasty deep !" 



Let. 456, 457, 458. 



LETTERS. 



395 



I said to my Sam* — " Sam, build me a shed in 
the garden, with any thing that you can find, and 
make it rude and rough, lilce one of those at Earth- 
am." — " Yes, sir," says Sam, and straightway lay 
ing his own noddle, and the carpenter's noddle 
together, has built me a thing fit for Stow Gar- 
dens. Is not this vexatious 1 — I threaten to in- 
scribe it thus; 

Beware of building! I intended 

Rough logs and thatcli, and tlius it ended. 

But my Mary says I shall break Sam's heart, 
and the carpenter's too, and will not consent to it. 
Poor Mary sleeps but ill. How have you lived 
who can not bear a sunbeam'? ■ 

Adieu ! my dearest Hayley. W. C. 



TO MRS. CHARLOTTE SMITH. 

MY DEAR MADAM, Weston, July 25, 1793. 

Many reasons concurred to make me impatient 
for the arrival of your most acceptable present, 
and among them was the fear lest you should per- 
haps suspect me of tardiness in acknowledging so 
great a favour ; a fear that, as often as it pre- 
vailed, distressed me exceedingly. At length I 
have received it, and my little bookseller assures 
me that he sent it the very day he got it; by some 
mistake however the wagon brought it instead of 
the coach, which occasioned a delay that I could 
ill afford. 

It came this morning about an hour ago; con- 
sequently I have not had time to peruse the poem, 
though you may be sure I have found enough for 
the perusal of the Dedication. I have in fact given 
it three readings, and in each have found increas- 
ing pleasure. 

I am a whimsical creature; when I write for 
the public I write of course with a desire to please, 
in other words to acquire fame, and I labour ac- 
cordingly ; but when I find that I have succeeded, 
feel myself alarmed, and ready to shiink from the 
acquisition. 

This I have felt more than once, and when I 
saw my name at the head of your Dedication, I 
felt it again ; but the consummate delicacy of your 
praise soon convinced me that I might spare my 
blushes, and that the demand was less upon my 
modesty than my gratitude. Of that be assured, 
dear madam, and of the truest esteem and respect 
of your most obliged and affectionate humble ser- 
vant, W.C. 

P. S. I should have been much grieved to have 
let slip this opportunity of thanking you for your 



* A very affectionate, wortliy domestic, who attended his 
master into Sussex. 



charming sonnets, and my two most agreeable old 
friends, Monmiia and Orlando. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Weston, Aug. 11, 1793. 

MY DEAREST COUSIN, 

I AM glad that my poor and hasty attempts to 
express some little civility to Miss Fanshaw, and 
the amiable Count, have your and her approba- 
tion. The lines addressed to her were not what 
I would have them ; but lack of time, a lack which 
always presses me, would not suffer me to unprove 
them. Many thanks for her letter, which, were 
my merits less the subject of it, I should without 
scruple say is an excellent one. She writes with 
the force and accuracy of a person skilled in more 
languages than are spoken in the present day, as 
I doubt not that she is. I perfectly approve the 
theme she recommends to me, but am at present 
so totally absorbed in Homer, that all I do beside 
is ill done, being hurried over ; and I would not 
execute ill a subject of her recommending. 

I shall watch the walnuts with more attention 
than those who eat them, which I do in some hope, 
though you do not expressly say so, that when 
their threshing time arrives, we shall see you here. 
I am now going to paper my new study, and in a 
short time it will be fit to inhabit. 

Lady Spencer has sent me a present from Rome, 
by the hands of Sir John Throckmorton, engrav- 
ings of Odyssey subjects, after figures by Flax- 
man, a statuary at present resident there, of high 
repute, and much a friend of Hayley's. 

Thou livest, my dear, I acknowledge, in a very 
fine comitry, but they have spoiled it by building 
London ill it. Adieu. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Weston, Aug 15, 1793. 

Instead of a pound or two, spending a mint 
MiiBt serve me at least, I believe, with a hint. 
That building, and building, a man may be driven 
At last out of doors, and have no house to live in. 

Besides, my dearest brother, they have not only 
built for me what I did not want, but have ruined 
a notable tetrastic by doing so. I had written one 
which I designed for a hermitage, and it will by 
no means siiit the fine and pompous affair which 
they have made instead of one. So that as a poet 
I am every way afflicted ; made poorer than I need 
have been, and robbed of my verses; what case 
can be more deplorable 1 

You must not suppose me ignorant of what 
Flaxman has done, or that I have not seen it, or 



396 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 459, 460. 



tliat I am not actually in possession of it, at least 
of the engra\ings which you mention. In fact, I 
have had them more than a fortnight. Lady 
Dowairer Spencer, to whom I inscribed my Odys- 
sey, and who was at Rome when Sir John 
Throckmorton was there, charged him with them 
as a present to nie, and arriving' here lately he 
executed his commission. Rorhney I doubt not is 
right in his judgment of them; he is an artist him- 
self, and can not easily be mistaken; and I take 
his opinion as an oracle, the rather because it 
coincides exactly with my own. The figures are 
highly classical, antique, and elegant: especially 
that of Penelope, who whether she wakes or sleeps 
must necessarily charm all beholders. 

Your scheme of embellishing my Odyssey with 
these plates is a kind one, and the fruit of your 
benevolence to me; but Johnson, I fear, will hardly 
stake so much money as the cost would amount 
to on a work, the fate of which is at present un- 
certain. Nor could we adorn the Odyssey in this 
splendid manner, unless we had similar ornaments 
to bestow on the Iliad. ' Such I presume are not 
ready, and much time must elapse, even if Flax- 
man should accede to the plan, before he could 
possibly, prepare them. Happy indeed should I 
be to sec a work of mine so nobly accompanied, 
but should that good fortune ever attend me, it 
can not take place till the third or fourth edition 
shall aflbrd the occasion. This I regret, and I re- 
gret too that you shall have seen them before I can 
have an opportunity to show them to you. Here 
is sixpence for you if you will abstain from the 
sight of them while you are in London. 

The sculptor 1 Nameless, though once dear to fame; 
But this man bears an everlasting name.* 

So I purpose it shall stand; and on the pedes- 
tal, when you come, in that form you will find it. 
The added line from the Odyssey is charming, but 
the assumption of sonsliip to Homer seems too 
daring ; suppose it stood thus, 

'nc cTs TfuK ffl VArpif not UTTon MffCfA-eu uvth. 
I am not sure that this would be clear of the same 
objection, and it departs from the text still more. 

With my poor Mary's best love and our united 
wishes to see you here, I remain, 

My dearest brother, ever yours, W. C. 



TO MRS. COURTENAY. 

Weston, Aug. 20, 1703. 

My dearest Catharina is too reasonable, I know, 

to expect news from me, who li\'e on the outside 

of the world, and know nothing that passes within 

it. The l)cst news is, that though you are gone. 



* A translation of Cowpcr's Greek verses on his bust of 
Homer. 



you are not gone for ever, as once I supposed you 
were, and said that we should probably meet no 
more. Some news, however, we have ; but then 
I conclude that )'ou have abeady received it from 
the Doctor, and that thought almost deprives me 
of all courage to relate it. On the evening of the 
feast, Bob Archer's house aflbrding I suppose the 
best roonr for the purpose, all the lads and lasses, 
who felt themselves disposed to dance, assembled 
there. Long time they danced, at least long time 
they did somet^iing a httle like it; when at last 
the company having retired, the fiddler asked Bob 
for a lodging. Bob replied — "that his beds were 
all full of his own family, but if he chose it he 
would show him a haycock, where he might sleep 
as sound as in any bed whatever." — So forth they 
went together, and when they reached the place, 
the fiddler knocked down Bob, and demanded his 
money. But happily for Bob, though he might be 
knocked down, and actually was so, yet he could ■ 
not possibly be robbed, having nothing. The fid- 
dler therefore having amused himself with kicking 
him and beating hun as he lay, as long as he saw 
good, left him, and has never been heard of since, 
nor inquired after indeed, being no doubt the last 
man in the world whom Bob wishes to see again. 

By a letter from Hayley to-day I learn that 
Flaxman, to whom wc are indebted for those 
Odyssey figures which Lady Frog brought over, 
has almost finished a set for the Iliad also. I 
should be glad to embellish my Homer with them, 
but neither my bookseller nor I shall probably 
choose to risk so expensive an ornament on a 
work, whose reception with the public is at pre- 
sent doubtful. 

Adieu, my dearest Catharina. Give my best 
love to your husband. Come home as soon as 
you can, and accept our united very best wishes. 

W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAREST FRIEND, Weshn, Aug. 22, 1793. 

I REJOICE that you have had so pleasant an 
excursion, and have beheld so many beautiful 
scenes. Except the delightful Upway I have 
seen them all. I have lived much at Southamp- 
ton, have slept and caught a sore throat at Lynd- 
hurst, and have swum in the bay of Weymouth. 
It will give us great pleasure to see you here, 
should your business give you an opportunity to 
finish your excursions of this season with one to 
Weston. 

As for iny going on, it is much as usual. I rise 
at sLx; an industrious and wdiolesorac practice, 
from which I have never swerved since March. 
I breakfast generally about eleven — have given al 1 
the intermediate time to my old delightful bard. Vil- 



Let. 461,462, 



LETTERS. 



397 



loison no longer keeps me company. I therefore 
now jog along with Clarke and Barnes at my el- 
bow, and from the excellent annotations of the 
former select such as I think likely to be useful, or 
that recommend themselves by the amusement 
they may afford, of which sorts there are not a 
few. Barnes also affords me some of both kinds, 
but not so many, his notes being chiefly para- 
phrastical or grammatical. My only fear is lest 
between them both I should make ray work too 
voluminous. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

- Weston Lodge, Aug. 27, 1793. 

I THANK you, my dear brother, for consulting 
the Gibbonian oracle on the question concerning 
Homer's muse, and his blindness. I proposed it 
likewise to my Uttle neighbour Buchanan, who 
gave me precisely the same answer. I felt an in- 
satiable thirst to learn something new concerning 
him, and despairing of information from others, 
was willing to hope that I had stumbled on mat- 
ter Tinjioticed by the commentators, and inight per- 
haps acquire a httle intelligence from himself. But 
the great and the Uttle oracle together have extin- 
guished that hope, and I despair now of making 
any curious discoveries about him. 

Since Flaxman (which I did not know till yoUr 
letter told me so) has been at work for the Iliad, 
as well as the Odyssey, it seems a great pity, that 
the engravings should not be bound up with some 
Homer or other; and, as I said before, I should 
have been too proud to have bound them up in 
mine. But there is an objection, at least such it 
seems to me, that threatens to disqualify them for 
such a use, namely, the shape and size of them, 
which are such, that no book of the usual form 
could possibly receive them, save in a folded state, 
which I apprehend would be to murder them. 

The monument of Lord Mansfield, for which 
you say he is engaged, will (I dare say) prove a 
noble effort of genius. Statuaries, as I have heard 
an eminent one say, do not much trouble them- 
selves about a likeness: else 1 would give much to 
be able to commmiicate to Flaxman the perfect 
idea that I have of the subject, such as he was 
forty years ago. He was at that time wonderfully 
handsome, and would expound the most myste- 
rious intricacies of the law, or recapitulate both 
matter and evidence of a cause, as long as from 
hence to Eartham, with an intelligent smile on his 
features, that bespoke plainly the perfect ease with 
which he did it. The most abstruse studies (I be- 
lieve) never cost him any labour. 

You say nothing lately of your intended journey 
our way : yet the year is waning, and the shorter 



days give you a hint to lose no time unnecessarily. 
Lately we had the whole family at the Hall, and 
now we have nobody. The Throckmortons are 
gone into Berkshire, and the Courtenays into 
Yorkshire. They are so pleasant a family, that I 
heartily wish you to see them ; and at the same 
time wish to sec you before they return, which 
will not be sooner than October. How shall I re- 
concile these wishes seemingly opposite'? Why, 
by wishing that you may coine soon and stay long. 
I know no other way of doing it. 

My poor Mary is much as usual. I have set 
up Homer's head, and inscribed the pedestal; my 
own Greek at the top, with your translation under 
it, and 

'ns (T* 5r«/; 'm Trcttgi, &C. 

It makes altogether a very smart and learned ap- 
pearance. W. C. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

Aug. 29, 1793. 

Your question, at what time your coming to us 
will be most agreeable, is a knotty one, and such 
as, had I the wisdom of Solomon, I should be puz- 
zled to answer. I will therefore leave it still a 
question, and refer the time of your journey Wes- 
tonward entirely to your own election: adding 
this one limitation however, that I do not wish to 
see you exactly at present, on account of the un- 
finished state of my study, the wainscot of which 
still smells of paint, and which is not yet papered. 
But to return: as I have insinuated, thy pleasant 
company is the thing which I always wish, and as 
much at one time as at another. 1 believe, if I 
examine myself minutely, since I despair of ever 
having it in the height of summer, which for your 
sake I should desire most, the depth of the winter 
is the season which would be most eligible to me. 
For then it is that, in general, I have most need of a 
cordial, and particularly in the month of January. 
1 am sorry however that I have departed so far 
from my first purpose, and am answering a question 
wliich I declared myself unable to answer. Choose 
thy own time, secure of this, that whatever time 
that be, it will always to us be a welcome one. 

I thank you for youjr pleasant extract of Miss 
Fanshaw's letter. 

Her pen drops eloquence as sweet 
As any muse's tongue can speak ; 
Nor need a scribe, like her, regret 
Her want of Latin or of Greek. 

And now, my dear, adieu! I have done more 
than I expected, and begin to feel myself exhaust- 
ed with so much scribbling at the end of four hours' 
close application to study. W. C 



398 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 463, 4G4, 465. 



TO THE REV. JOHN JOHNSON. 

MY DEAREST JOHNNY, Weston, Sept. 6, 1703. 

To do a kiiiil thing, and in a kind manner, is a 
double kindness, and no man is more addicted to 
Vwth than you, or more skilfid in contriving them. 
Your ]>lan to surprise mc agreeably snceeeded to 
admiration. It was only the day before yesterday 
that, while wc walked after dinner in the orchard, 
Mrs. Unwin between Sam and me, hearing the hall 
clock, I observed a great ditference between that 
and ours, and began imjuediately to lament as I 
had often done, that there was not a sun-dial in 
all Weston to ascertain the true time for lis. M3' 
complaint was long, and lasted till having turned 
into the grass walk, we reached the new building 
at the end of it ; where we sat awhile and reposed 
ourselves. In a few minutes we returned by the 
way we came, when what think you was my as- 
tonishment to see what I had not seen before, 
though I had passed close by it, a smart sun-dial 
mounted on a smart stone pedestal 1 I assure you 
it seemed the ellect of conjuration. I stopped 
short, and exclaimed, — " Whj^^ here is a sun-dial, 
and upon our ground! How is this'? Tell me 
Sam, how came it here? Do you know any thing 
about itl" At first 1 really tliought (that is to say, 
as soon as I coulil think at all) that this factotum 
of mine, Sam Roberts, having often heard me de- 
plore the want of one, had given orders for the 
supply of that want himself, ■without my know- 
ledge, and was half pleased and half offended. But 
he soon exculpated himself by imputing the fact 
to you. It was brought up to Weston (it seems) 
about noon: but Andrews stopped the cart at the 
blacksmith's, whence he sent to inquire if I was 
gone for my walk. As it happened, I walked not 
till two o'clock. So there it stood waiting till I 
should go forth, and was introduced before my 
return. .Fortunately too I went out at the church 
end of the village, and consequently saw nothing 
of it. How I could p()ssibly pass it without seeing 
it, when it stood in the walk, I know not, but it is 
certain that I did. And where I shall fix it now, 
I know as little. It cannot stand between the two 
gates, tlie place of your choice, as I imderstand 
from Samuel, because the hay-cart must pass that 
way in the season. But we are nowbusj' in wind- 
ing the walk all round the orchard, and in doing 
so shall doubtless stumble at last upon some open 
spot that will suit it. 

There it shall stand, while I live, a constaiit 
monument of your kindness. 

I have this moment finished the twelfth book 
of the Odyssey; and I read the Iliad to Mrs. Un- 
win every evening. 

The cflTect of this reading is, that I still spy 
blemishes, something at least that I can mend, so 



that, after all, the transcript of alterations, which 
you and George have made, will not be a perfect 
one. It would be foolish to forego an opportunity 
of improvement for such a reason; neither will I. 
It is ten o'clock, and I must breakfast. Adieu, 
therefore, my dear Johnny! Remember your ap- 
pointment to see us in October. Ever yours, 

W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HALEY, ESa. 

Wesio7i, Sept. 8, 1793. 

Non sum quod simvlo, my dearest brother ! I 
seem cheerful upon paper sometimes; when I am 
absolutely the most dejected of all creatures. De- 
sirous however to gain something myself by my 
own letters, unprofitable as they may and must be 
to my friends, I keep melancholy out of them as 
much as I can, that I may, if possible, by assuming 
a less gloomy air, deceive myself, and, by feigning 
with a continuance, improve the fiction into reality. 

So you ha\e seen Flaxman's figures, winch I 
intended you should not have Seen till I had spread 
them before you. How did you dare to look at 
tliem 1 You should have covered your e3'es with 
both hands. I am charmed with Flaxman's Pc; 
nelope, and though you don't deserve that I should, 
will send j-ou a few lines, such as they are, with 
which she inspired rae the other day, while I was 
taking my noon-day walk. 

I know not that you will, meet any body here, 
when we see jrou in October, unless perhaps my 
Johnny should happen to Ije with us. If Tom is 
charmed with the thoughts of coming to Weston, 
wc are equally so with tlie thoughts of seeing him 
here. At his years, I should hardly hope to make 
his visit agreeable to him, did I not know that he 
is of a temper and disposition that jnust make him 
happy every where. Give our love to him. If 
Roniney can come with you, we have both room 
to receive him, and hearts to make him most wel- 
come. W. C. 



TO MRS. COURTENAY. 

Sept. 15, 1793. 

A THOUSAND thanks, my dearest Catharina, for 
your pleasant letter; one of the pleasantest that I 
have received since your departure. You arc very 
good to apologize for your delay, but I had not 
flattered myself with the hopes of a speedier an- 
swer. Knowing full well your talents for enter- 
taining your friends who are present, I was sure 
you would with difficulty find half an hour tliat 
you could devote to an absent one. 

I am glad that you think of your return. Poor 
Weston is a desolation wdthout you. In the mean 



Let. 466, 467. 



LETTERS. 



399 



time I amuse myself as well as I can, thrumming 
old Homer's lyre, and turning the premises upside 
down. Upside down indeed, for so it is literally 
that I have been dealing with the orchard, almost 
ever since you went, digging and delving it around 
to make a new walk, which now begins to assume 
the shape of one, and to look as if some time or 
other it may serve in that capacity. Taking my 
usual exercise there the other day with Mrs. Un- 
win, a wide disagreement between your clock and 
ours, occasioned me to complain much, as I have 
often done, of the want of a dial. Guess my sur- 
prise, when at the close of my complaint I saw 
one — saw one close at my side ; a smart one, glit- 
tering in the sun, and mounted on a pedestal of 
stone. I was astonished. " This," I exclaimed, 
"is absolute conjuration!" .It was a most myste- 
rious affair, but the mystery was at last explained. 

This scribble I presume will find you just ar- 
rived at Bucklands. I would with all my heart 
that since dials can he thus suddenly conjured 
from one place to another, I could be so too, and 
could start up before your eyes in the middle of 
some walk or lawn, where you and Lady Frog 
are wandering. 

While Pitcalrne whistles for his family estate 
in Fifeshire, he will do well if he will sound a few 
notes for me. I am originally of the same shire, 
and a family of my name is still there, to whom 
perhaps he way whistle on my behalf, not alto- 
gether in vain. So shall his fife excel all my po- 
etical efTorts, which have not yet, and I dare say 
never will, effectually charm one acre of ground 
into my possession. 

Remember me to Sir John, Lady Frog, and 
your husband — tell them I love them all. She 
told me once she was jealous, now indeed she 
seems to have some reasons, since to her 1 have 
not -lATitten, and have written twice to you. But 
bid her be of good courage, in due time I will give 
her proof of my constancy. W. Q. 



TO THE REV. JOHN JOHNSON. 
Weston, Sept. 29, 1793. 

MY DEAREST JOHNNY, 

You have done well to leave off" visiting, and 
being visited. Visits are insatiable devourers of 
time, and fit only for those who, if they did not 
that, would do nothing. The worst consequence 
of such departures from common practice is to be 
termed a singular sort of a fellow, or an odd fish; 
a sort of reproach that a man might be vnse 
enough to condemn, who had not half your un- 
derstanding. 

I look forward with pleasure to October the 
eleventh, the day which I expect will be Albo no- 
tandus lapillo, on account of your amval here. 



Here you will meet Mr. Rose, who comes on 
the eighth, and brings with him Mr. Lawrence, 
the painter, you may guess for what purpose. 
Lawrence returns when he has made his copy of 
me, but Mr. Rose will remain perhaps as long as 
you will. Hayley on the contrary will come, I 
suspose, just in time not to see you. Him we ex- 
pect on the twentieth. I trust however, that thou 
wilt so order thy pastoral matters, as to make thy 
stay here as long as possible. 

Lady Hesketh, in her last letter, inquires very 
kindly after you, asks me for " your address, and 
purposes soon to write to you. We hope to see 
her in November — so that after a summer without 
company, we are likely to have an autumn and a 
winter sociable enough. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Weston, Oct. 5, 1793. 

My good intentions towards you, my dearest 
brother, are continually frustrated; and which is 
most provoking, not by such engagements and 
avocations as have a right to my attention, such as 
those to my Mary, and to the old bard of Greece, 
but by mere impertinences, such as calls of civility 
from persons not very interesting to me, and let- 
ters from a' distance still less interesting, because 
the writers of them are strangers. A man sent 
me a long copy of verses, which I could do no 
less than acknowledge. They were silly enough, 
and cost me eighteen pence, wliich was seventeen 
'pence halfpenny farthing more than they were 
worth. Another sent me at the same time a plan, 
requesting my opinion of it, and that I would lend 
him my name as editor ; a request with which I 
shall not comply, but -I am obliged to tell him so, 
and one letter is all that I have time to despatch 
in a day, sometimes half a one, and sometimes I 
am. not able to write at all. Thus it is that my 
time perishes, and I can neither give so much of 
it as I would to you or to any other valuable pur- 
pose. 

On Tuesday we expect company, Mr. Rose 
and Lawrence the painter. , Yet once more is my 
patience to be exercised, and once more I am 
made to wish that my face had been moveable, 
to put on and take off at pleasure, so as to be por- 
table in a bandbox, and sent to the artist. These 
however will be gone, as I believe I told you, be- 
fore you arrive, at which time I know not that 
any body will be here, except my Johnny, whose 
presence will not at all interfere with our read- 
ings — you will not, I believe, find me a very 
ilasliing critic — I hardly indeed expect to find any 
thing in your life of Milton that I shall sentence 
to amputation. How should it be too long"? A 
well written work, sensible and spirited, such as 



400 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 468, 469, 470. 



^ yours was, when I saw it, is never so. But how- 
ever we shall see. I promise to spare notliing that 
I think may be lopped olf with advantage. 
^ I began this letter yesterday, but could not 
finish it till now. I have risen this morning like 
an infernal frog out of Acheron, covered with the 
ooze and mud of melancholy. For this reason I 
am not sorry to find myself at the bottom of my 
paper, for had I more room perhaps I might fill 
it all with croaking, and make an heart ache at 
Eartham, which I wish to be always cheerful. 
Adieu. My poor sympathizing Mary is of course 
sad, but always mindful of you. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

MY DEAR BROTHER, Oct. 18, 1792. 

I HAVE not at present much that is necessary 
to say here, because I shall have the happiness of 
seeing you so soon ; my time, according to custom, 
is a mere scrap, for which reason such must be 
my letter also. 

You will find here more than I have hitherto 
given you reason to expect, but none who will not 
be happy to see you. 'These however stay with 
us but a short time, and will leave us in fidl pos- 
session of Weston on Wednesday next. 

I look forward with joy to your coming, heartily 
wishing you a pleasant journey, in which my poor 
Mary joins me. Give our best love to Tom; 
without whom, after being taught to look for him, 
we should feel our pleasure in the interview much 
diminished. 

Lseti expectamus te puerumque tuum. 

w. c. 



TO THE REV. J. JEKYLL RYE. 

MY DEAR STR, Wcstotl, NoV. 3, 1793. 

Sensible as I am of your kindness in taking 
such a journey, at no very pleasant season, merely, 
to serve a friend of mine, I can not allow my thanks 
to sleep till I may have the pleasure of seeing you. 
I hope never to show myself unmindful of so great 
a favour. Two lines which I received yesterday 
from Mr. Hurdis, written hastily on the day of 
decision, informed me that it was made in Ids fa- 
vour, and by a majority of twenty. I have great 
satisfaction in the event, and consequently hold my- 
self indebted to all who at my instance have con- 
tributed to it. 

You may depend on me for due attention to the 
honest clerk's request. When he called, it was 
not possible that I should answer your obliging 
letter; for he arrived here very early, and if I suf- 
fered any thing to interfere with my morning 
studies I should never accomplish my labours. 



Your liint concerning the subject for this year's 
copy is a very good one, and shall not be ne- 
glected. 

I remain, sincerely yours, W. C, 



TO MRS. COURTENAY. 

Weston, Nov. 4, 1793. 
I SELDOM rejoice in a day of soaking rain like 
tliis ; but in this, my dearest Catharina, I do re- 
joice sincerely, because it afl^ords me an opportu- 
nity of writing to you, which if fair weather had 
invited us into the orchard walk at the usual hour, 
I should not easily have found. I am a most 
busy man, busy to a degree that sometimes half 
distracts me; but if complete distraction be occa- 
sioned by having the thoughts too much and too 
long attached to a single point, I am in no danger 
of it, with such a perpetual whirl are mine whisk- 
ed about from one subject to another. Wiien 
two poets meet there are fine doings I can assure 
you. My Homer finds work for Hayley, and his 
Life of Milton work for me, so that we are nei- 
ther of us one moment idle. Poor Mrs. Unwin in 
the mean time sits quiet in her corner, occasion- 
ally laugliing at us both, and not seldom inter- 
rupting us with some question or remark, for 
which she is constantly rewarded by me with a 
"Hush — hold your peace." Bless yourself, my 
dear Catharina, that you are not connected with 
a poet, especially that you have not two to deal 
with ; ladies who have, may be bidden indeed to 
hold their peace, but very little peace have they. 
How shouldthey infact have any, continually en- 
joined as they are to be sUenf? 

* * * * * it: 

The same fever that has been so epidemic there, 
has been severely felt here likewise; some have 
died, and a multitude have been in danger. Two 
under our own roof have been infected with it, and 
I am not sure that I have perfectly escaped my- 
self, but I am now well again. 

I have persuaded Hayley to stay a week longer, 
and again my hopes revive, that he may yet have 
an opportunity to know my friends before he re- 
turns into Sussex. I wiite amidst a chaos of in- 
terruptions, Hayley on one hand spouts Greek, and 
on the other hand, Mrs. Unwin continues talking, 
sometimes to us, and sometimes, because we are 
both too busy to attend to her, she holds a dia- 
logue with herself.— Gluery, is not this a bull— ■ 
and ought I not instead of dialogue to have said 
soliloquy 1 

Adieu. With our united love to all your party, 
and with ardent wishes soon to see you all at Wes- 
ton, I remain, my dearest Catharina, 

Ever yours, W. C. 



Let. 471, 472, 473. 



LETTERS. 



401 



TO JOSEPH HILL, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Noii. 5, 1793. 

In a letter from Lady Hesketh, which I received 
not long since, she informed me how very pleasant- 
ly she had spent some time at Wargrave. "We 
now begin to expect her here, where our charms 
of situation are perhaps not equal to yours, yet by 
no means contemptible. She told me she had 
spoken to you in very handsome terms of the 
country round about us, but not so of our house, 
and the view before. The house itself however 
is not unworthy some commendation ; small as it 
is, it is neat, and neater than she is aware of; for 
my study and the room over it have been repaired 
and beautified this summer, and little more was 
wanting to make it an abode sufficiently commo- 
dious for a man of ray moderate desires. As 
to the prospect from it, that she misrepresented 
strangely, as I hope soon to have an opportunity 
to convince her by ocular demonstration. She 
told you, I know, of certain cottages opposite to 
us, or rather she described them as poor houses 
and hovels that effectually blind our windows. 
But none such exist. On the contrary, the oppo- 
site object, and the only one, is an orchard, so'well 
planted, and with trees of such growth, that we 
seem to look into a wood, or rather to be sur- 
rounded by one. Thus, placed as we are in the 
midst of a village, we have none of the disagreea- 
bles that belong to such a position, and the village 
itself is one of the prettiest I know ; terminated at 
one end by the church tower, seen through trees, 
and at the other, by a very handsome gateway, 
opening into a line grove of elms, belonging to 
our neighbour Courtenay. How happy should I 
be to show it instead of describing it to you ! 

Adieu, my dear friend, W. C. 



TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Nov. 10, 1793. 

You are very kind to consider my hterary en- 
gagements, and to make them a reason for not 
interrupting me more frequently with a letter ; but 
though I am indeed as busy as an author or an 
editor can well be, and am not apt to be overjoyed 
at the arrival of letters from uninteresting quar- 
ters, I shall always I hope have leisure both to 
peruse and to answer those of my real friends, and 
to do both with pleasure. 

I have to thank you much for your benevolent 
aid in the affair of my friend Hurdis. You have 
doubtless learned ere now, that he has succeeded, 
and carried the prize by a majority of twenty. He 
is well qualified for the post he has gained. So 
much the better for the honour of the Oxonian 



laiucl, and so much the more for the credit of 
those who hava favoured him with their suffrages. 
I am entirely of your mind respecting this con- 
flagration- by which all Europe suflcTrs at present, 
and is likely to suffer for a long time to come. 
The same mistake seems to have prevailed as in 
the American business. We then flattered, our- 
selves that the colonies would prove an easy con- 
quest : and when all th6 neighbour nations armed 
themselves against France, we imagined I believe 
that she too would be presently vanquished. But 
we begin already to be undeceived, and God only 
knows to what a degree we may find wc have 
erred, at the conclusion. Such however is the 
state of things all around us, as reminds me con- 
tinually of the Psalmist's expression — " He shall 
break them in pieces like a potter's vessel." — And 
I rather wish than hope in some of my melancho- 
ly moods that England herself may escape a frac- 
ture. I remain truly yours, W. C. 



TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. 

MY DEAR SIR, Weston, Nov. 24, 1793. . 

Though my congratulations have been delayed, 
you have no friend, numerous as your friends are, 
who has more sincerely rejoiced in your success 
than I ! It was no small mortification to me to 
find that three out of the six, whom I had en- 
gaged, were not qualified to vote. You have pre- 
vailed, however, arid by a considerable majority; 
there is therefore no room lefl for regret. When 
your short note arrived, which gave me the agree- 
able news of your victory, our friend of Eartham 
was with me, and shared largely in the joy that I 
felt on the occasion. He left me but a few days 
since, having spent somewhat more than a fort- 
night here; during which time we employed all 
our leisure hours in the ra^sal of his Life of Mil- 
ton. It is now finished, and a very finished work 
it is; and one that will do great honour, I am per- 
suaded, to the biographer, and the excellent man, 
of injured memory, who is the subject of it As 
to my own concern, with the works of this first of 
poets, which has been long a matter of burthen- 
some contemplation, I have the happiness to find 
at last that I am at liberty to postpone my labours. 
While I expected that my commentary would be 
called for in the ensuing spring, I looked forward 
to the tmdertaking with dismay, not seeing a sha- 
dow of probability that I should be ready to an- 
swer the demand. For this ultimate revisal of my 
Homer, together with the notes, occupies com- 
pletely at present (and will for some time longer) 
all the little leisure that I have for study : leisure 
wliich I gain at this season of the year by rising 
long before day-light. 

You are now become a nearer neighbour, and, 



m 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 474, 475, 476. 



as your professorship, I liope, will jiot engross 
you wholly, will find an opportunity to give me 
your company at Weston. Let me hear from 
you soon, tcU nic how you like your new office, 
and whether you perform the duties of it with 
pleasure to yourself. With much pleasure to 
others you will, I .doubt not, and with equal ad- 
vantage. W. C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Nov. 29, 1793. 

I HAVE risen while tlie owls are still hooting, to 
pursue my accustomed labours in the mine of Ho- 
mer; but before I enter upon them, shall give the 
first moment of daylight to the purpose of thanking 
j'ou for your last letter, containing many pleasant 
articles of intelligence, with nothing to abate the 
pleasantness of them, except the single circum- 
stance that we are not likely to see you here so 
soon as I expected. My hope was, that the first 
frost would bring you, ' and the amiable painter 
with you. If however you are prevented by the 
business of your respective professions, j'ou are 
well prevented, and I will endeavour to be patient. 
When the latter was here, he mentioned one day 
the subject of Diomedc's horses, driven under the 
axle of his chariot by the thunderbolt which fell at 
their feet, as a suliject for his pencil. It is certainly 
a noble one, and therefore worthy of his study and 
attention. It occurred to me at the moment, but 
I know not what it Was that made me forget it 
again the next moment, that tlic horses of Achilles 
flying over the fpss, with Patroclus an<l Automedon 
in the chariot, would be a good companion for it. 
Should you happen to recollect this', when you 
next see him, you may submit it, if you please, to 
his consideration. I stumbled yesterday on ano- 
ther subject, which reflttiided me of said excellent 
artist, as likely to aflbrd a fine opportunity to the 
expression that he could give it. It is found in 
the shooting match in the twenty-third book of the 
Iliad, between Mcriones and Teucer. The former 
cuts the string with which the dove is tied tO the 
mast-head, and sets her at Hljerty; the latter stand- 
ing at his side, in all the eagerness of emulation, 
points an arrow at the mark with his right hand, 
while with his left he snatches the bow from liis 
competitor. He is a fine poetical Ijgure, but Mr. 
Lawrence liimsclf must judge whether or not he 
promises as well for the canvass.' 

He does great honour to my physiognomy by 
his intention to get it engraved ; and though I tliink 
I foresee that this private publication will grow in 
time into a publication of absolute pubhcity, I find 
it impossible to be dissatisfied with any thing that ! 
seems eligible both to him and you. To say the 
truth, when a man has once turned his mind in- 



side out for the inspection of all who choose to in- 
spect it, to make a secret of his face seems but lit- 
tle better than a self contradiction. At the same 
time, however, I shall be best pleased if it be kept, 
according to your intentions, as a rarity. 

I have lost Hayley, and begin to be uneasy at 
not hearing from him: tell me about him when 
you write. 

I should be happy to have a work of mine em- 
bellished by Lawrence, and made a companion for 
a work of Hayley 's. It is an event to which I 
look forward with the utmost complacence. I can 
not tell you what a rehef I feel it, not to be pressed 
for Milton. W.- C. 



TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESa. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Dec. 8, 1793. 

In my last I forgot to thank you for the box 
of books, containing also the pamphlets. We have 
read, that is to say, my cousin has, who reads to 
us in an evening, the history of Jonathan Wild,- 
and found it highly entertaining. The 'satire on 
great men is witty, and I believe perfectly just: 
we have no censure to pass on it, unless that we 
think the character of Mrs. Heartfree not well 
sustained; not quite delicate in the latter part of it ; 
and that the constant effect of her charms upon 
every man who sees her has a sameness in it that 
is tiresome, and betrays either much carelessness, 
or idleness, or lack of invention. It is possible in- 
deed that the author might intend by this circum- 
stance a satirical glance at novelists, whose he- 
roines are generally all bewitching; but it is a fault 
that he had better have noticed in another manner, 
and not have exemplified in his own. 
■ The first volume of Man as he is, has lain un- 
read in my study window this twelvemonth, and 
would have been returned unread to its owner, had 
not my cousin come in good time to save it from 
that disgrace. 'We are now reading it, and find 
it excellent : abounding with wit, and just senti- 
ment, and knowledge both of books and men. 
Adieu. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa'. 

IVeston, Dec. 8, 1793. 

I HAVE waited, and waited impatiently, for a 
fine from you, and am at last determined to send 
you one, to inquire what is become of you, and 
why you are silent so much longer than usual. 

I want to know many things wliich only you 
can tell me, but especially I want to know what 
has been the issue of your conference with Nichol. 
Has lie seen your work"? I am impatient for the 
appearance of it, because impatient to have the 



Let. 477, 478. 



LETTERS. 



403 



spotless credit of the great poet's character, as a 
man and a citizen, vindicated as it oUght to be, 
and as it never will be again. 

It is a great relief to mc that my Miltonicla- 
bours are suspended. I am now busy in tran- 
scribing the alterations of Homer, having finished 
the whole revisal. I must then write a new Pre- 
face, which done I shall endeavour immediately to 
descant on The Four Ages. Adieu, my dear bro- 
ther. W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

Weston, Dec. 17, 1793. 

O Jove ! and all ye Gods ! grant this my son 
To prove, like me, pre-eminent in Troy ! 
. In valour such, and firmness of command ! 
Be he extoird when he returns from fight, 
As fai' his sire's superior ! may he slay 
His enemy, bring home his gory spoils, 
And may his mother's heart o'erflow with joy ! 

I ROSE this morning, at six o'clock, on purpose 
to translate this prayer again, and to write to my 
dear brother. Here you have it, such as it is, not 
perfectly according to my own liking, but as well 
as I could make it, and I think better than either 
yours, or Lord Thurlow's; You with your six 
lines have made yourself stiff and ungraceful, and 
he with his seven has produced as good prose as 
heart can wish^ but no poetry at all. A scrupu- 
lous attention to the letter has spoiled you both, 
you have neither the spirit nor the manner of Ho- 
mer. A portion of both may be found I believe 
in my version, but not so much as I wish — it is 
better however than the printed one. His lord- 
ship's two first lines I can not very well under- 
stand; . he seems to me to give a sense to the ori- 
ginal that does not belong to it. Hector, I appre- 
hend, does not say, "Grant that he may prove 
himself my son, and be eminent, &c. — but grant 
that this my son may prove eminent" — which is a 
material difference. In the latter sense I find the 
simplicity of an ancient; in the former, that isto 
say, in the notion of a man proving himself his 
father's son by similar merit, the finesse and dex- 
terity of a modern. His lordship too makes the 
man, who gives the young hero his commenda- 
tion, the person who returns from battle; whereas 
Homer makes the young hero himself that person, 
at least if Clarke is a just interpreter, which I sup- 
pose is hardly to be disputed. 

If my old friend would look into my preface, he 
would find a principle laid down there, which per- 
haps it would not be easy to invalidate, and which 
properly attended to would equally secure a trans- 
lation from stiffness and from wildness. The 
principle I mean is this—" Close, but not so close 
as to be servile ! free, but not so free as to be licen- 



tious!" A superstitious fidelity loses the spirit, 
and a loose deviation the sense of the translated 
author — a happy moderation in either case is the 
only possible way of preserving both. 

Thus have I disciplined you both ; and now, if 
you please, you may both discipline mc. I shall 
not enter my version in my book till it has under- 
gone your strictures at least ; and should you write 
to the noble critic again, you are welcome to sub- 
mit it to his. We are three awkward fellows in- 
deed, if we can not amongst us make a tolerably 
good translation of six lines of Homer. Adieu. 

W. C. 



TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESa. 

MY DEAR HAYLEY, Weston, Jan. 5, 1794. 

I HAVE waited, but waited in vain, for a propi- 
tious moment, when I might gjve my old friend's 
objections the consideration they deserve; I shall 
at last be forced to send a vague answer, unwor- 
thy to be sent to a person accustomed, like him, to 
close reasoning and abstruse discussion, for I rise 
after ill rest, a^id with a frame of mind perfectly 
unsuited to the occasion. I sit too at the window 
for light's sake, where I am so cold, that my pen 
slips out of my fingers. First, I will give you a 
translation de novo of this untranslated prayer. It 
is shaped as nearly as I could contrive to his lord- 
ship's ideas, but I have little hope that it will sa- 
tisfy him. 

Grant Jove, and ye Gods, that this my son 
Be, as myself have been, illustrious here ! 
A valiant man! and let him reign in Troy j 
May all who witness his return from fight 

Hereafter, say he far excels his sire ; 

And let him bring back gory trophies, stript 
From foes glain by him, to his mother's joy. 

Imlac, in Rasselas, says — I forget to whomy 
"You have convinced me that it is impossible ta 
be a poet." In like manner, I might say to his 
lordship, you have convinced me that it is impos- 
sible to be a translator; to be a translator, on his 
terms, at least, is I am sure impossible. On his 
terms I would defy Homer himself, were he 
alive, to translate the Paradise Lost into Greek. 
Yet Milton had Homer much in his eye when he 
composed that poem. Whereas Homer never 
thought of me or my translation. There are mi- 
nutiae in every language, which transfused into 
another will spoil the version. Such extreme 
fidelity is in fact unfaithful. Such close resem- 
blance takes away all likeness. The original is 
elegant, easy, natural ; the copy is clumsy, con- 
strained, unnatural: To what is this owing"? To 
the adoption of terms not congenial to your pur- 
pose, and of a context, such as no man writing an 
oricrinal work would make use of. Homer is every 
thing that a poet should be. A translati&n of Ho- 



404 



COWPER'S WORKS. 



Let. 479. 



mer, so made, will be every thing that a transla- 
tion of Homer should not be. Because it will be 
written in no language under Heaven. It will be 
English, and it will be Greek, and therefore it will 
be neither. He is the man, whoever he be (I do 
not pretend to be that man myself,) he is the man 
best qualified as a translator of Homer, who was 
drenched, and steeped, and soaked himself in the 
effusions of his genius till he has imbibed their 
colour to the bone; and who, when he is thus 
dyed through and through, distinguishing between 
what is essentially Greek, and what may be habit- 
ed in English, rejects the former, and is faithful to 
the latter, as far as the purpose of fine poetry wdll 
permit, and no further ; this I think, may be easily 
proved. Homer is every where remarkable either 
for ease, dignity, or energy of expression; for 
grandeur of conception, and a majestic flow of 
numbers. If we copy him so closely as to make 
every one of these excellent properties of his abso- 
lutely unattainable, wliich will certainly be the 
effect of too close a copy, instead of translating, we 
murder him. Therefore, after all that his lordship 
has said, I still hold freedom to be indispensable. 
Freedom, I mean with respect to the expression : 
freedom so hmited, as never to leave behind the 
matter : but at the same time indulged with a suf- 
ficient scope to secure the spirit, and as much as 
possible of the manner. I say as much as possible, 
because an English manner inust differ from a 
Greek one, in order to be graceful, and for tliis there 
is no remedy. Can an ungraceful, awkward trans- 
lation of Homer be a good one'? No. But a 
graceful, easy, natural, faithful version of him, will 
not that be a good one"? Yes. Allow me but this, 
and I insist upon it, that such an one may be pro- 
duced on my principles, and can be produced on 
no other. 



I have not had time to criticise his lordship's 
other version. You know how little time I have 
for any tiling, and can tell him so. 

Adieu ! my dear brother. 1 have now tired both 
you and myself; and with the love of the whole 
trio, remain Yours ever, W. C. 

Reading his lordship's sentiments over again, I 
am inclined to think that in all I have said, I have 
only given him back the same in other terms. He 
disallows both the absolute free, and the absolute 
close — so do I; and, if I understand myself, have 
said so in my Preface He wishes to reconunend 
a medium, though he will not call it so; so do I; 
only we express it differently. What is it then 
we dispute about 1 My head is not good enough 
to-day to discover. 



TO LADY HESKETH. 

DEAR COUSIN, Muudsley, Oct. 13, 1798. 

You describe deUghtful scenes, but you describe 
them to one, who if he even saw them, could re- 
ceive no delight from them: who has a faint re- 
collection, and so faint, as to be like an almost for- 
gotten dream, that once he was susceptible of 
pleasure from such causes. The country that you 
have had in prospect has been always .famed for its 
beauties; but the wretch who can derive no grati- 
fication from a view of nature, even under the dis- . 
advantage of her most ordinary dress, will have no 
eyes to admire her in any. 

In one day, in one minute, I should rather have 
said, she became an universal blank to me; and 
though from a different cause, yet with an eflfect 
as difficult to remove, as blindness itself. 



THE END OF COWPER'S WORKS, 



THE 



;®. 



PfrmTp^ 



JAMES THOMSON. 



eontcntis* 



The ardclea marked with an asterisk have never before' appeared in any edition of ThomBon's Poems, and some of them 
are printed for the first time from the Author's MS. 



Memoir of James Thomson, 
Addenda to the Memoir of Tliomson, 
Commendatory Verses, ... 



THE SEASONS. 

Spring, 

Summer, . - - 
Autumn, - . . 

Winter, 

Hymn, 

Specimen of Alterations, 
Castle of Indolence, Canto I, • - • 

Canton. .... 
Glossary, • - • . 

Britannia, 

Liberty, Part I. Ancient and Modern Italy compared, 74 

Pann. Greece, 78 

Part. HI. Rome, 83 

Part IV. Britain, 89 

PartV. The Prospect, 101 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



1 

• 12 
29 

■ 41 
51 

- 53 
ib. 

- 62 
• 70 

■ 71 



To the Memory of Lord Talbot, 

To the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, .... 

On the Death of Mr. Aikman, 

Epitaph on Miss Stanley, 

On the Death of his Mother, 

The Happy Man, ...-■--.. 
A Paraphrase on the latter part of the Sixth Chapter of 

Matthew, -• 115 

On .Slolus's Harp, ib. 

Hymn on Solitude, ib. 

To Seraphina, - - 116 

Verses addressed to Amanda, . . - ^ - ib. 
Verses addressed to Amanda, with " The Seasons," - ib. 
SONGS. 

A Nuptial Song, ib. 



*To Amanda, 

To Amanda, • - 

To Fortune, 

Come, gentle God, . 

To her I love. 

To the God of fond desire, 

The Lover's Fate, 

To the Nightingale, . 

To Myra, - 



Page. 

119 

- ib. 
ib. 

. ib. 
ib. 

- ib. 



SONGS IN THE MASQUE OF ALFRED. 
To Peace, l . . . , 

To Alfred, - ■ - . "- • . 
Sweet Valley, say, - . 
From those eternal Regions, 
Contentment, - ^ . . . 
Rule Britannia, . . . . • . 

To the Rev. Patrick Murdoch, 120 

To his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, - - ib. 
'To Dr. Dela Cour, in Ireland, on his "Prospect of Poet- 

ry," -.-.._.... ib. 

'Hymn to God's Power, 121 

*A Poetical Epistle to Sk-Wifliam Bennet, Bart, of Grub- 
bat, - - . -. .'. • - ib. 
'On Mrs. Mendez' Birthday, - . . - - 122 
'An Elegy upon James Therburn, - . - - ' . ib 
On the Report that a Wooden Bridge was to be built at 

Westminster, ib. 

The Incomparable Soporific Doctor, .... ib; 

'Lisy's Parting with her Cat, 123 

'On the Hoop, - . '. - . -. ib. 
'Stanzas sent to Mr. Xyttelton soon after the Death of his 

Wife, ........ ib. 

'On May, - - ib. 

'The Morning in the Country, 124 

'On a Country Life, ••••••• i\}. 

'On Happiness, - - - . - -'••., 125 
'Verses on receiving a Flower from his Mistress, • . 126 
Prologue to Tancred and Sigismunda, .- . . ib. 
Epilogue to Tancred and Sigismunda, .... 127 

Epilogue to Agamemnon, ib. 

Prologue to Mallet's Mustapha, ib. 

'Psalm civ. paraphrased, 128 

'Lines on Marie Field, - - 129 

*On Beauty, ib. 

'A Complaint on the Miseries of Life, ..... ISO 

'An Elegy on Parting, ib. 

"Song— When .... blooming Spring, - - 131 
'A Pastoral betwixt David, Thlrsis, and the Angel Ga- 
briel, upon the Birth of our Saviour, - . ib. 
'A Pastoral between Thivsis and Corydon, on the Death 

of Damon, by whom is meant Mr. W. Riddell - ib. 
*A Pastoral Entertainment, 132 



On the Death of Thomson, by Collins, - 
Addiess to the Shade of Thomson, by Burns, 



lb. 
133 



j^ewott of Sa^tnefii Kfiommn. 



" Tutored by thee, sweet Poetry exalts 
Her voice ofages; and informs tlie page 
With music, image, sentiment, and thoughts, 
Never to die ! 



The biography of a man whose Ufe was passed 
in his study, and who is known to the world by 
his writings alone, can present few facis to render 
it popular, unless it was chequered by events that 
excite interest, or marked by traits which lessen 
esteem. If a Poet has been vicious, the account 
of the misfortunes which vice never fails to bring, 
and of its effects on himself, is read with atten- 
tion; but the career of him who was uniformly 
virtuous, who experienced no remarkable vicissL 
tudes of fortune, and who was only eminent from 
the genius which his writings display, must'yield 
in variety of incident to that of a pirate or cour 
tesan. 

There is nevertheless much that will gratify .a 
reader whose taste is not so vitiated as to require 
the excitement of romance, in tracing the progress 
of a distinguished literary person; and he who is 
not desirous of knowing the history of a writer 
whose name is associated with his earliest recol- 
lections must be void of every spark of curiosity. 
A favourite author possesses claims upon our re- 
gard similar to those of friendship ; and the tale, 
which would be dull and tiresome if it concerned 
any other person, is read, or listened to, with the 
liveliest pleasure. 

Thomson's life must be indebted for whatever 
gratification it may afford to the sympathy of his 
admirers, since it is destitute of all other attrac- 
tions. Little has been preserved concerning him, 
perhaps because very little was deserving of being 
recorded; and these notices are so scattered that 
it has required some labour to form the present 
memoir. He did less for his own history than 
almost any other poet of the time, as his works 
contain few egotisms, and his great dislike to cor- 
respondence prevented the existence of those fa- 
miliar letters which form the most deUghtful mate- 
rials for biography. 

The task of preparing this memoir has, how- 
ever, been a grateful one. A writer can not be 
indifferent to the pleasure of rendering justice to 
merit which has been traduced, and of placing 
an amiable and unblemished character in its true 
light. Mankind are too apt to form their judg- 
^1 



ment on the opinions of superior understandings, 
without reflecting that none are exempt from 
caprice even if they be so from errors; and though 
the statements of an author may be generally 
just, cases occur in which he is prejudiced or 
misinformed. It is scarcely necessary to say, 
that the Life of Thomson by Dr. Johnson is 
alluded to ; and few need be told that this is not 
the first time his account of the Poet has been 
charged with injustice. The inquiries necessary 
for tills article have tended to confirm the suspi- 
cion that the colossus of literature was influenced 
by some extraordinary bias against the author of 
" The Seasons," for not a single notice of him, 
reflecting upon his character, has been found 
which is not traceable to Johnson. His Life is 
sneering and satirical, and he rarely admits Thom- 
son to have possessed a merit without accompa- 
nying it by an ungenerous remark. The cause 
of this conduct must be sought in vain; but the 
temper of Johnson and his violent political feel- 
mgs are sufficiently notorious to render the pa- 
triotic sentiments which Thomson every where 
inculcates a sufficient explanation of his hostility, 
whilst his country may have been another ground 
for his disUke. Before dismissing Dr. Johnson's 
Life it is material to state, that his assertions re- 
specting Thomson are entitled to little credit when 
opposed by other testimony ; for it can be proved 
that he knew little about him, and that he was 
too negligent to avail himself of the information 
which he sought. It must be remembered, too, 
that Johnson never saw him ; and that whatever 
he may have learned from others avails nothing 
in comparison with the account of his personal 
and intimate friends whose esteem is in itself am- 
ple ecsddence of his virtues. 

James Thomson was the son of the Reverend 
Mr. Thomson, of Ednam, in the shire of Rox- 
burgh, at which place the Poet was born on the 
llth of September, 1700. Less has been said of 
his parents than they merit, and from the sUght 
manner in which they have been noticed the idea 
may have arisen that he was of obscure origin. 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



His father was well descended, and his mother 
was Beatrix, the daughter and coheiress of Mr 
Trotter, of Fogo,* a genteel family in the neigh- 
bourhood of Greenlaw in Berwicksliirc. Though 
.Mr. Thomson's worth was of that unostentatious 
kind which only entitles him to the praise of be 
ijig a good father, a good husband, and a good 
man, fullilUng his clerical duties with pious dili- 
gence, and who 

" Tliis noble ensample to his shepe he yaf, 
That first he wrought and afterwards he taught," 

nearly all the sterling parts of human excellence 
are comprised in that character. 

At an early period of the Poet's life, his dawning 
talents attracted the attention of Mr. Riccarton, a 
neighbouring clergyman, and a judicious friend 
of his father, who consented to his superintending 
his son's education. He was placed at school in 
Jedburgh, and the care this gentleman bestowed 
on him was well rewarded by the success which 
attended liis exertions. 

Nor was Mr. Riccarton his only patron. Sir 
William Bennet, of Chesters, near Jedburgh, who 
was distinguished for his wit, honoured him with 
his kindness, and invited him to spend his summer 
vacations at his seat. Under the auspices of these 
generous friends, and of Sir Gilbert Eliot of Minto, 
Thomson -wrote various pieces ; but on the fiifet of 
January he destroyed the labours of the preceding 
year, and celebrated the annual conflagration by 
some humorous verses, stating his reasons for their 
condemnation. A poetical epistle, addressed to 
Sir WilUam Bennet, and written in his fourteenth 
year, has however been lately discovered, and it 
will be found in this edition of his wojks. 

From Jedburgh he was sent to the university 
of Edinburgh, being intended for the church ; but 
before he had been two years there, he lost his 
father, who died so suddenly that he did not see 
him before his decease, a circumstance which so 
much increased his grief that he is said to have 
evinced his affliction in an extraordinary manner. 
His wddowed mother, who was left with nine chil- 
dren slenderly provided for, was advised to remove 
to Edinburgh, where she remained, li\'ing in an 
economical manner, tintil James had completed 
his studies. 

Wliilst at the University, Thomson contributed 
three articles to a volume entitled " The Edin- 
burgh Miscellany," printed in that city in 1720, by 
a club called the Athenian Society. One of them, 
" On a Country Life, by a Student of the Uni- 



' Mrs. Thomson's sister married first a Mr. Hume, and ee- 
condly.tho Rev. Mr. Nicolson, Minister of Preston and Bun- 
cle. Their daughter Ehzabeth married her namesake, Ro- 
bert Nicholson, of Loncnd near Berwick-on-Tweed, the great 
grandfather of Alexander Nicholson, Esq. of East Court, 
Charlton Regis. 



versity," and signed with the initial of his name, 
shows how early the love of rural scenery and 
pursuits took possession of his mind, and may be 
deemed the first conceptions of " The Seasons." 
His productions were rather severely treated by 
some learned persons into whose hands they fell, 
and one of his biographers has laboured to prove 
the want of taste of his judges. This charge 
is, probably, unjust, for the early pieces of the 
author of The Seasons afford slight indicatiori 
of his future powers, and the criticism was far 
from destroying his attachnient to the muses. An 
accident, coirnected with the indulgence of his 
taste, made him suddenly renounce the profession 
for which he was designed, and liis \iews became 
directed to London. Mr. Hamilton, the Divinity 
Professor of Edinburgh, having given Thomson 
the 104tli Psalm as an exercise, he made so poeti- 
cal a paraphrase of it, that the professor and the 
audience were equally surprised. After compli- 
menting the writer, he told him that if he expected 
to be useful in the ministry, he must restrain his 
imagination, and adopt language more suited to a 
country congregation; and, according to Dr. John- 
son, Mr. Hamilton censured one of the expressions 
as indecent, if not profane. Part of this paraphrase 
only has been printed, but a perfect copy will be 
found in the jjresent edition, not on account of its 
merits, which are far from conspicuous, but from 
the circumstances connected with it. The obnox- 
ious line will, however, be sought for in vain; but 
it may have been altered in this transcript. 

Tliis piece having fallen under the notice of 
Mr. Auditor Benson, he expressed his admiration 
of it, and added, that if the author came to Lon- 
don, he had no doubt his merit would be properly 
encouraged. This remark was communicated to 
Thomson, apparently, by Lady Grizel Baillie, a 
relation of his mother's, and he accordingly em- 
barked at Leith in the autumn of ] 725 , but as, on 
his arrival in the metropolis, he received no assist- 
ance from her ladyship, he found himself without 
money or friends. To what extent he suffered the 
stings of poverty is uncertain; and his zealous ad- 
mirer, the Earl of Buclian, is very indignant at 
the assertion, tliat "his first want was a pair of 
shoes." Johnson, on whose authority it rests, is 
not lilcely to have invented the statement: and, as 
it reflects no discredit on the Poet, whether it arose 
from a temporary exhaustion of his finances, or 
from the impossibility of recruiting them, except- 
ing liy the sale of one of his works, his Lordship's 
anger is misplaced. 

That he was stored with letters of introduction 
may be supposed; but, having tied them up in a 
handkerchief, they were stolen from him, an acci- 
dent sufficiently disastrous to a young stranger, 
in the metropoUs, to explain the condition in which 
he is represented to have found himself 



MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



Shortly after Thomson loft Edinburgh, he lost 
his mother, whom he loved with all a son's ten- 
derness, and to whose talents and virtues he was 
eminently indebted for the cultivation of his own. 
In the poem which he wrote to her memory, he 
thus feelingly adverts to the moment when he 
took his last leave of her : — 

" When on the margin of ihe briny flood, 
Chill'il with a sad presaging damp I stood, 
Took the last loolv, ne'er to behold lier more, 
And mixed our murmurs with the wavy roar, 
Heard the last words fall, from her pious tongue. 
Then, wild into the bulging vessel flung, 
Wliich soon, too soon, convey'd me from her sight, 
Dearer than life, and liberty, and light !" 

A very interesting letter from Thomson to his 
friend Dr. Cranston, written about this time, 
proves that he was nearly destitute of money; and 
it is extremely deserving of attention from the 
statement that the idea of writing The Seasons 
originated fi'Om reading a poem on Winter, by 
Mr. Rickleton, which sets at rest the dispute whe- 
ther that poem was composed before or after his 
arrival in London.* It is without a date, but must 
hq,ve been written in September 1726; and, as the 
post mark was Barnet,t it seems he then resided 
in that village. 

" DEAR SIR, 

' ' I would chide you for the slackness of your 
correspondence ; but, having blamed you wrong- 
fully last time, I shall say nothing mitil I hear 
from you, which I hope will be soon. 

" There is a little business I would commmiicate 
to you before I come to the more entertaining part 
of our correspondence. I am going, hard task! 
to complain, and beg your assistance. When I 
came up here I brought very little money along 
with me, expecting some more upon the selling 
of Widehope, wlrich was to have been sold that 
day my mother was buried. Now it is unsold 
yet; but will be disposed of as soon us it can be 
conveniently done, though indeed it is perplexed 
with some difficulties. I was a long time here 



* A'svriter in the Literary Gazette asserts that "Winter" 
was written previous to this period, during the vacations, 
when Thomson retired from Edinburgh to Roxburghshire, 
where it is a cuiTent tale that he composed the awful picture 
of the man perishing in the snow, while on a visit to a friend 
among the wild hills about Yethobn, eight or nine miles from 
Kelso and Ednam, the place of his birth. Foulkner, however, 
In his Historical and Topographical Account of Fulliam, p. 
359, says;=-"In a room in the Dov$ CofTee-house, situated 
facing the water-^ide, between the Upper and Lower Mall at 
Hammersmith, Thompson wrote his Winter. He was hi the 
habit of frequenting this house dm'ing the winter season, when 
the Thames was frozen, and the surrounding cotmtry covered 
with snow. This fact is weU. authenticated, and many per- 
sons visit the house to the present-day." 

t Query, Barnes, on the banks of the Tliames % 



living at my own charges, and you know how ex- 
pensive that is; this, together with the furnishing 
of myself with clothes, linen, one thing and ano- 
ther, to fit me for any business of this nature here, 
necessarily obliged me to contract some debts. Be- 
ing a stranger here, it is a wonder how I got any 
credit; but I can not expect it will be long sus- 
tained unless I immediately clear it. Even now, 
I beUeve, it is at a crisis. My friends have no 
money to send me till 'the land is sold, and my 
creditors will not wait till then : you know what 
the consequences would be. Now. the assistance 
I would beg of you, and which I know, if in your 
power, you will not refuse me, is a letter of credit 
on some merchant, banker, or such like person in 
London, for the matter of twelve pounds, till I get 
money upon the selling of the land, which I am at 
last certain of If you could either give it me 
yourself, oi' procure it, though you do not owe it to 
my merit, yet you owe it to your own nature, 
which I know so well as to say no more on the 
subject ; only allow me to add that when I first 
fell upon such a project, the only thing I have for 
it in my present circumstances, knowing the selfish, 
inhumane temper of the generality of the world, 
you were the first person that offered to my 
thoughts as' one to whom I had the confidence to 
make such an address. 

"• Now I imagine you seized with a fine, ro- 
mantic, kind of a melancholy on the fading of the 
yeaT ; now I figure you wandering; philosophical 
and. pensive, amidst the brown, withered groves, 
while the leaves rustle under your feet, the sun 
gives a farewell parting gleam, and the birds 

Stir tlie faint note, and but attempt to sing. 

" Then again, when. the heavens wear a more 
gloomy aspect, the winds whistle, and the waters 
spput, I see you in the well known Cleugh, be- 
neath the solemn arch of tall, thick, embowering 
trees, hstening to the amusing lull of the many 
steep, moss-grovsrn cascades; whUe deep, divine 
contemplation, the genius of the place, prompts 
each swelling awful thought. I am sure you would 
not resign your part in that scene at an easy rate. 
None ever enjoyed it to the height you do, and 
you are worthy of it. There I walk in spirit, and 
disport in its beloved gloom. This country I am 
in is not very entertaining; no variety but that 
of woods, and them we have in abundance ; but 
where is the living stream'? the airy mountain? 
and the hanging rock 1 with twenty other things 
that elegantly please the lover of nature. Nature 
delicrhts me in every form, I am just now painting 
her in her most lugubrious dress for my own 
amusement, describing Winter as it presents itself! 
After my first proposal of the subject, 

I sing of Winter, and his gelid reign, 
Nor let a rhyming Insect of the Spring 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



Deem k a barren theme. To me 'lis full 
Of manly charms; to me, who court- the shade, 
Whom the gay seasons suit not, and who shun . 
The glare of Summer. \^?elcome, kindred glooms ! 
Drear, awful, wintry horrors, welcome all ! &c. 

"After' this introduction, I say, which insists 
for a few lines further, I prosecute the purport of 
the following ones : 

Nor can I, O, departing Summer ! choose 

But consecrate one pitying line to you ; 

Sing your last temper'd days, and sunny calms, 

That cheer the spirits and serene the soul. 

" Then terrible floods, and high winds, that usually 
happen about this time of the year, and have al- 
ready happened here, I wish you have not felt 
them too dreadfully; the first produced the in- 
closed Unes; the last are not completed. Mr. 
Rickleton's Poem on Winter, which I still have, 
first put the design into my head. In it are some 
masterly strokes that awakened me: being only a 
present amusement, it is ten to one but I drop it 
whenever another fancy comes across. 

" I believe it had been much more for your en- 
tertainmept if in this letter I had cited other peo- 
ple instead of myself, but I must defer that imtil 
another time.'' If you have not seen it already, I 
have just now in my hands an original of Sir 
Alexander Brand's, the crazed Scots knight with 
the woeful countenance, yo'u would relish. I be- 
lieve it might make Miss Jolin catch hold of his 
knees, which I take in him to be a degree of mirth 
only inferior to falling back again with an elastic 
spring. It is very printed in the Evening 

Post, so perhaps you have seen these panegyrics 
of our decUning bard; one on the princess's birth- 
day, the other on his majesty's, in cantos : 
they are written in the spirit of a complicated 
craziness. 

" I was in London lately a night, and in the old 
playhouse saw a comedy acted, called ' Love makes 
a Man, or the Fop's Fortune,' where I beheld 
Miller and Gibber shine to my infinite entertain- 
ment. In and about London this month of Sep- 
tember near a hundred people have died by acci- 
dent and suicide. There was one blacksmith, 
tired of the hammer, who hanged himself, and left 
written behind liim this concise epitaph, 

I, Joe Pope, 

Lived without hope,- 

And died by a rope. 

or else some epigranmiatic muse has belied him. 

" Mr. Muir has ample fund for politics in the 
present posture of aflairs, as you will find by tlie 
public news. I should be glad to know that great 
minister's frame just now. Keep it to yourself 
You may whisper it, too, in Miss John's ear: far 
otherwise is his late mysterious brother Mr. Tait 
employed, — started a superannuated fortune, and 
just now upon the full scent. It is comical enough 



to see him from amongst the rubbish of his con- 
troversial divinity and politics, furbishing up his 
ancient rustic gallantry. 

Yours sincerely, J. T. 
" Remember mc to all friends, M.t. Rickle^ Miss 
John, Brother John, &c." 

Thomson's earliest patron in London was Mr. 
Forbes, afterwards Lord President of the Session; 
who is thus immortaUzed m the Seasons, 

" Thee, Forbes, ,too, whoni every worth attends, 
As truth sincere, as weeping friendship kind, 
Thee, truly generous, and in silence great. 
Thy country feels tluough her reviving arts, 
Plann'd by thy wisdom, by thy soul infomr'd; 
And seldom has she known a friend like thee." 

Having seen his poetry in Scotland, he received 
him with kindness, recommended him to his 
friends, and particularly to Mr. Aikman, a gen- 
tleman moving in high society, whose taste for de- 
scriptive poetry was generated by his pursuits as a 
painter. The friendship of Aikman was highly 
appreciated by Thomson; and on his death, in 
June 1731, he wrote some verses which are indica- 
tive of that fervid attachment for which he was re- 
markable. 

Among other persons to whom he was indebted i 
for countenance and attention were Mr. Mallet, ! 
his school fellow, then private tutor to the Duke 
of Montrose and his Grace's brother Lord George 
Graham. By Mallet he is supposed to have been 
introduced to, and made acquainted with, the 
characters of many brpther poets and othey wits 
of the day ; and he was assisted by him in nego- 
tiating the publication of his first work. He 
resided, at this time, in Lancaster Court in the 
Strand. 

The poem of Winter, which, reversing the 
natural order, proved the harbinger of " The 
Seasons," appeared in folio in March, 1726-7; 
but it remained unsold till Mr. Whateley, a gen- 
tleman of acknowledged taste, and the author of 
" Observations on Modern Gardening," discerned 
its beauties, and made them the subject of conver- 
sation in the circles in which he visited. Though 
materially improved in subsequent editions, its 
merits were sufficiently striking to establish the 
author's fame; but it is stated that he received no 
more than three guineas for his labours. It was 
dedicated to Sir Spencer Compton, then Speaker 
of the House of Commons, and afterwards Earl 
of Wihnington, but his motive for selecting him 
as a patron is unknown ; and it would seem, from 
Aaron Hill's lines, which he affixed to the second 
edition of" Winter," that he was doubtful to what 
great person he should address it. In the preface 
to that edition, wliich appeared in the same year, 
he entered into a long defence of poetry, complain- 
ed of the debasing subjects to which it was cliiefly 



MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



applied, and contended, in rapturous language, 
that the works of nature are most calculated to 
produce poetical enthusiasm. According to the 
fashion of the time, he prefixed to the second im- 
pression some commendatory verses by Hill, Mr. 
Mallet, and a lady who styled herself Mira.* 

Johnson asserts that " Winter" was unnoticed 
by Sir Spencer Compton until Aaron Hill roused 
his attention by some verses addressed to Thom- 
son, and published in one of the newspapers, 
which censured the great for their neglect of in- 
genious men: but it is obvious, from the verses 
themselves, that they were -written before Thom- 
son had fixed on a patron; and there is nothing 
to justify the opinion that he was indebted to Hill 
for Sir Spencer's subsequent notice of Mm. In a 
letter addressed to Hill he says: 

" I hinted to you in my last, that on Saturday 
morning I was with Sir Spencer Compton. A 
certain gentleman, without my desire, spoke to 
him concerning me; his answer was, that I had 
never come near him. Then the gentleman put 
the question, if he desired that I should wait on 
h^iml he returned, he did. On this, the gentle- 
man gave me an introductory letter to him. He 
received me in what they commonly call a civil 
manner; asked me some common-place questions, 
and made me a present of twenty guineas. I am 
very ready to own, that the present was larger 
than my performance deserved; and shall ascribe 
it to his generosity, or any other cause, rather than 
the merit of the address." 

" "Winter"t w^s universally read and almost as 
universally admired, and its reputation produced 
to the author the acquaintance of several ladies of 
rank, among whom were the Countess of Hert- 
ford, Miss Drelincourt, daughter of the Dean of 
Armagh, who became Viscountess Primrose, and 
Mrs. Stanley ; but the most valuable effect of that 
publication was the friendship of Dr. Thomas 
Rundle, afterwards Bishop of Derry. That learn- 
ed individual, finding the man to be as estimable 
as the poet, honoured him with his friendship, 
promulgated his fame by his encomiums, and by 
introducing him to Sir Charles, subsequently Lord 
Chancellor, Talbot, eventually rendered him an 
important service. • 

Stimulated b^ public applause, Thomson, next 
year published his " Suimner," the " Poem on the 
death of Sir Isaac Newton," and his " Britannia." 
It is said that having been private tutor to Lord 
Binning, the eldest son of the Earl of Haddington, 



I but at what period has not been ascertained, he 
was desirous of evincing his gratitude by inscrib- 
ing " Summer" to that nobleman. Lord Binning, 
however, generously sacrificed the distinction to 
his desire of advancing the Poet's interests, and at 
his lordship's suggestion, it was dedicated to the 
well known Mr. Bubb Dodington, then a Lord 
of the Treasury, in that humiliating strain of pa- 
negyric to which, happily, authors no longer sub- 
mit. Whether the change has been produced by 
the extinction of patrons, or from a worthier cause, 
the efl!cct is to rescue literature from the degradar 
tion of paying sycophantic homage to titled dull- 
ness or aristocratic impertinence ; and it is left to 
societies established for the promotion of science 
to debase themselves by a fawning deference to 
rank, which an individual would feel hknself dis- 
graced by imitating. 

In his eulogy on Newton, Thomson was assisted 
by his friend Gray, who, being well acquainted with 
the Newtonian Philosophy, furnished him with a 
sufficient idea of its principles to enable him to 
allude to the subject with correctness.- " Britan- 
nia" owed its existence to the displeasure of the 
English merchants at the interruption of our trade 
by the Spaniards in America. Thomson was 
particularly alive to iriipressions of public Hberty, 
and eagerly availed himself of a moment of politi- 
cal excitement to indulge his feelings. 

In 1728, he pubUshed his " Spring," which he 
inscribed to Frances, Countess of Hertford, wife 
of Algernon, then Earl of Hertford, afterwards 
Duke of Somerset. This lady, whose generous 
intercession in favoiu: of Savage preserved his life, 
not only patronized poetry, but was herself a votary 
of the Muses,* and her letters create a very fa- 
vourable impression both of her heart and her un- 
derstanding. If the dedication may be relied on, 
Spring "grew up under her encouragement," and 
Thomson was one summer the guest of her lady- 
ship at her country seat; but Johnson says he 
took more pleasure in carousing with her lord 



* l)r. Johnson says Miia was the fictitious name of a lady 
once too well known : Savage addressed verses to her on read- 
ing her poems, and Aai'on Hill also wrote some lines on her. 

t To this edition Thomson added the letters "M.A." to 
his name, but the distinction was omitted on every other 
occasion. 



* The Countess of Hertford, according to her own admis- 
sion, was the authoress of the 'pieces entitled "A Riu'al Medi- 
tation," "A Penitential Thought," "A Midnight Hymn," and 
"The Dying Christian's Hope," inserted in Watt's Miscella- 
nies, and there assigned to Eusebi'a. See a letter from her 
ladyship to Dr. Watts, in February, 1736, printed in the 
Elegant Epistles, vol. v. p. 525. On the 15th of May, 1748, 
the Countess of Hertford, in a letter to Lady Luxemborough, 
noticed Thomson's Castle of Indolence in the following 
terms:— "I conclude you will read Mr. Thomson's Castle of 
Indolence ; it is after the manner of Spenser ; but I think he 
does not always keep so close to his style as the author of the 
School ftlistress, whose name I never knew till you were so 
good as to inform me of it, I believe the Castle of Indolence 
will afford you much entertainment : there are many pretty 
paintings in it; but I think the wizard's song deserves a pre- 
ference: 

■ ''He needs no muse who dictates from the heart.' " 



MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



than in assisting her studies, and therefore was 
never again invited: a charge which Lord Buchan 
eagerlj' rc])elH, hut upon as little authority as it 
was originally made. 

Prcviou.s to the appearance of "Spring," Thom- 
son issued proposals for publishing the "Four 
Seasons" by subscription; and in the advertise- 
ment, he pledged himself that the separate publi- 
cation of that poem should not prevent the work 
being comj)lctcd in the ensuing winter. 

The tragedy of Sophonisba, which was written 
and acted in 1729, was his next production; and 
such were the expectations which tlie author's 
fame excited, that the rehearsals were, attended 
by splendid audiences: though, if Johnson be cor- 
rect, nobody was much aflectcd, and the company 
rose as if froui a moral lectiure. Among those who 
honoured the tragedy with particular regard was 
the (olueen, to whom, on that account, it was dedi- 
cated ; and in the preface the author pleads in ex- 
tenuation of the errors of the piece, that it was a 
first attempt : he explains his reasons for choosing 
that subject, and thanks Mr. Wilks, and more es-' 
pecially Mrs. Oldficld, for , their powerful repre- 
sentatioirs of Massinissa and Sophonisba, the lat- 
ter having, he says, "excelled what even in the 
fondness of an author he could either wish or 
imagine." 

The success of this tragedy on the stage was 
not great, though it went through four editions in 
the year 1730, and Johnson ascribes one cause of 
its failure to a foolish parody bf the silly Uhe, 
omitted in subsequent impressions, 

" Oh, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O !" 

"O Jernmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O !" 

which was very generally repeated through the 
town. Pope, the same writer says, on the asser- 
tion of Savage, wrote the first part of the prologue, 
but, as he could not be persuaded to finish it, the 
remaining lines were added by Mallet. 

The "Seasons" were completed in 17S0, when 
" Autumn," which he addressed to the Right 
Honourable Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the 
House of Conunons, was first printed. A very 
material difference exists between "the Seasons" 
as they first appeared, and as they now stand. 
From time to time Thomson polished this work 
with great assiduity and success, perhaps from 
the anticipation that liy it he would be best known 
to posterity. To tliis labour he was probably ex- 
cited by an epistle from Somerville, who asks, 

"Why should thy Muse, born so divinely-fair, 

Want the reformjng toilet's daily care ! 

Dress the gay maid, improve each native grace, 

And call forih all the glories of her face : 

The accomplish'd nymph in all her best attire, 

.Courts shall applaud, and prostrate crowds admire ; 

For kind and wise the parent, who reproves < 

The slightest blemish in the child he loves. 



Read Philips much, consider Milton more, 
But from their dx'oss exuact the purer ore. 
Let perepicnily o'er all preside, — 
Soon shall thou be the nation's joy and pride. 

Johnson admits that these revisions improved 
the poems in general: but .he expresses his suspi- 
cion that they lost their race. A few examples of 
the benefit which they derived from reflection and 
criticism prove that this remark displays more in- 
genuity than taste; and as instances of the diflcr- 
ence between eariy and subsequent editions of a 
Poet's lucubrations, they are sufficiently curious to 
dcscn'e the space they will occupy.* 

About' this time, through the influence of Dr. 
Rundle, wlio, on sending Mrs. Sandys a copy of 
" The Seasons," observed, that it was " a volume 
on which reason bestows as many beauties as ima- 
gination," Thomson was selected by Sir Charles 
Talbet, then Solicitor General, to acconijiany his 
eldest son, Mr. Charles Richard Talbot, on his 
travels. With tliis accomplished young man he 
visited most of the capitals in Europe, in the year 
1731. Admitted to the best society wherever they 
went, unembarrassed by pecuniary considerations, 
and encouraged by the rising influence and gene- 
rosity of his patron, to hope for a permanent inde- 
pendence, if not for. a situation calculated for the 
display of talent, this must have been the happiest 
jieriod of the Poet's life, since nothing more can be 
desired than youth, fame, health, and competence 
in possession, with a bright perspective of future 
renown. 
■ During his absence fi'om England he appears to 
have kept up a correspondence with Mr. Bubb 
Dodington, to whom he dedicated his " Spring;" 
and his letters which tend to show that he was on 
terms of intimacy with that gentleman are entitled 
to attention. They justify a more favourable 
opinion of his epistolary powers than any others 
which have appeared, and are very interesting 
froin his accouiit of the impression which foreign 
scenes made on his mind, and of his future inten- 
tions with respect to literature. 

Paris, £>ec.27, N. S. 1730. 

" M. de Voltaire's Brutus has been acted here 
seven or eight tunes with applause, and still con- 
tinues to te acted. Jt is matter of amusetnent 
to me to imagine what ideas an old republican, de- 
claiming on liberty, nnist give the generality of a 
French audience. Voltaire, in his preface, designs 
to have a stroke at criticism; and Lord have mercy 
on the poor similes at the end of the acts in our 
English plays, for these seem to be very worthy 
objects of his French indignation. It is designed 
to be dedicated to Lord Bolingbroke. 

" I have seen little of Paris, yet some streets and 
playhouses ; though, had I seen all that is to be 



■ See the end of "The Seasons." 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



seen here, you know it too well to need a much 
better account than I can give. You must, how- 
ever, give me leave to observe, that amid all tlie 
external and showy magniiiccnce which the French 
aififect, one misses that soUd magniiiccnce of trade 
and sincere plenty which not only appear to be, 
but are, substantially, in a kingdom where industry 
and liberty mutually support and insphit each 
other. That kingdom I suppose I need not men- 
tion, as it is and ever will be sufficiently plain 
from the character. I shall return no worse Eng- 
lishman than when I came away. 

" Your observation I find every day juster and 
justcr, that one may profit more abroad by seeing 
than by hearing ; and yet there are scarce any 
travellers to be met vnth, who have given a land- 
scape of the countries through which they have 
travelled that have seen, as you express it, with 
the Muses' eye ; though that is the first thing 
which strikes me, and what all readers and tra- 
vellers in the first place demand. It seems to me, 
that such a poetical landscape of countries, mixed 
with moral observations on their countries and 
people, would not be an ill judged imdertaking. 
But then, the description of the different face of 
nature, in diflerent countries, must be particularly 
marked and characteristic, the portrait painting of 
nature," 

Ocf. 24, 1731. 

" What ji-ou observe concernmg the pursuit of 
poetry, so far engaged in it as I am, is certainly 
just. Besides, let him quit it who can, and ' erit 
mihi magnus Apollo,' or something as great. A 
true genius, like light, must be beaming forth, as 
a false one is an incurable disease. One would 
not, however, climb Parnassus, any more than 
your mortal hills, to fix for ever on tlie barren top. 
No; it is some little dear retirement in the vale 
below that gives , the right relish to the prospect, 
which, without that, is nothing but enchantaient ; 
and though pleasing for some time, at last leaves 
us in a desert. The- great fat doctor of Bath,* 
told me that poets should be kept poor, the more to 
animate their genius. This is like the cruel cus- 
tom of putting a bird's eye out, that it may sing the 
sweeter ; but, surely, they sing sweetest amid the 
luxuriant woods, while the full spring . blooms 
around them. 

" Travelhnghas long been my fondest wish, for 
the very purpose you recommend. The storing 
one's imagination with ideas all-beautiful, ah-great, 
and all-perfect nature: these are the true materia 
poetica, the light and colours, with which fancy 
kindles up her whole creation, paints a sentiment, 
and even embodies an abstracted thought. I long 
to see the fields where Virgil gathered his immor- 



Queiy. Dr. Cheyne ■? 



tal honey, and tread the same ground where men 
have thought and acted so greatly. 

" But not to travel entirely like a poet, I resolve 
not to neglect the more prosaic advantages of it, 
lor it is no less my ambition to be capable of serv- 
ing my country in an active, than in a contempla- 
ti\'e way. At my times of leisure abroad, I 'think 
of attempting another tragedy, and a story more 
addressed to common passions than ' Sophonisba.' 
The Sophonisba people now-a-days must have 
something like themselves, and a public spirited 
monster can never interest them. If any thing 
could make me capable of an epic performance, it 
would be your favourable opinion in thinking so. 
But, as you justly observe, that must be the work 
of years, and one must be in an epic situation to 
execute it. My heart both trembles with diffi- 
dence, and burns with ardour at the thought. The 
story of Timoleon is good as to the subject matter, 
but an author owes, I think, the scene of an epic 
action to his own comitry; besides, TLinoleon ad- 
mits of no machinery except that of the heathen 
gods, which wiU not do at this time of day. I 
hope, hereafter, to have the direction of your taste 
in these aflPairs ; and in the mean time will endea- 
voto to expand those ideas and sentiments, and in 
some degree to gather up that knowledge which is 
necessary to such an undertaking. 

" Should tlte scenes and climates through which 
I pass inspire me vs'ith any poetry, it will naturally 
have recourse to you. But to hint a return from 
Young or Stubbs were a kind of poetical simony, 
especially when you yourself possess such a portion 
of the spirit." 

Rome, Nov. 28. 1731. ' 
"I will make ho apology for neglecting to do 
myself the honour of writmg to you since we left 
Paris. I may rather plead a merit in not trou- 
bUng you with long scrawls of that travelling stuff, 
of which the world is full, even to loathing. That 
enthusiasm which I had upon me, with regard to 
travelling, goes off, I find, very fast. One may 
imagine fine things in reading ancient authors; 
but to travel is to dissipate that vision. A great 
many antique statues, where several of the fair 
ideas of Greece are fixed for ever in marble, and 
the paintings of the first masters, are, indeed, most 
enchanting objects. How little, however, of these 
suffices 1 How unessential to lile ! they are, surely, 
not of that importance as to set the whole world, 
man^ woman, and child, a-gadding. I should be 
sorry to be Goth enough to tliink them highly or- 
namental in life, when one can have them at home 
without paying for them at an extravagant price. 
But for every one who can support it to make a 
trade of runnuig abroad only to stare at them, I 
can not help thinking something worse than a pub- 
lic folly. Instead of travelling so furiously, it 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



were wiser and more public spirited should they, 
with part of those sums of money spent that way, 
send persons of genius in architecture, painting, 
and sculpture, to study those arts abroad, and im- 
port them into England. Did they but once take 
root here, how they might flourish in such a gene- 
rous and wealthy country! The nature of the 
great painter, architect, and statuary, is the same 
' she ever was; and is no doubt asj)rofuse of beauty, 
proportion, lovely forms, and real genius, as former- 
ly she was to the sunny realms of Greece, did we 
but study the one and exert the other. In England, 
if we can not reach the gracefully superfluous, yet 
I hope we shall never lose the substantial, neces- 
sary, and vital arts of life ; such as depend on la- 
bour, Uberty, and all commanding trade. For my 
part, I, who have no taste for smelling to an old 
musty stone, look upon those countries with an 
eye to poetry, in regard that the sisters reflect light 
and images to one another. Now I mention 
poetry, should you inquire afler my muse, all 
that I can answer is, that I beheve she did not 
cross the channel with me. I know not whether 
your gardener at Eastbery has heard any tliuig 
of her among the woods there ; she has not thought 
fit to visit me while I have been in this once poetic 
land, nor do I feel the least presage that she will. 
But not to lengthen out a letter that has no pre- 
tence to entertain you, give me leave only to add, 
that I can never lose the pleasing sense I have of 
your goodness to me ; and it is a hope that I must 
flatter myself with your continuance of it upon my 
return to England ; for which my veneration and 
love, I will be vain enough to say, increase every 
day, even to fondness and devotion." 

Thomson returned to England in 1732, with 
his general information much increased, and his 
opinion of mankind considerably enlarged. New 
scenes rather excited than lessened his poetic ar- 
dour; and no sooner was he settled than he re- 
sumed his pen, choosing for his subject " Liberty." 

It has been erroneously supposed by every bio- 
grapher of Thomson, that immediately on his re- 
turn he obtained the sinecure situation of Secretary 
of Briefs in the Court of Chancery, and that soon 
after he commenced his poem his j'oung friend 
Mr. Talbot died. The slightest attention to dates 
will show the error of these statements. SlrCharles 
Talbot did not become Chancellor until the 29th 
of November, 1733, shortly before which time Mr. 
Talbot died; so that in fact " Liberty" must have 
been nearly finished before his decease, and he did 
not live to witness the service which his father 
conferred on Thomson by appointing him to the 
office alluded to. The truth then appears to be, 
that actuated either by gratitude to his patron, or 
by regard for his accomplished son, or probably by 
both feelings, the Poet resolved to evince his re- 



spect for the living and the dead, by prefixing to 
the first part of " Liberty" an address which should 
commemorate their worth and his esteem. Mr. 
Talbot died in his twenty-fourth year, and Thom- 
son's eulogy of him is marked by simplicity and 
tenderness. 

Though the most laboured, and in its author's 
opinion the best of his productions, " Liberty" was 
never popular, and perhaps most persons have 
found it as difficult to read to an end as Dr. John- 
son did, who eagerly avails himself of the neglect 
with which it was treated to indulge in one of those 
sneers which render his account of Thomson a 
memorial of his want of candour and injustice. It 
was inscribed to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and 
probably enabled Mr. Lyttleton to introduce him 
to the notice of his Royal Highness. However 
grieved at the coldness of the public towards his 
favourite work, and that he felt it severely is be- 
yond a doubt, one at least of his friends gave him 
every consolation which the most extravagant 
praises can afford. That exquisite flatterer, Aaron 
Hill, whose taste and judgment gave zest to his 
eulogy, thus wrote to Thomson on the 17th of 
February, 1734; and it is amusing to compare the 
opinion of a distinguished contemporary with that 
of posterity on the same subject. 

"dear sir, 

"You have lately given- me two pleasures; for 
one of them I am indebted to fortune, who brought 
me near you, though not quite near enough, the 
other night, at the playhouse. The second I 
owe to a hand, I am infinitely more proud to be 
obliged by; for I received your beautiful present 
of Liberty from its author. It will be, in all 
senses, an ornament to my study. It will, also, 
be such to my heart and my memory; for I shall 
never be able to think of a loveliness in moral, a 
frankness in social, or a penetration in political 
life, to which you have not, in this inimitable 
masterpiece, both of language and genius, given 
a force, and a delicacy, which few shall be born 
with a capacity to feel, and none ever with a ca- 
pacity to exceed. 

" I do not know a pleasure I should enjoy vnth 
more pride than that of filling up the leisure of a 
well employed year, in exerting the critici, on your 
poem; in considering it first, with a view to the 
vastness of its conception, in the general plan; 
secondly, to the grandeur, the depth, the unlean- 
ing, self-supported richness of the sentiments; 
anil thirdly, to the strength, the elegance, the 
music, the comprehensive living ehergy, and close 
propriety of your expression. I look upon this 
mighty work as the last stretched blaze of our ex- 
piring genius. It is the dying effort of despairing 
and indignant virtue, and will stand, like one of 
those immortal pyranaids, which carry their mag- 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



nificence through. limes that wonder to sec notlung 
round them but uncomfortable desert ! 

" Yet you must give me leave, while I but ad- 
mire your genius, to love your soul, that has such 
compass of humanity! your poem is not newer 
than your mind, nor your expression stronger 
than your virtue. Whatever school-enthusiasm 
has misdreamt of Homer, that he knew all arts, 
and that his works have taught their practice, 
might be almost said and proved of Mr. Thom- 
son's ' Liberty,' without partiality or flattery ; 
whatever has been suffered, done, or thought, 
through all the revolutions of forgotten time, your 
more than magic muse revokes, reacts, and ani- 
mates, till we become cotemporaries of every busy 
age, and see, and feel the changes, which they 
shone or sunk by. 

" It is possible that this devoted nation, irreco- 
verably lost in luxury, may, like your 

. Little artists form, 

On higher life intent, its silken tomb. 

It may rise to future animation, and, its wealth, 
its pride, and commerce lost, lose also its cor- 
ruption, and retiiumph, in the strength of unde- 
siring poverty. For, certainly, you have detected 
the sole root of every English evil you deplore so 
beautiiially: 

Whenever puff'd with power, and gorged with wealth, 
Nations, like ours, let trade enormous rise. 
And east and south their mingled treasure pour; 
Then, swell'd impetuous, the corrupting flood 
Bursts o'er the city, and devours the land. 

" Think, seriously, upon this observation, and 
try if, in all your acquaintance with past ages, you 
can find a people long at once retaining pubUc 
virtue and extended commerce. Search, too, as 
much in vain for one who is, with warmer truth, 
and better founded zeal, than I am, 
Dear sir, your most obedient 

And most humble servant, 

A.Hill.'; 

In another letter, dated in the following Janua- 
ry, Hill pointed out some slight defects in " Liber- 
ty;"' and in September, 1735, after referring to a 
copy of " Zara," which he submitted for Thonv 
sori's perusal, he obser\'ed, " The warmth you 
express against the corruption and degeneracy- of 
our stage is an indignation both natural and ne- 
cessary in a breast — ■ 

'The bounds of self divinely bursting !' 

yet fain would I hope, it is not in the prophetic 
spirit of the character, that a poet, like you, as- 
serts, ' The root of this evil is too deep to be 
pluck'd up ;' " and he then approves, with the 
bitterness of a disappointed author, of the ana- 
thema which Thomson had pronoruiced against 
the dramatic taste of the time. On the same oc- 



casion he suggested the establishment of a tragic 
academy, and asked him if he thought the Prince 
of Wales would give his support to the plan : — a 
remark indicative of Thomson's being sufficiently 
connected with the Prince to be aware of his sen- 
timents. A letter from Hill in May 1736, proves 
that in consequence of the failure of " Liberty" as 
a speculation, the author generously resolved to 
secure the publisher from loss: 

" One of the natural growths of such a mind, 
as we see in your writings, is the generosity of 
your purpose, in favour of the bookseller. I am 
in love with tlie humanity that inspired such a 
sentiment ; but, for the sake of my country, wish 
it may never be carried into execution, because 
the beauty of the action would, of necessity, pre- 
vent its ever being forgotten ; and a kind of na- 
tional infamy, which must disgrace us to posterity, 
will, as infallibly, be a consequence of its being re- 
membered. 

" I confess myself sincerely mortified to hear 
that such a poem as ' Liberty,' in such a nation 
as Great Britain, can have failed to make* a book- 
seller as rich as an ungrateful people have been 
made by its invaluable fund of manly sentiments; 
bu,t there are dispositions, in political as Well as 
natural bodies, which have prevalence to help or 
hinder the effect of medicines: and I am appre- 
hensive, that repubhcan improvements upon mon- 
archical foundations will but spoil two different 
orders, either of which, alone, might have had 
strength and gracefulness." 

He proceeds to comply vrith Thomson's request, 
to send him liis criticisms in the event of a second 
edition ; and it appears from this letter, that he 
had complained that the works of authors were 
not secured to them, as HUl says, 

" Would to God you were in the right, in that 
part of your letter which wishes, in heu of state 
patronage, in favour of learning, that we had 
only some good act of parliament for securing to 
authors the property of^ their own works. Me- 
thinks if the act would go deep enough to reach 
the very root of your wish, it should, also, secure 
to the public the education of her gentlemen as 
well as the property of her vvrriters; since, where 
the first are unable to taste, the last must write to 
no purpose." 

Two other paragraphs in this communication 
refer to Thomson's acquaintance with eminent 
poets of the day : 

' I am pleased to hear that Mr. Pope was so 
kind as to make any inquiries concerning me. 
Your good nature was justly and generously em- 
ployed in the mention you make of poor Mr. 
Savage." 

The remarks of Johnson on the alteration and 
curtailment made by Lord Lyttelton in " Liberty," 
are too just not to produce conviction, and in this 



Xjl 



MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



edition, as well as most others, his wish to see it 
exliibited as its author left it is realised. 

A letter which the Poet wrote to his friend Mr. 
Ross about this period displays the affection which 
he bore to his relations, and proves his readiness 
to contribute to their support. The tragedy to 
which he alludes was " Agamemnon." 

"dear ROSS, London, Nov. 6, 1736. 

I own I have a good deal of assurance, after 
asking one favour of you, never to answer your 
letter till I ask another. But not to mince the 
matter, and all apologies apart, hearken to my 
request. — My sisters have been advised by their 
friends to set up at Edinburgh a little milliner's 
shop; and if you can conveniently advance to 
them twelve pounds, on my account, it will be a 
particular favour. That will set them a-going, 
and I design from time , to time to send them 
goods from hence. My whole account I will pay 
you when you come up here, not in poetical paper 
credit, but in the soUd money of this dirty world. 
I will not draw upon you, in case you be not pre- 
pared to defend yourself; but if your purse be 
valiant, please to inquire for Jean or Elizabeth 
Thomson, at the Reverend Mr. Gusthart's ; and 
if this letter be not a sufficient testimony of the 
debt, I will send you whatever you desire. 

" It is late, and I would not lose this post. Like 
a laconic man of business, therefore, I must here 
stop short; though I have several things to im- 
part to yoii, and, through your canal, to the dear- 
est, truest, heartiest youth that treads on Scottish 
ground. The next letter I write you shall be 
washed clean from business in the Castalian fomi- 
tain. 

" I am whipping and spurring to finish a tra- 
gedy for you this winter, but am still at some dis- 
tance from the goal, which makes me fear being 
distanced. Remember me to all friends, and above 
them all to Mr. Forbes. Though my affection to 
him is not fanned by letters, yet is it as liigh as 
when I was his brother in the virtu, and played at 
chess with him in a post-chaise. 

I am, dear RoSs, 
Most sincerely and affectionately yours, ' 
James TnoMsoN." 

On the 12th of the following January, he again 
wrote to Ross. 

"Having been entirely in the country of late, 
finishing my play, I did not receive yours till some 
days ago. It was kind in you not to draw rashly 
upon me, which at present had put mc into danger; 
but very soon, that is to say about two months 
hence, I shall have a golden buckler, and you may 
draw boldly. • My j)Iay is received in Drury Lane, 
and will be put into my Lord Chamberlain's or his 



deputy's liands to-morrow. Petty* came here two 
or three days ago; I have not yet seen the round 
man of God to be. He is to be parsonified a few 
days hence. How a gown and cassock will be^ 
come him ; and with what a holy leer he will edify 
the devout females ! There is no doubt of his 
having a call, for he is immediately to enter upon 
a tolerable living. God grant him more, and as 
fat as himself. It rejoices me to see some one 
worthy, honest, excellent man raised,' at least, to 
independence. Pray make my compliments to 
my Lord President,t and all friends. I shall be 
glad to hear more at large from you. Just now 
I am with the Alderman, who wishes you all hap- 
piness." 

His sisters and his 'forthcoming tragedy ap- 
pear still to have divided his thoughts, for in .Fe- 
bruary he thus wiote about both to Mt. Gavin 
Hamilto.n: 

" I lately heard from my sisters at Edinburgh, 
that you were so good as to promise to advance 
to them, on my account, a trifle of money, which 
I proposed to allow them yearly. The sum is 
sixteen pounds sterling, and which I would have 
paid them eight pounds sterUng at Martinmas, 
and the other eight pomads at Whitsuntide, the 
payment to begin from last Martinmas. So that 1 
the first year will be completed at Whitsunday \ 
next. Your doing this I shall look upon as a 
particular favour, and the money shall be paid 
here at your order as you please to direct. Please, 
upon receipt of this, to send to them at Mr. Gust- 
hart's and to advance to them the papnent for last 
Martinmas, wliich place to my account. Had I 
had time this post, I would have written to them 
to wait upon you. I have a tragedy, entitled 
Agamemnon, to' be represented here about three 
weeks hence. Please to let me know how many 
copies I shall send to you, and you shall have 
them in full time. I have some thoughts of print- 
ing it for myself, but if I do not, I will take care 
you shall have what copies of it you demand. If 
I can serve you m any thing else here, I shall be 
very glad." 

In 173G, he was one of the committee of mana- 
gers of the Society for the Encouragement of 
Learning, his colleagues being either persons of 
high rank Oi of considerable literary reputation. 

Thomson's next work originated in gratitude. 
His constant and generous patron, Lord Chan- | 
cellor Talbot, died in February 1737, and soon i 
afterwards, the beautiful poem to his memoiy ap- 
peared. Pieces of this nature, however creditable 



' "Polly," thu.? spoken of, was Dr. Patrick Murdoch, tlie 
" oily man of God" of tlio " Castle of Indolence," and one of 
Thomson's biographers and editors. 

t Duncan Forbes. 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



the feelings may be which inspired them, must 
possess extraordinary intrinsic merit to create in- 
terest when all remembrance of the indi\'idual 
whom they celebrate has passed away. This 
claim is possessed by the article in question, and 
the same reader who turns from the cold and for- 
mal, though elegant vcrsilication of " Liberty," if 
he commence the tribute to Lord Talbot, will be 
induced to go on ; and should he not think himself 
repaid by any other passage, he will be amply 
gratified by the description of the delicate species- 
of patronage which it is fit for wealth or greatness 
to bestow. 

" Let learni iig, arts, let universal worth, 

Lament a patron lost, a friend and judge. 

Unlike the sons of vanity, tliat, veil'd 

Beneath the patron's prostituted name, 

Dare sacrifice a worthy man to pride, 

And flush confusion o'er an honest cheek. 

When he confer)''d a grace, it seem'd a debt 

Which he to merit, to the public, paid. 

And to the great all-bounteous Source of Good. 

His sympathising heart itself received 

The generous obligation lie bestow'd. 

This, this indeed, is patronising worth. 

Their Icind protector him the Muses 6wn, 

But scorn with noble pride the boasted aid 

Of tasteless Vanity's insulting hand. 

The gracious stream that cheers the lettered world; 

Is not the noisy gift of summer's neon. 

Whose sudden current, from the nalied root. 

Washes the little soil which yet remained. 

And only more dejects the blushing flowers : 

No, 'tis the soft descending dews at eve. 

The silent treasures of the vernal year^ 

Indulging deep their stores, the still night long ; 

Till, with returning morn, the freshen'd world 

Is fragrance all, all beauty, joy, and song." 

The opportunity is also taken to defend Bishop 
Rundle, his early patron and the confidential 
friend of the chancellor, who incurred the suspi- 
cion of heresy, and it is not too much to say, that 
whilst this piece does honour to the virtues of his 
heart, it elevates his character as a poet. 

His motive for perpetuating the fame of Lord 
Talbot was wholly disinterested : it was, indeed, a 
pure oiTering to that setting sun on whose rays 
depended all the brightness of his own prospects. 
With the chancellor he lost the situation which 
rendered him independent; and though Lord 
Hardwicke, Talbot's successor, is said to have kept 
the office open in expectation that Thomson would 
apply for it, he failed to do so, and it was given to 
another. From what this neglect of his interests 
arose must be left to conjecture. It is said that he 
was listless and indifferent : but he may perhaps 
have fancied that his eminence was sufficiently 
great to have mduced the new chancellor to offer 
what his lordship imagined would have been 
sought, and possibly the Poet was deprived of the 
ofike from a mistaken pride on both sides. He 



might, however, without meanness, have asked to 
retain what he already possessed, and the other 
might have had the urbanity to ofler to continue 
that which it was ungenerous to take away; but 
he who, trusting to the merit of his works, suffers 
himself to believe that they will procure him that 
courtesy from rank which in England is' reserved 
for those possessed of wealth, birth, or political in- 
fluence, will find himself fatally mistaken, and like 
Thomson will have cause to deplore his error. 

This change in his condition did not however 
impair his energies or depress his spirits, nor did 
he alter his manner of li^'i^g, trusting probablgr.'to 
the sale of his writings to supply his wants. The 
loss of his situation as Secretary of Briefs renders 
it probable that it was about this period when he 
was arrested for debt, and was rescued from a 
spunging house by Cluin, the well known actor. 
The anecdote is highly creditable to both parties, 
and is deserving of being recorded, as the origin 
of a friendship bctweeen two distinguished per- 
sons, which ended only with their lives ; and be- 
cause it contradicts the aphorism, that a pecuniary 
obligation is generally repaid by ingratitude. 

On learning that Thomson was confined for a 
debt of about seventy pounds, Q.uin repaired to 
the house, and having inquired for, was intro- 
duced to him. Thomson was a good deal discon- 
certed at seeing Gluin in such a place, and his end- 
barrassment increased when CLuin told him he was 
come to sup with him, being conscious that all the 
money he was possessed of would scarce procure 
a good one, and that credit was out of the ques- 
tion. His anxiety was however removed .upon 
Q,uin's informing him that, as he supposed it 
would have been inconvenient to have had the sup- 
per dressed in the. place they were in, he had or- 
dered it from an adjacent tavern, and as" a prelude 
half a dozen of claret was introduced. Supper 
being over, Cluin said, " It is tune now. Jemmy 
Thomson, we should balance accounts." This 
not a httle astonished the poet, who imagined he 
had some demand upon him ; but GLuin, perceiving 
it, continued, " Sir, tlie pleasure I have had in 
perusing your works, I can not estimate at less than 
a hundred pounds, and I insist upon taking this 
opportunity of acquitting myself of the debt." On 
saying this, he put dovni a note of that value, and 
hastily took his leave, without waiting for a reply. 

Tlie most valuable acquaintance which Thom- 
son ever formed was with Mr., afterwards the cele- 
brated Lord Lyttelton, whom Pope has described 
as being 

Still true to virtue and as warm as true, 

but the precise time or manner of its corqmence- 
ment is no where mentioned. Murdoch says 
Lyttelton presented him to the Prince of Wales 
before he was personally known to him; and John- 



XIV 



MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



son states that this occurred after he lost- his situa- 
tion of Secretary of Briefs, which was early in 
1737. On being introduced, his Royal Highness 
inquired into the state of his alliiirs, and Thomson 
haviniT answered that " they were in a more poeti- 
cal posture than formerly," the prince granted him 
a pension of 1001. a year, but of which he lived to 
be dc})rived. 

In 1738 Agamemnon appeared, but its reception 
was far from favourable; and a ludicrous story is 
told of Thomson's agony at witnessing the repre- 
sentation, on the first night, being so great, as to 
oblige him to excuse his delay in meeting the 
friends with whom he had promised to sup, saying 
that his wig had been so disordered by perspiration 
that he could not appear until he had submitted to 
the hands of thp hair-dresser. It is said, too, that 
such was his excitement upon the occasion, that 
he audibly accompanied the actors in their recita- 
tion, until a friend reminded him of the indiscre- 
tion. Pope was present at its appearance, and was 
honoured by the audience with a general clap, a 
mark of approbation wliicK, though not uncommon 
in other countries, is rarely evinced by an English 
audience to a man who is merely a poet. Aga- 
memnon was inscribed to the Piincess of Wales, 
in a dedication which is good because it is short, 
and free from the fulsome panegyrics common to 
such addresses. The prologue was furnished by 
Mallet; the epilogue, which from not being as- 
signed to any other author, may in its present form 
be considered Thomson's own, is remarkable for 
being altered after the first representation ; and in 
all the editions of the play a note occurs, stating 
that the whole, excepting the six lines with which 
it commences, " being very justly disliked by the 
audience, another was substituted in its place." 
Whethei' the original epilogue was written by him 
is doubtful, and it would seem from the substituted 
lines, that those which gave place to it were ob- 
noxious from their indelicacy. With much tact 
he hails their rejection as an indication of a better 
taste: 

" Thus he began : — And you approved the strain j 
Till the next couplet suniv to light and vain. 
You check'd him there. — To you, to reason just, 
He owns he triumph'd in your kind disgust. ■ 
Charni'd by your frown, by your displeasure graced, 
He hails the rising virtue of your taste;" 

and he concluded with congratulating them on the 
improvement. 

Shortly before Agamemnon was produced. Dr. 
Rundle thus wrote to Mrs. Sandys, whence it ap- 
pears that that lady had suggested a subject for a 
play to him, which he once intended to adopt. 

''■ My friend Thomson, the poet, is bringing 
another untoward heroine on the stage, and has 
deferred writing on the subject you chose for him, 
though he had the whole scheme drawn out into 



acts and scenes, proper turns of passion and sen- 
timents pointed out to him, and the distress made 
as touching and important, as new, and interest- 
ing, and regular, as any that was ever introduced 
on the stage at Athens, for the instruction of that 
polite nation. But, perhaps the delicacy of the 
subject, and the judgment required in saying bold 
truths, whose boldness should not make them de- 
generate into offensiveness, deterred him. His 
present story is the death of Agamemnon. An 
adulteress, who murders her husband, is but an 
odd example to be presented before, and admonish 
the beauties of Great Britain. However, if he will 
be advised, it shall not be a shocking, though it 
can not be a noble story-. He will enrich it with 
a profusion of worthy sentiments and high poetry, 
but it will be written in a rough, harsh style, and 
in numbers great, but careless. He wants that 
neatness and simplicity of diction which is so na- 
tural in dialogue. He can not throw the light of 
an elegant ease on his thoughts, which will make 
the sublimest turns of art appear the genuine un- 
premeditated dictates of the heart of the speaker. 
But with all his faults, he will have a thousand 
masterly strokes of a great genius seen in all he 
writes ; and he will be applauded by those who 
most censure liim." 

.In the ensuing year, 1739, his play entitled Ed- 
ward and Eleanora was offered to the stage, but 
was prohibited from being represented. To un- 
derstand this measure, it is necessary to allude to 
the politics of the period. The heir apparent, Fre- 
derick, Prince of Wales, hved in open hostility to 
his father George the Second ; his house was the 
rendezvous of the opposition, and as the advocate 
of liberal opinions he was the idol of the whigs and 
other dicontented persons. The plot of Edward 
and Eleanora is derived from the well known story 
of Eleanor of Castile, the wife of King Edward 
the First, having preserved her husband's life in 
the Holy Land by sucking the poison from his 
wound. As Edward was then heir apparent to 
the crown, he stood in the same position as the 
Prince of Wales; and Thomson availed himself 
of the circumstance to introduce some passages 
calculated to strengthen the prince's popularity by 
encouraging the peo})le to hope for his accession. 
Of these the most striking are: 

"Edward, return ; lose not a day, an hour, 
Before this city. Though your cause be lioly, 
Believe me, 'tis a much more pious office, 
To save your father's old and broken years, 
His mild and easy temper, from the snares 
Of low, comipt, insinuating traitors : 
A nobler office far ! on the firm base 
Of well proportion'd liberty, to build 
The common quiet, happiness, and glory 
Of king and people, England's rising grandeur. 
To you, my Prince, this task, of right, belongs. 
Has not the royal heir a juster claim 



MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



To share his father's inmost heart and counsels, 
Than aliens to his interest, those, who make 
A property, a market of his honoui- V 
"Edward has great, has amiable virtues ; 
That virtue chiefly wliich befits a prince- 
He loves the people he must one day rule;._ 
With fondness loves them, with a noble pride; 
Esteems their good, esteems their glory his." 
"Amidst his many vktues, youthful Edward 
Is lofty, warm, and absolute of temper ; 
I therefore seek to moderate his heat. 
To guide his fiery virtues, that, misled • 
By dazzling power and flattering sycophants. 
Might finish what his father's weaker measures 
Have tried in vain. And hence I here attend him. 
O save our country, Edwai-d ! save a nation, 
The chosen land, the last retreat of freedom. 
Amidst a world enslaved ! — Cast back thy view, 
And trace from farthest times her old renown : 
Think of the blood that, to maintain her rights. 
And guard her sheltering laws, has flow'd in battle, 
Or on the patriot's scaflild : think what cares, 
What vigilance, what toils, what bright contention, 
In councils; camps, and well disputed senates, 
It cost our generous ancestors, to raise 
A matchless plea of freedom : whence we shine, 
Even in the jealous eye of hostile nations. 
The happiest of mankind. — Then see all .this, 
This virtue, wisdom, toil, and blood of ages, 
Behold it ready to be lost for ever; 
In this important, this decisive hour. 
On thee, and thee alone, our weeping country 
Tm-ns her distressful eye ; to thee she calls. 
And with a helpless parent's piercing voice." 

Edward is made to say, in reply, 

" O, there is nothing, which for thee, my country, 
I, in my proper person, could not suffer !" 
Many other political allusions occur, which it was 
impossible not to imderstand, and when under- 
stood not to apply ; hence the suppression of the 
piece was neither surprising nor unreasonable.* 
The remark of Johnson that it was difficult to 
discover why the play was not allowed to be acted, 
proves that he never read Thomson's works with 
the attention which was incumbent upon his biog- 
rapher. It was, however, printed with a dedica- 
tion to the Princess of Wales, the moderation of 
which is its chief merit. He says, 
■ " In the character of Eleanora I have endea- 
voured to represent, however faintly, a princess 
distinguished for all the virtues that render great- 
ness amiable. I have aimed, particularly, to do 



* Murdoch says, "This refusal drew after it another; and 
in a way which, as it is related, was rather ludicrous. Mr. 
Paterson, a companion of Mr. Thomson, afterwards his de- 
puty and then his successor in the general-surveyoi-ship, used 
to write out fair copies for his friend, when such were wanted 
for the press or for the stage. This gentleman likewise court- 
ed the tragic muse ; and had taken for his subject the story of 
Arminius the German hero. But his play, guiltless as it was, 
being presented for a license, no sooner had the censor cast his 
eyes on the hand-writing in which he had seen Edward and 
Eleanora, than he cried out, 'Away with it!' and the author's 
profits were reduced to what his bookseller could aflCord for a 
tragedy in distress." 



justice to her inviolable aflcction and generous 
tenderness for a i)rincc, who was the darling of a 
great and free .people. Their descendants, even 
now, will own with pleasure how properly this 
address is made to your Royal Highness." 

The loss of whatever fame and profit he may 
have anticipated in consequence of the prohibition 
of this tragedy, was more than made up by the 
sympathy of the public. To the latter he ap- 
peared in a light which never fails to render an 
Englishman attractive, that of a suflerer for the 
sake of freedom, and an injured patriot ! Johnson 
states that he endeavoured to repair his pecuniary 
loss by a subscription, but he says that he can 
not tell its success. Upon the same authority 
it is related, that " when the public murmured at 
the unkind treatment of Tliotnson, one of the mi- 
nisterial writers remarked, that he had taken a 
' liberty' which was not agreeable to Britaniria in 
any season." 

From this time until 1745 Thomson did little 
excepting that about the year 1740 he wrote liis 
" MasquO' of Alfred," in conjunction with his 
friend Mallet. This was composed by command 
of the Prince of Wales for the eiitertainment of 
his household at his summer residence, and was 
performed at the gardens in Clifden on the 1st of 
August, 1740, before a brilliant audience, consist- 
ing of their Royal Highnesses, the Prince and 
Princess of Wales and their whole suite. This 
piece, with alterations and new music, was some 
years afterwards acted at Covent Garden.* , 

Three letters which Thomson wrote in .the year 
1742, when he was residing in Kew Lane, have 
been printed. Two of them are addressed to Mrs. 
Robertson, the sister of Miss Young, to whom he 
was warmly attached, and whose beauty and me- 
rits he repeatedly celebrated under the name of 
Amanda. Those ladies had gone to Bath for 
their health, and Thomson laments the loss of 
their society in a lively style : a passage in one 
of them, in which he speaks of Mrs. Robertson's 
child, in reference to Miss Young, is worth ex- 
tracting: 

" lean not help telling yon of a very pleasing 
scene I lately saw. — In the middle of a green field 
there stands a peaceful .lowly habitation; ' into 



' It was entirely new modelled by Mallet, no part of the 
first being retained except a few lines. It was acted at Drury 
Lane, and published in 8vo. in 1751. Though excellently 
performed, it was not very successful. The prologue was 
written by the Earl of Corke. It has been said, that Mallet 
procured Alfred to be peiformed at Drury Lane, by insinu- 
ating to Garrick, that, in his intended Life of the Duke of 
Marlborough, he should, by an ingenious device, find a niche 
for the Roscius of the age. " My dear friend," said Gan ick, 
"have you quite left off writing for the stage?" The hint 
was taken, and Alfrecl was produced.— Bw^ro^/wa JDra- 
niatica. 



Xvl 



MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



which having entered, I beheld innocence, sweet 
innocence, asleep. Your heart would have yearn- 
ed, your eyes perhaps have overflowed with tears 
of joy, to see how charming he looked; hke a 
young cherub dropped from heaven, if they he so 
happy as to have young cherubs there. 

" When awaked, it is not to be imagined with 
what complacency and ease, wliat soft serenity 
altogether unmixed with the least cloud, he open- 
ed his eyes. Dancing with joy in his nurse's 
arms, his eyes not only smiled, but laughed, which 
put me in mind of a certain near relation of his, 
whom I need not name. What delights thee so, 
thou lovely babe "? art thou thinking of thy mo- 
ther's recovery"? does some kind power impress 
upon thee a presage of thy future happiness under 
her tender care! — I took the liberty to touch him 
with unhallowed lipSj which restored me to the 
good opinion of the nurse, who had neither forgot 
nor forgiven my having shghted that favour 
once." 

This letter contained a song, which will be 
found in the second volmne.- Another letter is 
here given at length, from its being the only at- 
tempt of a humorous nature in prose which 
Thomson is known to have made, and the man- 
ner in which he satirizes travellers and courtiers 
is amusing. 

To 'a Friend, an his Travels. 
" Trusty and well beloved Dog, Dec. 7, 1742. 

" Hearing you are gone abroad to see the 
world, as they call it, I can not forbear, upon this 
occasion, transmitting you a few thoughts. 

" It may seem presumption in me to pretend to 
give you any instruction; but you must know, 
that I am a dog of considerable experience. In- 
deed I have not improved so much as I might 
have done by my justly deserved misfortunes: 
the case very often of my betters. However, a 
little I have learned; and sometimes, while I 
seemed to lie asleep before the fire, I haive over- 
heard the conversation of your travellers. In the- 
first place, I will not suppose that you are gone 
abroad an illiterate cub, just escaped from the lash 
of your keeper, and running wild about the world 
like a dog who has lost his master, utterly unac- 
quainted with the proper knowledge, manners, 
and conversation of dogs. 

" These are the public jests of every country 
through which they run post, and frequently they 
are avoided as if they were mad dogs. None will 
converse witli them but those who shear, some- 
times even skin them, and often they return home 
like a dog who has lost his tail. In short, these 
travelling puppies do nothing else but run after 
foreign bitches, learn to dance, cut capers, play 
tricks, and admire your fine outlandish howling; 
though, in my opinion, our vigorous deep mouthed 



British note is better music. If a timely stop is 
not put to this, the genuine breed of our ancient 
sturdy dogs will by degrees dwindle and degene- 
rate into dull Dutch mastiffs, effeminate Italian 
lapdogs, or tawdry impertinent French harlequins. 
All our once noble throated guardians of the house 
and fold will be succeeded by a mean courtly race, 
that snarl at honest men, flatter rogues, proudly 
wear badges of slavery, ribands, collars, &c. and 
fetch and carry sticks at the lion's court. By the 
by, my dear Marquis, this fetching and carrying 
of sticks is a diversion you are too much addicted 
to, and, though a diversion, unbecoming a true 
independent country dog. There is another dog 
vice that greatly prevails among the hungry whelps 
at court, but you are too well stuffed to fall into that. 
What I mean is patting, pawing, soliciting, teasing, 
snapping the morsel out of one another's mouths, 
being bitterly envious, and insatiably ravenous, nay, 
sometimes filching when they safely may. Of this 
vice, I have an instance continually before my eyes, 
in that wretched animal Scrub, whose genius is 
quite misplaced here in the country. He has, be- 
sides, such an admirable talent at scratching at a 
door, as might well recommend him to the office of 
a court waiter. A word in your ear — 1 wrish a cer- 
tain two-legged friend of mine had a little of this 
assiduity. These canine courtiers are also ex- 
tremely given to bark at merit and virtue, if ill clad 
and poor: they have likewise a nice discernment 
with regard to those whom their master distin- 
guishes ; to such you shall see them go up imme- 
diately, and favyning in the most abject mahner — 
baiser leur cul. For me, it is always a maxim 

To honour lnuTible worth, and, scorning stat,e, 
P — on the proud inhospitable gate. 

For which reason I go scattering my water every 
where about Richmond. And now that I am upon 
this topic, I must cite you two lines of a letter from 
Bounce, of celebrated memory, to Fop, a dog in 
the country to a dog at court. She is giving an 
account of her generous offspring, among which 
she mentions two, far above the vice I now cen- 
sure : 

One ushers friends to Bathurst's door, 
One fawns at Oxford's on the poor. 

Charming dogs ! I have little more to say ; but 
only, considering the great mart of scandal you 
arc at, to warn you against flattering those you 
converse with, and the moment they turn to go 
away, backbiting them — a vice with which the old 
dogs of old ladies are much infected ; and you must 
have been most furiously aficcted with it here at 
Richmond, had you not happened into a good fa- 
mily: therefore I might have spared this caution. 
One thing I had almost forgot. You have a base 
custom, when you chance upon a certain fragrant 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON, 



exuvium, of perfuming your carcass with it. Fie! 
fie ! leave that nasty custom to your little, foppish, 
crop-eared dogs, who do it to conceal their own 
stink. 

"My letter, I fear, grows tedious. I will detain 
you from your slumbers no longer,- but conclude 
by wishing that the waters and exercise may biing 
down your fat sides, and that you may return a 
genteel accomplished dog. Pray lick for me, you 
happy dog, the hands of the fair ladies you have 
the honour to attend. I remember to have had 
that happiness once, when one who shall be name- 
less looked with an em-ious eye upon me. 

" Fai-ewell, my dear marquis. Return, I beg it 
of you, soon to Richmond ; when I will treat you 
with some choice fragments, a marrowbone, which 
I will crack for you myself, and a dessert of high 
toasted cheese. I am, without further ceremony, 
yours sincerely, Buff. 

" Mi Dewti too Marki. X Scrub's mark." 

In a letter which Thomson wrote Mr. Lyttel- 
ton, in July, 1743, he says he was employed in 
correcting " The Seasons:" at that time, it seems, 
he had never been at Hagley, his friend's seat, in 
Worcestershire. 

DEAR SIR, London, July 14, 1743. 

I had the pleasure of yours some posts ago, and 
have delayed answering it hitherto that I might 
be able to determine when I could have the happi- 
ness of waiting upon you. • Hagley is the place 
in England I most desire to see; I imagine it to 
be greatly delightful in itself, and I know it to be 
so to the highest degree by the company it is ani- 
mated with. Some reasons prevent my waitmg 
upon you immediately, but, if you will be so good 
as let me know how long you design to stay in 
the country, nothing shall hinder me from passhig 
three weeks or a month with you before you leave 
it. As this will fall in Autumn, I shall like it the 
better, for I tliink that season of the year the most 
pleasing and the most poetical. The spirits are 
not then dissipated with the gaiety of Spring, and 
the glaring hght of summer, but composed into a 
serious and tempered joy. The year is perfect. In 
the mean time I will go on with correcting The 
Seasons, and hope to carry down more than one 
of them vfith me. The muses, whom you oblig- 
mgly say I shall bring along with me, I shall find 
with you — the muses of the great simple country, 
not the little, fine-lady muses .of Richmond Hill. 

" I have lived so long in the noise, or at least 
its distant din of the town, that I begin to forget 
what retirement is : with you I shall enjoy it in its 
highest elegance and purest simplicit}'. The mind 
will not only be soothed into peace, but euhvened 
into harmony. My compliments attend all at 
B 



Hagley, and particularly her who gives it charms 
to you it never had liefore. 

Behevc me to l)c ever, with the greatest respect, 
Most affectionately yours, 

James Thomson." 

In 1745 his Tancred and Sigismunda was per- 
fonncd at Drury Lane with considerable applause, 
and he again found a patron in the Prince of 
Wales, to whom he says, in the dedication, " Al- 
low me only to wish, that what I have now the 
honour to offer to your Royal Highness may be 
judged not unworthy of your protection, at least 
in the sentiments which it inculcates. A warm 
and grateful sense of your goodness to me makes 
me desirous to seize every occasion of declaring 
in pubhc my profound respect and dutiful attach- 
ment." 

During the year 1744 Mr. Lyttelton came into 
ofiice, and the earliest exercise of his patronage 
was to bestow on Thomson the situation of sur- 
veyor general of the Leeward Islands, the duties 
of wliich appointment he performed, by deputy, 
and of which the profits were 30(W. a year. He 
was thus placed above want, if he was not ele- 
vated to afHuence, and this piece of good fortune 
must have been the more grateful since he was 
indebted for it to a friendship produced by his 
own merits. 

Much of the Summer of 1745, and the Autumn 
of 1746, were passed at the Leasowes, with Shen- 
stone; who, after his death, placed the following 
inscription in Virgil's grove there in commemora- 
tion of him. 

Celeben-imo Poetas, 

Jacobo ^Thomson, 

Prope fontes ille non fastiditos 

G. S. 

Sedem hanc ornavit. 

" Quse tibi, qu® tali reddam pro carmine dona? 
Nam neque me tantum venientis sibilus austri. 
Nee percussa juvant fluctu tam littora, nee quoB 
Saxosas inter decvfrrunt flumiiia valles."* 

Thomson once more experienced the uncertain- 
ty of patronage by the loss of the pension of lOOZ. 
a year, which the Prince of Wales had granted 
hiJm. This it would seem, from a passage in a 
letter to his friend Paterson, 1748, arose from Mr. 



• To the much celebrated Poet, 

James Tlimnson, 

This seat was placed 

near his favom-ite springs 

by 

w. s. 

How shall I thank thy Mtise, so form'd to please? 
For not the whisperings of the southem breeze, 
Nor banks still beaten by the breaking wave, 
Nor limpid rills that pebbly vallies lave, ' 
Yield such delight. 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



Lyttelton, wliose influence obtained it for him, 
having incurred the Prince's displeasure. West 
and Mallet, both friends of that noble minded in- 
dividual, and who wore similarly favoured with 
pensions, were deprived of them on the same day 
and for the same reason. 

Whilst at Hagley, Mr. Lyttelton's seat, in Oc- 
tober, 1.747, he wrote to his sister, Mrs. Thomson, 
and, as it is the last to his family which has been 
preserved, it will be read wdth interest. Dr. John- 
son received it from Boswell to whom that lady 
presented it. 

Hagley, in Worcestershire , 
October the ith, 1747. 

" MY DEAR SISTER, 

I thought you had known me better than to 
interpret my silence into a decay of affection, 
especially as your behaviour has always been such 
as rather to increase than diminish it. Do not 
imagine, because I am a bad correspondent, that 
I can ever prove an unldnd friend and brother. 
I must do myself the justice to tell you, that my 
affections are naturally very fixed and constant; 
and if I had ever reason of complaint against 
you, of which, by the by, I have not the least sha- 
dow, I am conscious of so many defects in my- 
self, as dispose me to be not a Uttle charitable and 
forgiving. 

" It gives me the truest heartfelt satisfaction to 
hear you have a good, kind husband, and are in 
easy, contented circumstances ; but were they 
otherwise, that would only awaken and heighten 
my tenderness towards you. As our good and 
tender-hearted parents did not live to receive any 
material testimonies of that highest human grati- 
tude I owed them, than which nothing could have 
given me equal pleasure, the only return I can 
make them now is, by kindness to those they left 
behind them. Would to God poor Lizy had lived 
longer, to have been a farther witness of the 
truth of what I say; and that. I might have had 
the pleasure of seeing once more a sister, who so 
truly deserved my esteem and love. But she is 
happy, while we must toil a little longer here be- 
low: let us, however, do it cheerfully and grate- 
fiiUy, supported by the pleasing hope of meeting 
yet again on a safer shore, where to recollect the 
storms and difficulties of life will not, perhaps, be 
inconsistent with that blissful state. " You did 
right to call your daughter by her name; for you 
must needs have had a particular tender friend- 
ship for one another, endeared as you were by 
nature, by having passed the affectionate years 
of your youth together, and by that great softener 
and engager of hearts, nmlual hardsliip. That 
it was in my power to ease it a little, I account 
one of the most exquisite pleasures of my life. 



But enough of this melancholy though not un- - 
pleasing strain. 

" I esteem you for your sensible and disinter- 
ested advice to Mr. Bell, as you will see by my 
letter to him; as I approve, entirely, of his marry- 
ing again, you may readily ask me why I do not 
marry at all. My circumstances have hitherto I 
been so variable and uncertain in this fluctuating 1 
world, as induce to keep me from engaging in 
such a state; and now, though they are more 
settled, and of late, which you will be glad to 
hear, considerably improved, I begin to think my- 
self too far advanced in life for such youthful un- 
dertakings, not to mention some other petty rea- 
sons that are apt to startle the delicacy of difficult ' 
old bachelors. I am, however, not a little suspi- 
cious, that was I to pay a visit to Scotland, of 
which I have some thoughts of doing soon, I 
might possibly be tempted to think of a thing not 
easily repaired if done amiss. I have always 
been of opinion, that none make better wives than 
the ladies of Scotland ; and yet, who more forsa- 
ken than they, while the gentlemen are continual- 
ly running abroad all the world over 1 Some of 
them, it is true, are wise enough to return for a 
wife. You see I am beginning to make interest 
already with the Scotch ladies. But no more of 
this infectious subject. Pray let me hear from 
you now and then; and though I am not a regu- 
lar correspondent, yet, perhaps, I may mend in 
that respect. Remember me kindly to your hus- 
band, and believe me to be 

Your most affectionate brother, 

James Thomson. 
To Mrs. Thomson, in Lanark. 

It was during this visit to Hagley that he was 
met by Shenstone, who says, in a letter dated 
20th September, 1747: 

" As I was returning from church, on Sunday 
last, whom should I meet in a chaise, with two 
horses lengthways,' but that right friendly bard, 
Mr. Thomson^ I complimented him upon his, 
arrival in this country, and asked him to accom- 
pany Mr. Lyttelton to the Leasowes, which he 
said he would with abundance of pleasure, and so 
we parted." 

The Castle of Indolence and Coriolanus next , 
occupied his attention, and the former, which I 
bad been in progress for nearly fifteen years, and ' 
was originally intended to consist of a few stanzas 
ridiculing the want of energy in himself and some 
of his friends, appeared in about May, 1748, and 
was the last production of his pen which he lived 
to print. The sketch of liimself is extremely in- 
teresting; though he says all, excepting the first 
line, was written by a friend, who is asserted to 
have been Lord Lyttelton. 



MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



xix 



■ " A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems; 
■ Who, void of envy, guile, and lust of gain, 
' On virtue sliU, and Nature's pleasing themes, 
Pour'd forth his unpremeditated strain ; 
The v»rorld (brsalsing with a calm disdain; 
Here laugh'd he careless in his' easy seat; 
tlere qualPd encircled with the joyous train, 
Oft moralizing sage : his ditty sweet 
He loated much to write, ne cared to repeat." 



Of the other portraits a few only have been 
identified. The sixty-sixth stanza alludes to 
Lord Lytteltori; the sixty-seventh to Mr. Cluin; 
the sixty-ninth has been supposed to- describe 
Dr. Ayscough, his lordship's brother-in-law, but 
it was clearly a picture of Dr. Murdoch, as he 
applies nearly the same words to him, in a letter 
printed in this memoir. Another was, he says, 
intended for his friend, Mr. Paterson, his deputy 
in the office of Surveyor General of the Leeward 
Islands. 

The following letter is without a date, but from 
his stating that the Castle of Indolence would be 
pubhshed in a fortnight, it must have been writ- 
ten about April, 1748. 

" Dear Paterson, 

" In the first place, and previous to my letter, I. 
must recommend to your favour and protection 
Mr. James Smith, searcher in St. Christopher's: 
and I beg of you, as occasion shall serve, and as 
you find he merits it, to advance him in the busi 
ness of the customs. He is warmly recommend- 
ed to me by Sargent, who, in verity, turns out 
one of the best men of our youthful acquaintance, 
— ^honest, honourable, friendly, and generous. If 
we are not to oblige one another, life becomes a 
paltry, selfish affair, — a pitiful morsel in a corner. 
Sargent is so happily married, that I could almost 
say, — the same case happen to us all. 

" That I have not ansvvered several letters of 
yours, is not owing to the want of friendship and 
the sincerest regard for you; but you know me 
well enough to account for my silence, without 
my saying any more upon that head ; besides, I 
have very little to say that is worthy to be trans- 
mitted over the great ocean. The world either 
futilises so much, or we grow so dead to it, that 
its transactions make but feeble impressions on 
us. Retirement and nature are more and more 
my passion every day, and now, even now, the 
charming time comes on: Heaven is just on the 
point, or rather in the very act, of giving earth a 
green gown. The voice of the nightingale is 
heard in our lane. 

" You must know that I have enlarged my ru- 
ral domain much to the same dimensions you have 



fore, so that the walk runs round the hedge, 
where you may figure me walking any time of 
the day, and sometimes in the night. I imagine 
you reclining under cedars, and there enjoying 
more magnificent slumbers than are known to 
pale chmates of the north; slumbers rendered 
awful and divine by the solemn stillness and 
deep fervours of the torrid noon. At other times 
I image you drinking punch in groves of Ume or 
orange trees, gathering pineapples from hedges, 
as commonly as we may blackberries, poetising 
under lofty laurels, or making, love under full 
spread myrtles. But, to lower my style a little as 
I am such a genuine lover of gardening, why do 
not you remember me in that instance, and send 
mie some seeds of things that might succeed here 
during the summer, though they can not perfect 
their seed sufficiently in this, to them, unconge- 
nial climate to propagate? in which case is the 
caliloo, which, frOra the seed it bore here, came 
up puny, rickety, and good for nothing. There 
are other things certainly with you, not yet 
brought over hither, that might flourish here in 
the summer time, and live tolerably well, pro- 
vided they be sheltered in a hospitable stove, or 
green-house, during the winter. You will give 
me no small pleasure by sending me, from time 
to tipie, some of these seeds, if it were no more 
but to amuse me in making the trial. With re- 
gard.to the brother gardeners, you ought to know 
that, as they are half vegetables, the animal part 
of them will never have spirit enough to consent 
to the transplanting of the. vegetables into distant, 
dangerous climates. They, happily for them- 
selves, have no other idea but to dig on here, eat, 
drink, sleep, and' kiss their wives. 

" As to more important business, I have no- 
thing to write to you. You know best. Be, as 
you always must be, just and honest; but if you 
are unhappily, rouiantic, you shall come home 
without money, and write a tragedy on yourself, 
Mr. Lyttelton told me that the Grenvilles and he 
had strongly recommended the person the gover- 
nor and you proposed for that considerable office, 
lately fallen vacant in your department, and that 
there was gbod hopes of succeeding, He told me 
also that Mr. Pitt had said that it was not to be 
expected ' that offices such as that is, for which 
the greatest interest is made here at home, could 
be accorded to your recommendation, but that as 
to the middling or inferior offices, if there was not 
some particular reason to the contrary, regard 
would be had thereto. This is all that can be 
reasonaibly desired ; and if you are not infected 
with a certain Creolian distemper, whereof I am 
persuaded your soul will utterly resist the conta- 



done yours. The two fields next to me, from ■ gion, as I hope your body will that of the natural 
the first of which I have walled->-no, no— paled ' ones, there are few men so capable of that unpe- 
in about as much as my garden consisted of be- ' rishable happiness, that peace and satisfaction of 



28 



m 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



mind, at least, that proceeds from being reasona- 
ble and moderate in our desires, as you. These 
are the treasures dug from an inexhaustible mine 
in our own breasts, which, like those in the king- 
dom of heaven, the rust of time can not corrupt, 
nor thieves break through and steal. I must learn 
to work this mine a little more, being struck off 
from a certain hundred pounds a year which you 
know I had. West, Mallet, and I, were all rout- 
ed in one day; if you would know why — out of 
resentment to our friend in Argyll-street. Yet I 
have hopes given me of having it restored wth 
interest some time or other. Oh, that some time 
or other is a great deceiver. 

" Coriolanus has not yet appeared on the stage, 
from the little, dirty jealousy of Tullus* towards 
him who alone can act Coriolanus.t Indeed, the 
first has entirely jockeyed the last off the stage, for 
this season, like a giant in his wrath. Let us 
have a little more patience, Paterson ; nay, let us 
be cheerful ; at last all will be well, at least all will 
be over, — here I mean.: God forbid it should be so 
hereafter ! But, as sure as there is a God, that 
will not be so. 

" Now that I am prating of myself, know that, 
after fourteen or fifteen years, the Castle of Indo- 
lence comes abroad in a fortnight. It will certain- 
ly travel as far as Barbadoes. You have an apart- 
ment in it as a night pensioner; which, you rnay 
remember, I filled up for you during our delightful 
party at North End. Will ever these days return 
again "? Do not you remember eating the raw fish 
that were never caught 1 All our friends are pret- 
ty much in statu quo, except it be poor Mr. Lyttel- 
ton. He has had the severest trial a human ten- 
der heart can have ;t but the o\(^ physician. Time, 
will at last close up his wounds, though there must 
always remain an inward smarting. Mitchell§ is 
in the house for Aberdeensliire, and has spoke 
modestly well ; I hope he will be something else 
soon; none deserves better: true friendship and 
humanity dwell in his heart. Gray is working 
hard to pass his accounts ; I spoke to him about 
that affair. If he gave you any trouble about it, 
even that of dunning, 1 shall think strangely, but 
I dare say he is too friendly to his old friends, and 
you are among the oldest. 

" Symmer is at last tired of gaiety, and is going 
to take semi-country house at Hammersmith. I 
am sorry that honest, sensible Warrender, who is 
in town, seems to be stunted in church preferment. 
He ought to be a tall cedar in the house of the 
Lord. If he is not so at last it will add more fuel 
to my indignation, that burns already too intense- 
ly, and throbs towards an eruption. Patrick Mur- 



* Garrick. t Quin. 

t Mrs. Lyttelton died on the 19th of January, 1746-7. 

* Afterwards Envoy to Berlin and a Knight of the Bath. 



doch is in town, tutor to Admiral Vernon's son, 
and is in good hope of ajiother living in Suffolk, 
that country of tranquillity, where he will then 
burrow himself in a wife and be happy. Good- 
natured, obliging Miller, is as usual. Though the 
Doctor* increases in business he does not decrease 
in spleen, that is both humane and agreeable, like 
Jacques in the play ; I sometimes, too, have a touch 
ofh. ^ 

" But I must break off this chat with you about 
your friends, which, were I to indulge in, would 
be endless. As for politics, we are, I believe, on 
the brirdc of a peace. The French are vapouring 
at present in the siege of Maestricht, at the same 
time they are mortally sick in their marine, and 
through all the vitals of France. It is a pity we 
can not continue the war a Uttle longer, and put 
their agonizing trade quite to death. This siege, 
I take it, they mean as their last flourish in the 
war. 

" May your health, which never failed you yet, 
still continue, till you have scraped together enough 
to return home and live in some snug corner, as 
happy as the corycium senex, in Virgil's fourth 
Georgic, whom I recommend both to you and my- 
self as a perfect model of the honest happy life. 
Believe me to be ever. 
Most sincerely and affectionately yours, 
James Thomsoi*." 

This communication discloses the reason of 
" Coriolanus" being delayed, and the same or some 
other catise continuing to prevent its appearance, 
its author was destined never to witness its recep- 
tion. • • 

It was Thomson's habit to walk from his resi- 
dence in Kew Lane, near Richmond, whenever 
the weather rendered going by water ineligible. In 
one of these journeys from London, he found him- 
self, on reaching Hammersmith, tired and over- 
heated, and he imprudently took a boat to convey 
him to Kew. The walk from the landing place 
to his house did not remove the chill which the air 
on the water produced, and the next day he found 
himself in a high fever, a state which his pletho- 
ric habit rendered alarming. His disorder yield- 
ed, however, to care and medicine, and he was soon 
out of danger ; but being tempted by a fine eve- 
ning to expose himself to the dew before he was 
perfectly restored, a relapse took place, and he was 
speedily beyond the powers of human aid. The 
moment his situation became known in town, his 
friends, Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Reid, and Dr. Arm- 
strong hastened to him at midnight ; but their pre- 
sence availed nothing, and they had only the me- 
lancholy satisfaction of witnessing his last mo- 
ments. He expired on the 27th of August, 1748, 



* Dr. Armstrong. 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



having within a few days completed his forty-eighth 
year. Of his death-bed no particulars are record- 
ed. Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Lyttelton charged them- 
selves with the care of his effects ; and on the 25th 
of October, ' 1748, letters of administration were 
granted to them as attorneys of Mary Craig, of 
Edinburgh, formerly Thomson, wife of Wilham 
Craig, his sister, and next of kin, for her use. 

It was the next object of these generous friends 
to bring Thomson's posthumous tragedy before 
the public, and Ln 1749, " Coriolanus" was acted 
for the benefit of his relations. The Prologue, 
which was written by Mr. Lyttelton, and was 
spoken by CLuin, is peculiarly entitled to notice 
from the affecting manner in which the wrriter 
speaks of the author : 

" I come not here your candour to implore 
For scenes, whose author is, alas ! no more ; 
He wants no advocate his cause to plead ; 
You will yourselves be patrons of the dead. 
No party his benevolence confin'd. 
No sect — alike it flow'd to all mankind. 
He loved his friends, forgive tliis gushing tear; 
Alas ! I feel I am no actor here, 
He loved his friends with such a warmth of heart. 
So clear of interest, so devoid of art, 
Such generous friendship, such unshaken zeal, 
No words can speak it, but our tears may tell. 
Oh candid truth, O faith without a stain. 
Oh manners gently firm, and nobly plain, 
Oh sympathizing love of others' bliss, 
Where wiU you find another breast like his 1 
Such was the Man — the Poet well you know 
Oft has he touch'd your hearts with tender woe : 
Oft in this crowded house, with just applause 
You heard him teach fair Virtue's pm-est laws ; 
For his cllaste Muse employ 'd her heaven-taught lyre 
None but the noblest passions to inspire, 
• Not one inxnaoral, one con'upted thought, 
One line, which dying he could wish to blot. 
Oh, may to-night your favom-able doom 
Another laiu'el add to grace liis tomb : 
Whilst he, superior now to praise or blame, 
Hears not the feeble voice of human fame. 
Yet if to those, whom most on earth he loved, 
From whom his pious care is now removed. 
With whom his liberal hand, and bounteous heart, 
Shared all hi_s little fortune could impart ; 
If to those friends your kind regard shall give 
What they no longer can from his receive, 
• That, that, even now, above yon starry pole, 
May touch with pleasirre his immortal soul." 

Truly was the speaker made to say he was no 
actor on that occasion, and the feeling which he 
evinced, in reciting these verses, gave increased 
eff^t to their touching eloquence. 

Within a few months of his death, his old pa- 
troness, the Countess of Hertford, stated in a let- 
ter to Lady Luxborough, that Shenstone had 
shown her his poem on Autumn, and the honour 
he had done Thomson's memory in it ; adding 
that he told her he purposed erecting an, urn to 
him in Virgil's Grove. In a letter to Shenstone 
in November, 1753, that lady, then Duchess of 



Somerset, requested him to allow Dodslcy to add 
to his collection his poem called " Damon's Bower," 
addressed to William Lyttelton, Esq., and offered 
to lend him a copy in case he had lost the original. 
These passages prove her grace's respect for his 
memory, and render- Johnson's remark, that he 
had displeased her, unlikely. Shenstone speaks 
fccUngly of Thomson's death in a letter written 
on the 3d of September following : 

" Poor Mr. Thomson, Mr. Pitt tells me, is dead. 
He was to 'have been at Hagley this week, and 
then I should probably have seen him here. As 
it is I will erect an urn in Virgil's Grove to his 
memory. I was really as much shocked to hear 
of his death, as if I had known and loved him 
for a number of years. God knows I lean on a 
very few friends, and if they drop me, I become a 
wretched misanthrope." 

The author of The Seasons is thus alluded to in 
the poem mentioned by the Duchess of Somerset: 

" Though Thomson, sweet descriptive bard ! 
Inspiring Autumn sung ; 
Yet how should we the months regard 
That stopp'd his flowing tongue 1 

" All ! luckless months, of all the rest, 
. To whose hard share it fell ! 
For sure he was the gentlest breast 
That ever sung so well. 

"He! he is gone, whose moral strain 
Could wit and mirth refine : 
He ! he is gone, whose social vein 
Surpass'd the power of wine. 

" Fast by the streams he deign'd to praise 
In yon sequfister'd grove, 
To him a votive m'n I raise. 
To him and friendly Love. 

• " Yes, there, my Friend ! forlorn and sad, 
I grave your Thomson's name, 
And there his lyre, which Fate forbade 
To sound your growing fame. 

"There shall my plaintive song recount 
Dark themes of hopeless woe, 
And faster than the dropping fount 
I'll teach my eyes to flow. 

"There leaves, in spite of Autumn green, 

Shall shade the hallow'd ground, 

And Spring will there again be seen 

To call forth flowers around. 

" But no kind suns will bid me share, 

Once more, his social hour ; 

Ah ! Spring ! thou never canst repair 

This loss to Damon's bower." 

Thomson's funeral was attended by Ctuin, Mal- 
let, Mr. Robertson, the brother-in-law of his 
Amanda, and another friend, probably either Mr. 
Lyttelton or Mr. Mitchell. He was buried in 
Richmond Church, under a plain stone without 
any inscription, and his works formed the only 
monument to his memory until the erection of the 
one in Westminster Abbey, which was opened to 



MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



public view on the 10th of May, 1762, the expense 
of which was defrayed by an edition of his works 
printed in that year in two quarto volumes, and 
published by subscription. It is situated between 
those of Shakspeare and Rowe, and presents a 
figure of Thomson sitting, leaning his. left arm up- 
on a pedestal, and holding a book with the cap of 
liberty in Ms right hand. Upon the pedestal is 
carved a bas-reUef of " The Seasons," to wliich a 
boy points, offering him a laurel crown as the re- 
ward of his geliius. At the feet of the figure is a 
magic mask and ancient harp. The whole is sup- 
ported by a projecting pedestal; and on a pannel 
is inscribed his name, age, and the date of his 
death, with the hues which are inserted at the 
commencement of this Memoir, taken from his 
Summer. The monument was designed by Adam, 
and executed by Michael and Henry Spang. 

Lord Buchan afterwards placed a small brass 
tablet in Richmond Church with the following in- 
scription : 

111 the earth, below this tablet, 

are the remains of 

JAJNIES THOMSON, 

author of the beautiful poems, entituled, 

"The Seasons," the "Castle of Indolence," &c ._ 

. who died at Richmond 

on the 27th of August, 

and was buried 

on the 29th O. S. 1748. 

The Earl of Buchan, 

unwilling that 

so good a man, and .Tweet a poet, 

should be without a memorial, 

has denoted the place of his interment, 

for the satisfaction of his admirers, 

in the year of our Lord, 

M.DCC.xcn. 

Beneath this inscription, his lordship added tliis 
beautiful passage from Winter, 

" Father of Light and life ! thoti Good Supreme ! 
O teach me what is good! teach me thyself! 
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, 
From every low pursuit! and feed my soul 
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure ; 
Sacred, substantial, never fading bliss !" 

By the sale of an edition of his works, undertaken 
for the purpose of aiding his relations, and the 
profits of his last Tragedy, a sufficieirt sum was 
raised to liquidate all his debts and to leave a hand- 
some residue.* 



* A coreespondonl in tlie European Magazine, for 1819, has 
afforded very satisfactory information about the sums wliich 
Thomson obtJiined for several of his works, and of the dates 
of the agreements respecting them, derived from an ajipeal 
against a decision of the Court of Chancery, many years 
since, on a question of literary property. 

It appears Thoinson sold Sophonisba, a Tragedy, and 
Spring, a Poem, to Andrew Miliar, 16th January, 1729, for 
137/. 10s. On tlie 28th of .Tuly. in the same year, lie sold to 
JohnMillan, "Summer," "Winter," "Autumn," "Britaii- 



In the whole range of British poetry Thomson's 
" Seasons" are, perhaps, the earliest read, and 
most generally admired ; hence it is not necessary 
to say much on the peculiar character of a genius 
so well known and so often discussed. He was 
the Poet of Nature, and his chief merit consisted 
in describing her, and the pleasure afforded by a 
contemplation of her infinite and glorious varieties. 
Studying her deeply, his mind acquired that pla- 
cidity of thought and feeling which an abstraction 
from public fife is sure to generate. She was to 
him, as he has himself said, a soiurce of happiness 
of which fortune could not deprive him; — 

" I care iiot, fortune, what you me deny ; 

You can not rob me of free nature's grace ; 

You can not shut the windows of the sky, 

Tlirough which Aurora shows her brightening face; 

You can not bar my constant feet to trace 

The woods and lawns, by living stream at eve : 

Let health my nerves, and finer fibres leave ; 

Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave." 

His pictures of scenery and of rural life are the 
productions of a master, and render him the Claude 
of poets. The Seasons are the first book from 
which we are taught to worship the goddess to 
whose service the bard of Ednara devoted himself, 
and who is there that has reflected on the magni- 



nia," Poem to Newton, the Hyimi, and an Essay on De- 
scriptive Poetry, for Wol. On the 16th of June, 1738, Andrew 
Millar purchased these Poems of John MiUan at the original 
price. On the 13th of June, 1769, Andrew Millar's executors 
sold the copyright of the wliole by Auction to fifteen London 
booksellers, for the sum of 50.5L Soon after Davis, the Book- 
seller, sold half his twelfth, for the shares were unequal, to 
Becket and Dehondt, not of the original list of purchasers, for 
2U. being the price he had paid for that proportion. 

It is a ciu'ious fact that this was a close sale ; and Alexander 
Donaldson, the Edinburgh Bookseller, who wished to attend 
was not admitted. He then published a copy of "The Sea- 
sons" at Edinburgh, stated in the title to be printed in 1768, 
the sale of which was said, however, to have begun before the 
auction of the copyright took place. 

A singular anecdote was related in the Edinburgh Star, 
dated from Logan House, G. D. October, 1821, and signed 
"An Old Shepherd," which tends to fix the authorship of 
"The Gentle Shepherd," attributed to Allan Ramsay on 
Thomson. To what degree of credit it is entitled is left to the 
reader to determine. The following is the statement o'n the 
subject which was copied into the Gentleman's Magazine, 
vol. xci. part ii. p. 351. 

"About thirty years ago, there was a respectable oH man, 
of the name of John Steel, who was weU acquainted with 
Allan Ramsay ; and he told John Steel himself, that when 
Mr. Thoinson, the author of " The Seasons," was in hi^hop 
at Edinburgh, getting himself shaven, Ramsay was repeating 
some of his poems. Mr. Thomson says to him, ' I have some- 
thing to emit to the world, but I do not wish to father it.' 
Ramsay asked what he would give him, and he would father 
it. Mr. Thomson replied, aU the profit that arose from the 
publication. ' A bai'guin be it,' said Ramsay. Mr. Thomson 
delivered him the manuscript. So, from what is said above, 
i\Ir. Thomson, the author of 'The .Seasons,' is the author of 
' The Gentle Shepheid,' and Allan Ramsay is the fatlicr of it. 
This, 1 believe, is the truth." 



MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



ficence of an extended landscape, viewed the sun 
as he emerges from the horizon, or witnessed the 
setting of that glorious orb when he leaves the 
world to reflection and repose, and does not feel 
his descriptions rush upon the mind, and heighten 
his enjoyment ■? 

It has been said that the style of that work is 
pompous, and that it contains many faults. The 
remark is partially true. His style is, in some 
places, monotonous, from its unvaried elevation; 
but to him Nature was a subject of the profoundest 
reverence, and he, doubtless, considered that she 
ought to be spoken of with solemnity; though it is 
evident from one of his verses, which is often 
cited, that he was aware simplicity is the most be- 
coming garb of majesty and beauty. Another ob- 
jection to The Seasons is, that they corftain fre- 
quent digressions, and, notwithstanding that it is 
made by an authority, from which it may be pre- 
sumptuous to dissent, the justice of the observation 
can not, perhaps, be established. Every one who 
has read them will admit that the History of Cale- 
don and Amelia and of Lavinia, for example, have 
afforded as much pleasure as any other parts, and 
a poem descriptive of scenery, storms, and sun- 
shine, requires the introduction of hiunan beings 
to give it Ufe and animation. .A painter is not 
censured for adding figures to a landscape, and he 
is only required to render them graceful, and to 
make them harmonize with Iiis subject. The 
characters in The Seasons are all in keeping: a 
gleaner is as necessary to a harvest field as a lover 
to a romance; and it seems hypercritical to say 
that there should be nothing of interest in the 
lives of the inhabitants of the villages or hamlets 
which are alluded to. 

Another test of the soundness of this criticism 
is, to inquire, whether that work does not owe its 
chief popularity to those very digressions. Few 
persons will read a vohune, however beautiful the 
descriptions which it contains, unless they are re- 
lieved by incidents of human hfe; and if it were 
possible to strip The Seasons of every passage not 
strictly relevant, they would Ipse their cliief attrac- 
tions, and soon be thrown aside. 

One charm of poetry is, that it often presents 
a vivid picture of the idiosyncrasy of an author's 
mind, and this is most conspicuous in the episodes 
to the inunediate subject of his labours. The chain 
of thought which led him astray may not unfre- 
quently be discovered, and it is on such occasions, 
chiefly, that those spleridid emanations which be- 
come aphorisms to future ages are produced. Ge- 
nius seems then to cast aside all the fetters which 
art imposes, and individual feeling usurping for 
the moment entire dominion, the mistress who has 
cheered his hopes, or the coquette who has aban- 
doned him, his fiiend, or his enemy, as either may 
occur to his imagination, is sure to be commemo- 



rated in words glowing with the fervor of inspira- 
ration. Whilst he pursues the tliread of his tale, 
wc are reminded of the Poet alone, and though we 
may admire his skill, it is only when he breaks 
upon us in some spontaneous burst of passion that 
we sympathise with the man, and are excited to 
kindred enthusiasm. 

To the power of painting scenery, and delinea- 
ting the softer and more pleasing traits of charac- 
ter, Thomson's genius seems to have been confined. 
Truly has he said of himself, 

" I solitary court 
The inspiring breeze, and meditate the book 
Of Nature, ever open ; aiming thence, 
Wann from the heart to pour the moral song ;" 

but he was incapable of describing the heart when 
assailed by boisterous passions, and his representa- 
tions of ambition, patriotism, or revenge, are com- 
paratively feeble. His tragedies, though not with- 
out merit as compositions, are declamatory, cold, 
and vapid. His heroes and heroines relate their 
woes in good verse, but we remain unmoved, and 
follow them to their fate with the indiiference of 
stoics. No man was animated by a stronger or 
more disinterested love of public freedom than 
Thomson, and he every where inculcates patriotic 
sentiments; but his "Liberty" neither stimulates 
our patriotism, nor increases our veneration for his 
idol. No writer has said more on these subjects, 
and when he hved, it was the fashion to pretend 
to be actuated by noble and generous motives, but 
it may be doubted if any poet ever produced them 
less in his own time ; and the idea that he, or any 
one else, could excite them now .is ridiculous. 
" Liberty" is, therefore, read only because it is 
one of his works, and it is not likely that it will 
ever become popular. 

TheCastle of Indolence" displays greater poeti- 
cal invention than any other of his pieces; and, 
little as allegory is suited to the existing taste, it 
must still be read with pleasure. Of his Odes and 
minor articles there is httle that need be said ; and 
part of them have already been sufficiently noticed. 
His Hymn is destined to be as permanent a fa- 
vourite as The Seasons, to which, indeed, it is an 
appropriate conclusion, and, like every other pro- 
duction of its author, it displays the Irighest ve- 
neration for the Deity. 

Thomson's only prose work is an Essay on De- 
scriptive Poetry, which was advertised as a sepa- 
rate production, in 1730, but which formed the 
Preface to the second edition of" Winter," and in 
this edition it is prefixed to The Seasons. That 
Essay is remarkable, not so much for ingenuity or 
original conceptions as for the arguments used to 
show that poetry ought to be devoted to loftier sub- 
jects than those on which many had exercised 
their talents. It was his especial merit that he 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



founded a new school in his art, and disdaining 
to follow in the path which conducted most of his 
contemporaries to fame, he, with the daring of 
genius, struck out a course for himself 

It must be evident from the letters in this me- 
moir, tliat Thomson did not excel in correspon- 
dence; and his dislike to writing letters, which was 
very great, may have been either the cause or effect 
of his being inferior in this respect to other poets 
of the last century. 

Thomson's character was in every respect consis- 
tent with what his writings lead us to expect. He 
was high-minded, amiable, generous, and humane. 
Equable in Iris temper, and affable in his deport- 
ment, he was rarely ruffled but by the knowledge 
of some act of cruelty or injustice; and as he mag- 
nanimously forgave the petty assaults which envy 
or malignity leveled at him, and stood aloof from 
the poetical warfare which raged with great heat 
during some part of his career, he was soon, as if 
by common consent, respected by all the bellige- 
rents. His society was select and distinguished. 
Pope, Hill, Dr. Armstrong, the Bishop of Derry, 
Mr. afterwards Sir Andrew Mitchell, Mendez, 
Dr. Dela Cour, Mallet, Hammond whom he eulo- 
gises in " The Seasons," GLuin, and above all Mr. 
Lyttelton, were his most intimate friends. With 
Pope he lived on terms of great friendship ; and, 
according to Dr. Johnson, he displayed his regard 
in a poetical epistle addressed to Thomson, whilst 
he was in Italy in 1731, but of which Pope " aba- 
ted the value by transplanting some of the lines 
into his Epistle to Arbuthnot," Mr. Robertson 
stated, in reply to Mr. Park's question,* whether 
Pope did not often visit Thomson, " Yes, frequent- 
ly. Pope has sometimes said, ' Thomson, I'll walk 
to the end of your garden, and then set off to the 
bottom of Kew Foot Lane, and back. Pope court- 
ed Thomson, and Thomson was always admitted 
to Pope, whether he had company or not." 

Next to poetry he was fond of civil and natural 
history, voyages and travels, and in his leisure 
hours he found amusement in gardening. Of the 
fine arts, music was his chief delight; but he was 
an admirer of painting and sculpture, and formed 
a valuable collection of prints and drawings from 
the antique. 

The besetting sin of Thomson's character was 
indolence, and of this he was himself fully aware, 
as he alludes to the failing in himself and some 
of his friends, in the " Castle of Indolence." He 
seldom rose before noon, and his time for compo- 
sition was generally about midnight. His man- 
ners are sometimes represented as having been 



• In October, 1791, Thomas Park, Esq. the poet, called on 
Mr. Robertson, who was surgeon to the Royal Household at 
Kew, the intimate friend of Thomson, with the view of gain- 
ing information about him. He committed to paper all he 
d, and it has since been primed. 



coarse; but liis zealous defender, Lord Buchan, 
asserts, on the contrary, that Lord Chatham. Lord 
Temple, Lord Lyttelton, Sir Andrew Mitchel, 
Dr. Armstrong, and Dr. Murdoch, agreed in de- 
claring that he was " a gentleman at all points." 
His intimate friend, Mr. Robertson, told Mr. 
Park, that " Thomson was neither a petit maitre 
nor a boor ; he had simplicity without rudeness, 
and a cultivated manner without being courtly;" 
and this may, perhaps, be considered the most ac- 
curate definition of his deportment. 

Much light is often thrown on a man's charac- 
ter by authenticated anecdotes. Of Thomson, 
however, very few are remembered, and the fol- 
lowing are introduced because his previous biogra- 
phers have thought them worthy of notice rather 
than from any particular claims which they pos- 
sess to attention. 

It is said that he was so careless about money, 
that once, when paying a brewer he gave him 
two bank notes rolled together instead of one, 
and, when told of his mistake, he appeared per- 
fectly indifferent, saying, "he had enough to go 
on without it." On one occasion he was robbed 
of his watch between London and Richmond, 
and when Mr. Robertson expressed regret for his 
loss, he replied, "Pshaw, I am glad they took it 
froin me, it was never good for any thing." Hav- 
ing invited some friends to dinner, one of them 
informed him that there was a general stipulation 
there should be no hard drinking, Thomson ac- 
quiesced, only requiring that each man should 
drink his bottle. The terms were accepted un- 
conditionally, and, when the cloth was removed, 
a three quart bottle was set before each of his 
guests. 

In person Thomson was rather stout and above 
the middle size ; his countenance was not remark- 
able for expression, though in his youth, he was 
considered handsome, but in conversation his face 
became animated and his eye fiery and intellec- 
tual. Silent in mixed company, his wit and viva- 
city seemed reserved for his friends, and in their 
society he was communicative, playful, and enter- 
taining. Few men possessed in a greater degree 
the art of creating firm and affectionate friend- 
ship. Those with whom he became acquainted 
at the commencement of his career loved him till 
its close, and the individuals who had given to 
his life its sweetest enjoyments watched over his 
death-bed, and became the guardians of his fame, 
by superintending the only monuments of which 
genius ought to be ambitious, a complete edition 
of Iris works, and a tablet in Westminster Abbey. 

It has been remarked that the poets of the day 
did not commemorate Thomson's genius by ex- 
ertii^ their own in honour of his memory; and 
an epigram appeared in consequence. There is 
not, however, much justice in tlie remark. Not 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



only did Collins, Shenstone, Lyttelton, Mendez, 
and others, sing his praises in most appropriate 
strains, but immediately after his decease, " Mu- 
sidorus, a poem sacred to his memory," appeared ; 
and since that time Burns, Pye, the Honourable 
Mrs. Boscawen, &c. have imitated their exam- 
ple. That lady became possessed of his house 
near Richmond, and evinced her respect for the 
Poet, by preserving every memorial of him which 
could be found. 

In a retired part of the gardens she replaced the 
little rural seat so much the favourite of Thomson, 
and hung votive tablets or inscriptions round it, 
in honour of her admired poet, whose bust on a 
pediment of the seat on entering it, had ^he fol- 
lowing sentence: 

" Here Tlwmson sung 

The Seasons, and their change." 

Within the alcove Mrs. Boscawen placed the 
little antique table, on wliich it is said the Poet 
penned many of his Unes. The inside was further 
adorned with well adapted citations from other 
writers, who have etdogized his talents; and m 
the centre, was the following inscription: 

Within this pleasing retirement, 

allured by the music of the nightingale, 

which warbled in soft unison 

to the melody of his soul, 

in unaffected cheerfulness; 

. and genial, though simple elegance, 

lived 

James Thomson! 

Sensibly alive to all the beauties of nature, 

he painted their images as they rose in review ; 

and poured the whole profusion of them 

into his inimitable 

Seasons ! 

Warmed with intense devotion 

to the Sovereign of the Universe, 

its flame glowed through all his compositions. 

Animated with unbounded benevolence, 

with the tenderest social sympathy, 

he never gave one moment's pain 

to any of his fellow creatm'es ; 

save, only, by his -death, 

which happened at this place, 

on the 

27th day of August, 1743. 

Thomson was never married, and in his letter 
to his sister, in 1747, he says he was too poor to 
form a domestic estabhshment. The only woman 
to whom he was known to be attached, was Miss 
Young, daughter of Captain Gilbert Young, of 
the family of that name, in Gulyhill, in Dumfiies- 
shire. She was a very fine young woman of su- 
perior endowments, and married Admiral Camp- 
bell. Her lover has celebrated her in several 
poems by the name of " Amanda," and so deep 
was his passion, that his friend Mr. Robertson, 
who married her sister, considers that his disap- 
pointment in obtaining her rendered him indiffer- 



ent to life. One, if not the only impediment to 
their union, was his straitened circumstances. 

Thomson was, as has been before stated, one of 
nine children. His only brother John came to 
London, and acted as his amanuensis, but being 
attacked by consumption, he returned to Scotland, 
and died young. Of his sisters, only three are 
known to have married. Jean, the eldest, was the 
wife of Mr. Robert Thomson, Master of the Gram- 
mar School at Lanark, with whom Boswell says, 
in July, 1777, he had placed two of his nephews. 
She was then an old woman, but having retained 
her memory, gave that writer many particulars of 
the Poet, together with the letter which Johnson 
has printed. Her son Robert, who was a student 
of medicine in Edinburgh, died in his father's life- 
time at Lanark ; and of her daughters, Elizabeth 
was born before 1747, and Beatrix married Mr. 
Thomas Prentice of Jerviswood. 

Elizabeth, his second sister, was the wife of the 
Rev. Robert Bell, Minister of Strathaven in Clydes- 
dale, and died some tune before 1747. His reply 
to Mr. Bell's request that he would consent to her 
nuptials was addressed to her : 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

I received a letter from Mr. Robert Bell, Minis- 
ter of Strathaven, in which he asks my consent to 
his marriage with you. Mr. Gusthart acquainted 
me with this some time ago ; to whose letter I have 
returned an answer, which he tells me he has 
showed you both. I entirely agree to this mar- 
riage, as I find it to be a marriage of inclination, 
and founded upon long acquaintance and mutual 
esteem. Your behaviour hitherto has been such 
as gives me very great satisfaction, in the small 
assistance I have been able to afford you. Now 
you are going to enter upon a new state of Ufe, 
charged with higher cares and duties, I need not 
advise you how to behave in it, since you are so 
near Mr. Gusthart, who, by his good .council and 
friendly assistance, has been so kind to you all 
along ; only I must chiefly recommend to you to 
cultivate, by every method, that union of hearts, 
that agreement and sympathy of tempers, in which 
consists the true happiness of the marriage state. 
The economy and gentle management of a family 
is a woman's natural province, and from that her 
best praise arises. You will apply yourself thereto 
as it becomes a good and virtuous wife. I dare 
say I need not put you in mind of having a just 
and grateiul sense of, and future confidence in, the 
goodness of God, who has been to you a ' Father 
to the fatherless.' Though you vrill hereafter be 
more immediately under the protection of another, 
yet you may always depend upon the sincere 
friendship, and tenderest good offices of your most 
affectionate brother, 

James Thomson," 



MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



" By last post I wrote to Jcany about the affairs 
she mentioned to me. Remember me kindly to all 
friends." 

Mrs. Bell had two sons, Dr. James Bell, Minis- 
ter of Coldstream, who published a volume of Ser- 
mons, and Thomas BeU, who died a Merchant at 
Jamaica. 

Mary, the poet's youngest sister, married Mr. 
William Craig, Merchant of Edinburgh, and died 
on the 11th of September, 1790, the day on which 
Lord Buchan celebrated the anniversary of the 
poet's birth. She had only one son, Jan.3s, an in- 
genious architect, who planned the new Town of 
Edinburgh, and died in that city on the 23d of 
June, 1795. He intended to erect a pillar to his 
uncle in the village of Ednam, and wished Dr. 
Beattie to write an appropriate inscription. The 
intention was not carried into execution, but Beat- 
tie's sensible letter in reply to the request, in 
which he ridicules inscriptions in Latin to an Eng- 
lish poet, and states what ought to be said on these 
occasions, might have been read with advantage 
by those who superintended Burns's monument. 
Lord Buchan's exuberant zeal, in honour of 
Thomson, in crowning his bust, and other fool- 
eries, approaches so nearly to the ridiculous, that 
his motive scarcely secures him from being laugh- 
ed at. The annual commemoration of the poet's 
birth is in better taste j and proves the generous 
pride with which 

" Scotia, with exulting tear, 

Proclaims that Thomson was her son." 

Lord Lyttelton has justly said of Thomson's 
writings, that they contain 

" No line which dying he could wish to blot;" 

and, considering the taste of the age in which he 
lived, this praise is perhaps the highest which 



could bo pronoiuiced. With a slight alteration 
the same eulogy may be passed on his whole life ; 
for it was free from a single act which could cre- 
ate remorse. To his relations he was liberal and 
aflectionate ; to his friends faithful and devoted: 
viewing all mankind with beneficence and love, 
he performed with exemplary but unostentatious 
piety that first of Christian virtues, to teach the 
world to rcveirence the Creator in his works, and 
to learn from them veneration for his wisdom and 
confidence in his mercy. Thus the character of 
Thomson, both as a writer and a man, seems al- 
most perfect; and whilst the admirer of his genius 
may point to his poems as some of the most splen- 
did emanations of human intellect, those who 
deem it more important to inquire how talents are 
applied than to boast of their extent, may proudly 
adduce him as a rare example of the application 
of a mind of the highest capacity to the improve- 
rhent of the taste and morals of society. His 
poems may be placed in the hands of our wives 
and our daughters even in the present age, when 
our ears are more delicate than our consciences, 
without first subjecting them to the ordeal of a 
modern expurgator. Of his productions no " Fa- 
mily Editions," which mar, if they do not destroy, 
the natural vigour of a writer, are necessary. By 
confining himself to the strict rules of propriety, 
he has placed his fame beyond the power of those 
relentless censors who have emasculated Shak- 
speare, our national bard, and Gibbon, our most 
eloquent historian. Secure from the revolutions 
of taste or time, Thomson's labours are destined 
to descend with undiminished admiration to the 
latest posterity; and it may be predicted with con- 
fidence, that future generations, Hke the last and 
the present, will have their reverence for the God 
of Nature excited, and their earliest attachment 
to Nature herself strengthened, by the Poet who 
has sung her in all her " Seasons." 



ADDENDA TO THE MEMOIR OP THOMSON. 



Since the foregoing Life of Thomson was 
printed, the author has been favoured with some 
of the Poet's letters, and other materials, by Mt. 
David Laing, of Edinburgh, who, to a laudable 
zeal in collecting information about the history 
and literature of his country, unites the greatest 
liberality, by placing the result of his researches 
at the disposition of his friends. 

The Reverend Thomas Thomson, the Poet's 
father, was licensed to preach on the 17th June, 
1691; was ordained minister of Ednam, 12th July, 
1692; and was removed to Sudden, or Southdean, 
about the year 1701 , which accounts for his son's 
being sent to school at Jedburgh. The exact 



time of his death has not been ascertained, but it 
must have been about 1720.* 

The Poet was entered a student of the Univer- 
sity of Edinburgh in 1719, but liis attendance, 
as was often the case, seems to have been irregu- 
lar, for the only subsequent notice of him is on 
the 27th October, 1724, when he performed a 
prescribed exercise, being a Lecture on the tenth 
section of the 119th Psalm. It is said by all his 
biographers, that this exercise was a poetical para- 
phrase of the 104th Psalm ;+ that the powers of 



* Notices of the Rev. Thomas Thomson occur in " Kirk- 
wood's Plea before the Kirlc." 4to. London. 1698. 
t See p. iv. of the Memoir. 



ADDENDA TO THE MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



imagination wliich it displayed, though compli- 
mented by the divinity professor, were considered 
unsuited to the sacred office for which he was de- 
signed ; that he consequently abandoned his in- 
tention of entering the ministry; and, from the 
approbation which Mr. Auditor Benson expressed 
of the piece, his thoughts were directed to London. 

This story, though not without some foundation, 
inasmuch as he wrote a paraphrase of the Psalm 
in question, is disproved by incontrovertible facts. 
No paraphrase in verse of a Psalm could possibly 
have been admitted as an exercise at the Univer- 
sityj and the subject referred to was a prose lec- 
ture, or dissertation, on part of the 119th Psalm; 
but as it may have been written in too flowery a 
style, and been too redundant in poetical imagery, 
the censure said to have been pronounced by the 
divinity professor possibly occurred. That this 
circumstance did not alter liis views with respect 
to the church is evident from his saying, in some 
letters from London, that he still intended to get 
ordained. It does not appear, from the registers 
of the University, that he ever took his Master of 
Art's degree, but he certainly added the distinc- 
tion to his name in the first edition of " Winter," 
and the omission of it afterwards probably arose 
from liis calling himself, in the title pages of liis 
works, Mr. Thomson. Among his contempora- 
ries at the University, where their friendship 
commenced, were David MaHoch, or Mallet, who 
contributed several pieces to the "Edinburgh 
Miscellany," and Patrick Murdoch, his subse- 
quent biographer; but his earfiest, and one of the 
warmest of his fidends, was Dr. Cranston, to whom 
all the following letters, as well as some of those 
which are introduced into the Memoir, were ad- 
dressed. 

The annexed letter from Thomson, whilst at 
the University, presents a favourable idea of his 
pursuits and opinions before he attained his ma- 
jority. 

SIR, Edinburgh, Dec. 11, 1720. 

I received yours, wherein you acquaint me that 
mine was very acceptable to you. I am heartily 
glad of it; and to waive all ceremony, if any thing 
I can scribble be entertaining to you, may I be 
damned to transcribe didl books for the press all 
my life if I do not write abundantly. I fondly 
embrace the proposal you make of a frequent cor- 
respondence this winter, and that from the very 
same principle you mention; and when the native 
bright ideas which flow from your good humour 
have the ascendant over those gloomy ones that at- 
tend your profession, I expect you will not be 
wanting. 

You will allege that I have the advantage over 
you, being in town, where daily happen a variety 
of incidents. In the first place you must know. 



though I live in Edinburgh, yet 1 am little con- 
versant in the beau monde,viz. concerts, balls, as- 
sembhes, &c. where beauty shines and coxcombs 
admire themselves. If nature had thrown me in 
a more soft and indolent mould, had made me a 
Shapely or a Sir Fopling Flutter, if fortune had 
filled my pockets, I suppose my head is empty 
enough as it is, had I been taught to cut a caper, 
to hum a tune, to take a pinch, and lisp nonsense 
with all the grace of fashionable insipidity, then I 
could — what could I have •done'? hardly write; 
but, however, I might have made a shift to fill up 
a half sheet with ' rat me,' ' damn me,' &c. inter- 
spersed with broken characters of ladies gliding 
over my fancy like a passing image over a mirror. 
But if both nature and fortune had been indul- 
gent to me, and made a rich, finished gentleman, 
yet would I have reckoned it a piece of my great- 
est happiness to be acquainted with you, and you 
should have had entertaimnent if it was within 
the circle of wit and beauty to afford it; but alas! 
as it is what can you expect from the Divinity 
hall or a Tippeny celH It must be owned in- 
deed, that here in Edinburgh, to us humble sons 
of Tippeny, if beauty were as propitious as wit' 
sometimes, we would have no reason to complain 
of the superior fortune of the fluttering genera- 
tion; and O! ye foolish women, who have thus 
bewitched youl is it not wit that immortalizes 
beauty, that heightens it, and preserves it in a 
fi'esh eternal bloom'? And did ever a fop either 
justly praise or admire you'? but perhaps what I 
am railing at is well ordered, and if there was such 
a famihar intercourse betwixt wit and beauty as I 
would have, wit would degenerate mto softness 
and luxury, and lose all its edge and keenness; it 
would dissolve in sighs or burst in nonsense. Wit 
and beauty thus joined would be, as Shakspeare 
has it, making honey a sauce to sugar; and yet 
another would say that beauty, divine beauty! 
enlivens, heightens, and refines wit; that even wit 
is the necessary result of beauty, which puts the 
spirits in that harmonious motion that produces it, 
that tunes them to that ecstasy, and makes them 
dart through the nerves, and sparkle in the eyes ! 
— but whither am I rambling'? What I am going 
to propose is, and you see there is great need for 
it, that you would in your next settle our corres- 
pondence into some order, and acquaint me on 
what subject you would have me write to you, for 
on news of any kind I shall soon run agroimd. 

You write to me that Misjohn* and his quad- 
ruped are making a large eccentrical orbit, toge- 



' Thomson alludes in moat of his letters to some friend by 
this appellation, and tlie Earl of Buchan observes, that it was 
" undoubtedly the Rev. Mr. J. Wilson, Minister of the Parish 
of Maxton, inRoxburglishire, a particular friend of Dr, Ci'an- 
ston of Ancrum, and of Thomson." 



ADDENDA TO THE MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



ther with two or three wallets full of books, which 
I suppose will be multiplied into several more of 
papers before they return; belike they may have 
taken a trip into China, and then we shall have 
his travels. There is one thing I hear storied, 
God forbid it be true ! that Ms horse is metamor- 
phosing into an ass; and by the last accounts I 
had of it, its lugs are shot up into a strange length, 
and the cross was just beginning to dawn upon its 
shoulders; and, besides, as it one day was saluting 
a capful of oats, wonderfvd to tell ! it fell a-bray- 
ing. I wish Nanny Noble were so comfortably 
settled as you hint. Tell Misjohn, when you see 
him, that I have a bundle of worthies for him, if 
once I had received his packet. 

There are some come from London here lately, 
that teach natural philosophy by way of shows 
by the beat of drum, but more of that afterwards. 
I designed to have sent you a manuscript poem, 
but I have no time till next week. 
Yotirs heartily, 

James Thomson. 

Dr. Cranston appears to have furnished him 
with letters of introduction, to which he alludes 
in two letters vsnritten within the fortnight which 
preceded his departure for London. The observa- 
tion on a future state, which occurs in the second 
of these letters, is the eariiest expression of the 
Poet's rehgious opinions which has been disco- 
vered; and his correspondence, as well as his 
works, proved that they never varied. 



DEAR SIR, Edinburgh 

I received yours and can never sufficiently re- 
sent the regard for my welfare that you show in 
them. You are so modest as to desire me to cor- 
rect any thing I see amiss in your letter to Mr. 
Elliot, and you will transcribe it again ; but I as- 
sure you I am not so vain as to attempt it : if there 
was no other thing to bind me to a good behaviour 
but your recommendation and character of me, I 
could go great lengths of mortification to answer 
them. Your letter to my cousin, I do not doubt, 
will be considerably useful to me, if I can find him 
out. I remember I heard that Mr. Colden's letter 
was very serviceable to George Brown. 1 do not 
doubt but if Mr. Colden was advertised, I might 
have one too, and there will be time enough, for 
our ship sails not this fortnight, yet during that 
time, if it can contribute any thing to your diver- 
sion, you shall hear from me every opportunity, 
and when I go to London, you may lay your ac- 
count of paying out some sixpences. If you have 
leisure, I could wish to hear from you before I go 
away, notwithstanding your apostolical conclusion, 
which I bcheve as sincere, and will be as effectual, 
as the best of them. 

I am yours, J. T. 



TO DOCTOR CRANSTON, AT ANCRUM. 
DEAR SIR, 

I received yours, by which I find you have been 
as much concerned as Mr. Golden indifferent 
about me; he, good man, recommends me to God 
Almighty: very well; but I wish he had exerted 
something more of the layman on that . . . for, to 
be deeply serious, the .... Father of mankind 
beholds all . . . offspring with a melting eye . . . 
needs none to prompt him to acts of goodness, so 
that I can not conceive for what purpose people's 
prayers for one another are, unless it be to stir up 
humane and social dispositions in themselves. I 
have gotten several recommendations, and am pro- 
mised more afterwards, when I am fixed on any 
particular view, which would make them more 
pointed- and effectual; I shall do all that is in my 
power, act, hope, and so either make something 
out, or be buried in obscurity. There is, and I 
am persuaded of it, I triumph m it, another life 
after this, which depends as to its happiness on 
our virtue, as this for the most part on our fortune. 
My spirits have gotten such a serious turn by 
these reflections, that although I be thinking on 
Misjohn, I declare I shall hardly force a laugh 
before we part, for this I think will be my last 
letter from Edinburgh, for I expect to sail every 
day; well, since I was speaking of that merry soul, 
I hope he is as bright, as easy, as degage, as sus- 
ceptible of an intense laugh as he used to be; tell 
him when you see him that I laugh in imagina- 
tion with him, ha! ha! ha! Misjohn, how in the 
name of wonder dragged you so much good hu- 
mour along with you through the thorny paths 
of systems and school divinity, considering the 
many hardy attempts you have had to epitomize 

and so forth — whenever I began to 

rust in these exercises, the doctor cleared 

me — well, may wit, humour, and everlasting joy 
surround you both, and if I but at any time . . . 
kindle up the laugh from London, I shall be sure 
to ha ... . returned upon .... with greater 
force. Yours, while I am 

James- Thomson 

If you have the opportunity to be at Maxton, in 
Mr. Wilson's, there you will find a treasure of a 
good comrade, called Peter Murdock, who will 
stay there these eight days. 

His first letter to Dr. Cranston, after he arrived 
in London, was dated on the 3d of April, 1725. 
It expresses many fears for his success, and is in- 
teresting from the account of the impression made 
upon him by his first visit to the theatres. Amidst 
many playful remarks, and some levity in his 
criticism on the actors, and especially on the ac- 
tresses, there is an anxiety manifested about his 



ADDENDA TO THE MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



fiiture career, which shows that the state of his 
resources and the uncertainty of his plans rendered 
his mind ill at ease. 

London, April 3, 1725. 
DEAR SIR, I wish you joy of the spring. 

I had yours some days since, the only letter I 
received since I came from Scotland. I was almost 
out of humour at the letter I wrote for to Mr. El- 
liott, since it so curtailed yours to me ; I went and 
delivered it; he received me affably enough, and 
promised me his fesistance, though at the same 
time he told me, which every one tells me, that it 
will be prodigiously difficult to succeed in the bu- 
siness you know I design. However, come what 
will come, I shall make an effort, and leave the 
rest to providence. There is, I am persuaded, a 
necessary fixed chain of things, and I hope my 
fortune, whatever it be, shall be linked to diligence 
and honesty. If I should not succeed, in your 
next advise me what I should do. Succeed or not, 
I firmly resolve to pursue divinity as the only thing 
now I am fit for. Now if I cannot accomplish 
the design on which I came up, I think I had 
best make interest and pass my trials here, so that 
if I be obliged soon to return to Scotland again, I 
may not return no better than I came away: and 
to be deeply serious with you, the more I see of 
the vanity and wickedness of the world I am more 
incUned to that sacred office. I was going to bid 
you suppress that rising laugh, but I check myself 
severely again for suffering such an unbecoming 
thought of you to enter into my mind — so much 
for business. 

The playhouse is indeed a verj' fine entertain- 
ment, though not to the height I expected. A 
tragedy, I think, or a fine character in a comedy, 
gives greater pleasure read than acted; but your 
fools and persons of a very whimsical and humor- 
ous character are a delicious morsel on the stage ; 
they indeed exercise my risible faculty, and par- 
ticularly your old friend Daniel, in Oroonoko, di- 
verted me infinitely; the gravedigger in Hamlet, 
Beau CUncher and his brother, in the Trip to the 
Jubilee, pleased me extremely too. Mr. Booth has 
a very majestic appearance, a full, harmonious 
voice, and vastly exceeds them all in acting trage- 
dy. The last act in Cato he does to perfection, 
and you would think he expired with the ' Oh ! 
that ends it.' Mr. "Wilks, I believe, has been a 
very fine actor for the fine gentleman and thej 
young hero, but his face now is wrinkled, his voice 
broken; and age forbids the youthful, clear Gibber; 
I have not seen much of his action yet. Mills arid ! 
Johnstoun are pretty good actors. Dicky Norris ! 
that little comical, toothless devil, will turn his 
back, and crack a very good jest yet : there are 
some others of them execrable. Mrs. Oldfield has ! 
a smiling jolly face, acts very well in comedy, but I 



best of all I suppose in bed ; she turns her body» 
and leers with her eyes most bcwitchingly. Mrs. 
Porter excels in tragedy, has a short piercing 
voice, and enters most into her character, and if 
she did not act well she could not be endured, be- 
ing more disagreeable in her appearance than any 
of them. Mrs. Booth acts somethings very well, 
and particularly Ophelia's madness in Hamlet in- 
imitably ; but then she dances so deliciously, has 
such melting, lascivious motiongf; airs, and postures, 
as, indeed, according to what you suspect, almost 
throws the material part of me into action too; 
indeed the women are generally the handsomest 
in the house, and better actors than the men, but 
perhaps their sex prejudices me in their favour. 
These are a few of the observations I have made 
at Drury Lane Theatre hitherto, to which I have 
paid five visits, but have not been at the New 
House yet. My purse will not keep pace with 
my inclinations in that matter. O ! if I had Mis- 
john here, to see some of their top fools, he would 
shakes the scenes with laughter. Give my service 
to him. Tell him I laugh at the thoughts of him, 
and should be very glad to hear from him. You- 
may send your letters to my mother in Edinburgh, 
in a line enclosed, desiring her to send them to 
me, which I have directed her to do, frank. How- 
ever, you may send the next directly to me, to 
your cousin's care, and perhaps I shall fall upon 
a more expedite way. I must for the present stop 
here, and subscribe myself, Yours sincerely, 

Ja;vies Thomson. 

It is said* that Mr. Forbes, who was afterwards 
Lord President of the Court of Session, was Thom- 
son's earliest patron in London. This statement 
is established by a letter from the widow of that 
gentleman to Lord Buchan, in reply to his request 
that she would furnish him with any anecdotes 
of the Poet: 

" I am sorry I can not recollect any of those par- 
ticular characteristic anecdotes your lordship says 
I told you of in the year 84, of my father and Mr. 
Thomson the poet; all the information I can give 
is, that they were intimate friends, my father hav- 
ing been Mr. Thomson's first acquaintance and 
patron on his coming to London, and the former 
having a numerous acquaintance amongst people 
of the first rank, and also amongst the Hterati folk; 
he did not fail to bring Thomson forward as much 
as lay in his power. His first introductions were 
to the Duke of Argyle, the Earl of BurKngton, 
and Sir Robert Walpole, to Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. 
Pope, and Mr. Gay. 

" I remember, previous to the pubhcation of his 
Seasons, that many long winter evenings the two 

' Memoirs, p. v. 



ADDENDA TO THE MEMOIR OF JAMES THOMSON. 



were closeted, as I suppose correcting for the press, 
and I used to see loose pages of the manuscript 
lying interlined with my fatlier's hand, who always 
expressed as great a value for Mr. Thomson's 
personal merit as for his poetical talents." 

Thomson's next letter to Cranston, dated from 
East Burnet, on the 20th of July, 1725, is of great 
value, from the information which it affords of his 
situation. It fixes the date of his mother's death ; 
it proves when he was a tutor in Lord Binning's 
family ;* and it shows that his views were then 
strongly fixed upon the church. 

DEAR DOCTOR, East Barnet, July 20, 1725. 

I CAN NOT imagine the meaning of this long si- 
lence, unless my last letter has not come to your 
hand, which was written two or three months 
since. I would have seconded it before now, but 
one thing and another, particularly the severe af- 
fliction of my mother's death, incapacitated me for 
entertaining my friend. Now I am pretty much 
at ease in the coimtry, ten miles from London, 
teaching Lord Binning's son to read, a low task, 
you know, not so suitable to my temper, but I must 
learn that necessary lesson of suiting my mind 
and temper to my state. I hope I shall not pass 
my tune here without improvement, the great de- 
sign of my coming liither, and then in due time, 
I resolve, through God's assistance, to consununatc 
my original study of divinity ; for you know the 
business of a tutor is only precarious and for the 
present. I approve, every day more and more, of 
your advice to your brother John, as to the direc- 
tion of his study ; if well pursued it is as honour- 
able, useful, and certain a method of living as one,- 
in his or my circumstances, could readily fall into 
con- 
temptible notions of things at home, and ro- 
mantic ones of things abroad ; perhaps I was too 
much affected that way, but I hope in the issue it 

shall not be worse for me 

what he seemed to be fond of, viz. surgery. It is, 
as you can not but know, the merest drug here in 
the world. Scotland is really fruitful of surgeons, 
they come here like flocks of vultures every day, 
and, by a merciful providential kind of instinct, 
transport themselves to foreign countries. The 
Change is quite full of them, they peruse the ship- 
bills and meet the sea captains. Pray let John 
know my sentiments in this matter, because through 
a giddy discontent I spoke too slightly to him of 
the study which he has now so happily espoused 
I am not no^v in London, so can not acquaint you 
wdth any tiling that passes there within my nar- 
row observation. Being there on Sunday last, I 
heard that every thing was very dead both with 



Memoir, p. viL 



respect to the scribblers of politics and poetry. A8 
for news you never want too many of them, they 
increase proportionally to their distance from their 
som'ce, like rivers, or, since I am in the way of si- 
miles, like Discord, as she 

person is to her small at first, but in a short time 
her body reaches from the zenith to the nadir, and 
her arms from one pole to the other, which is the 
case of fame. To sound as fame is, when great 
actions make a great noise. So news are a noise 
commonly about nothing. As for poetry, she is 
now a very strumpet, and so has lost all her life 
and spirit, or rather a common strumpet, passes 
herself upon the world for the chaste heaven-bom 
virgin. All my other letters from this, if you will 
favour me with an answer, shall smell of the coun- 
try. I need not tell you, I have a most affection- 
ate regard for you, and it wdll give me as real a sa- 
tisfaction to hear from you as any man : it will be 
a great pleasure to me hkewise to hear of Mr. 
Rickerton's welfare, who deserves encouragement 
as much as any preacher in Scotland. Misjohn 
and his horse also would make a very good para- 
graph : give my service to them both ; to Mrs. and 
Miss Cranston, John, &c. Yours sincerely, 
J. Thomson. 
I can not be certain whether Sir William Ben- 
net has lost post or not. Your coimtry news, 
though .they may seem trifling, yet will be accept- 
able to me. My brother will readily wait u^on 
you, who is just now setting up at Kelso. * 

The letter to Dr. Cranston in the Memoir,* to 
wliich the date September 1726 is assigned, was 
evidently the next conununication to him, and must 
have been written in September 1725. " Winter" 
appeared in the March following, that is, March 
1726, instead of March 1726-7.t 

Notwithstanding that Thomson himself says 
that the idea of writing " Winter" was suggested 
by another poem on the same subject,? yet War- 
ton states, in one of his notes on Pope, " My 
friend Mr. WilUam Colflns, author of the Persian 
Eclogues and Odes, assured me that Thomson in- 
formed him that he took the first hint and idea of 
writing his Seasons from the titles of Pope's four 
Pastorals." Warton adds, in another place, "when 
Thomson pubhshed his Winter in 1726, it lay a 
long time neglected, till Mr. Spence made honour- 
able mention of it in his Essay on the Odyssey ; 
wliich, becoming a popular book, made the poem 
universally knowTi. Thomson always acknow- 
ledged tiie use of this recommendation ; and from 
this circumstance an intimacy commenced between 
the critic and the poet, which lasted till the la- 
mented death of the latter, who was of a most 
amiable and benevolent temper. I have before me 

' Memoir, p. v. t Ibid. p. vi. J Ibid. p. vi. 



ADDENDA TO THE MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



a letter of Mr. Spcnce to Pitt, earnestly begging 
him to subscribe to the quarto edition of Thom- 
son's Seasons, and mentioning a design which 
Thomson had formed of writing a descriptive po- 
em on Blenheun ; a subject that would have shone 
in his hands." 

A letter from Thomson to Cranston corrobo- 
rates the statement that his brother John came to 
London, but that being attacked by a consumption 
he returned for the benefit of his native air.* It 
appears that he arrived in London before 1734, re 
turned early m August 1735, and died in Septem 
ber following. That letter is of interest, not only 
from the fraternal kindness which it evinces, but 
from the notice of his pecuniaiy affairs and expec- 
tations, and of his poem of " Liberty," three parts 
of which were at that time published. His ac- 
quaintance with Mr. Lyttelton seems to have been 
then very slight, even if he was at all known to 
him. 

DEAR SIR, London, August the 1th, 1735 

The bearer hereof, my brother, was seized last 
spring with a severe cold, which seems to have 
fallen upon his lungs, and has reduced him to such 
a low condition, that his physician here advises him 
to try what his native air can do, as the only re- 
maining means of recovery. In his present me- 
lancholy circumstances, it gives me no small satis- 
faction to think that he will have the benefit of 
your directions : and for me to spend more words 
in recommending him to your care were, I flatter 
myself, a superfluous formaUty. Your old ac- 
quaintance Anderson attends him: aiul besides 
what is necessary to defray the expenses of their- 
journey, I have only given my brother five guineas ; 
choosing rather to remit him the money he will 
afterwards want, which shall be done upon the 
first notice. 

My brother's illness puts me in mind of that 
which afflicted you some years ago ; and it is with 
the sincerest pleasure that I reflect on your re- 
covery : your health I hope is perfectly establish- 
ed ; health being the life of life. ■ I will not make 
you the comphments wliich I justly could upon 
that subject ; the sentiments of the heart are ge- 
nerally plain, and mine rejoices in your welfare. 

Should you inquire into my circumstances : 
They blossomed pretty well of late, the Chancel- 
lor having given me the oflaice of Secretary of the 
Briefs under him : but the blight of an idle inquiry 
into the fees and offices of the courts of justice, 
which arose of late, seems to threaten its destruc- 
tion. In that case I am to hope amends : to b^ 
reduced, however, from enjoyment to hope, will be 
but an awkward affair — awkward or not, hope and 
I (I hope) shall never part. Hope is the breath 
in the nostrils of happiness, when that goes tliis 

* Memoir, p. xxv 



dies. But then one ought at the same time to dis- 
tinguish betwixt the fair star of hope, and that 
meteor, court-expectation. With regard to the 
last, I subscribe to a new Beatitude of Pope's or 
Swift's I think it is — Blessed is he who cxpecteth 
nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. 

You will see by the three first parts of a poem 
called Liberty, wliich I send you, that I still at- 
tempt the barren but delightful mountain of Par- 
nassus. I have poured into it several of those 
ideas which I gathered in my travels and particu- 
larly from classic ground. It is to consist of two 
parts more, which I design to publish next winter. 
Not quite to tantalize you, I send you likewise 
some of the best things that have been printed here 
of late, among which Mr. Pope's second volume 
of miscellanies is eminent, and in it liis Essay on 
Man. The first volume of his Miscellany Poems 
was printed long ago, and is every where. His- 
Letters were piratically printed by the infamous 
Curl. Though Mr. Pope be much concerned at 
their being printed, yet are they full of wit, hu- 
mour; good sense, and what is best of all, a good 
heart. One Mr. Lyttelton, a young gentleman, 
and mcynber of parhament, wrote the Persian Let- 
ters. They are reckoned prettily done. The book 
on the Sacrament is writ by Hoadly, Bishop of 
Winchester. All bigots roar against it, conse- 
quently it will wprk your Misjohns. I wish I 
could send you more entertainment of this kind : 
but a new gothic night seems approaching, the 
great year, the millenium of dulness. 

.Believe me most aifectionately yours, 
J. Thomson. 

Remember me kindly to friends, and direct to 
me, should you favour me with a letter, at the 
Lancaster Coffee House, Lancaster Court, in the 
Strand, London. 

Dr. Cranston informed him of the death of his 
brother, in a letter dated on the 23d of September, 
but he did not reply to it until the 20th of October, 
as it did not come to his hands sooner, in conse- 
quence of being on a visit to Mr. Bubb Dodington, 
to whom he dedicated his "Spring," at Eastbury, 
in Dorsetshire. His reflections on death are well 
expressed, and the allusion to his own ideas of 
a future state of happiness, that it consists in a 
progressive increase of beatitude, is deserving of 
attention. This letter is valuable also, because it 
contains some lines on the death of his young 
friend, Mr. Talbot,* which were intended for in- 
sertion in "Liberty," instead of those which occur. 

DEAR SIR, 

Being but lately returned from Mr. Dodington's 
seat, m Dorsetshu-e, I only received yoru-s of Sep- 



* Memoir, p. x. 



xxxu 



ADDENDA TO THE MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



tember the 23d, a few days ago. The account it 
brought me of my brother's death, I was pretty 
much prepared against, considering the almost 
hopeless condition he had for some time been in. 
What you mention is the true point of view 
wherein to place the death of relations and friends. 
They then are past our regret : the living are to 
be lamented, and not the dead. And this is so 
true and natural, that people when they grieve for 
the death of those they love, from a principle of 
compassion for the departed, without a return up- 
on themselves, they envisage them in the article 
of death, and under the pains both real and ima- 
gined thereof; that is to say, they grieve for them 
whilst they were alive. Death is a limit which 
human passions ought not. but with great caution 
and reverence to pass. Nor, indeed, can they 
easily pass that limit ; since beyond it tilings are 
not clearly and distinctly enough perceived for- 
mally to excite thern. This, I think, we may be 
sure of, that a future state must be better than 
this ; and so on through the never-ceasing succes- 
sion of future states ; every one rising upon the 
last, an everlasting new display of infinite good- 
ness ! But hereby hangs a system, not calculated 
perhaps for the meridian where you live, though 
for that of your own mind, and too long to be ex- 
plained in a letter. I will conclude these thoughts 
by giving you some hues of a copy of verses I 
wrote on my friend, Mr. Talbot's death, and de- 
signed at first to be prefixed to Liberty, but after- 
wards reduced to those you see stand there. Per- 
haps some time or other I may pubhsh the whole. 

Be then the startling tear, 
Or selfish, or mistaken, wiped away. 
By death the good, from reptile matter raised, 
And upward soaring to superior day, 
With pity hear our plaints, with pity see 
Our ignorance of tears ; if e'er indeed, 
Amid the woes of life, they quench their joys. 
Why should we cloud a friend's exalted state 
With idle grief, tenaciously prolonged 
Beyond the lovely drops that frailty sheds. 
Surprised t No, rather thence less fond of life, 
Yet still the lot enjoying heaven allows, 
Attend we, cheerful, the rejoining hour, 
Children of nature ! let us not reject, 
Froward, the good we have for what we want. 
Since all by turns must spread the sable sail, 
Driven to the coast that never makes return, 
But where we happy hope to meet again ; 
Sooner or later, a few anxious years, 
Still fluttering on the wing, not much imports. 
Eternal Goodness reigns : be this our stay ; 
A subject for the past of grateful song, 
And for the future of undrooping hope. 

Every thing, it seems, is a subject of contention 
in this interested world. Let his effects be all 
given to his cousin, Thomas Turnbull, who so 
kindly attended him in his illness. Only his great 
coal, jockey coat, I mean, may be given to David 



of Minto, since he, Ihear, desires it. Very likely 
he took it amiss that my brother was not lodged 
with him, but my aunt of Chesters I thought more 
proper to tend and soften his sickness, she being 
a very good tender-hearted woman. Let her son 
Thomas therefore have all his effects, except it be 
the aforesaid jockey coat. I shall be glad besides 
to render them all other service. 

Please to let me know to whom I shall pay what 
is due upon my brother's account. Your good- 
ness on this occasion gives me no new sentiment 
of satisfaction; it is what I have been long ac- 
quainted with. If you would still add to your 
obligations, lay freely your commands upon me 
whenever I can be of any service to you. 

There are no news here. The king is expect- 
ed this week. A battle likewise is by some ex- 
pected; we hungered and thirsted after . . , . 
Seckendorf and Belle-Isle. But the French and 
Germans seem to have fought enough last cam- 
paign in Italy, to excuse them for this. The gal- 
lant French this year have made war upon the 
Germans, I beg their politeness's pardon, like ver- 
min — eat them up. Hang them all. If they 
make war it is to rob, if peace to cheat one ano- 
ther. Such are the noble dispositions of mankind 
at present. But before I fall into a bad humour I 
will take my leave of you, being always, 
My dear friend. 
Your most affectionate humble servant, 

James Thomson. 

London, Oct. 20th, 1735. 

Pray remember me kindly to all friends. 

To the remark,'* that a material difference ex- 
ists between " The Seasons" as they first appear- 
ed and as they now stand, it ought to have been 
added that Dr. Bell, Thomson's nephew, medi- 
tated a variorum edition of that work. In a letter 
to Lord Buchan, in June 1791, he says, 

" In the improved edition of Spring are added 
85 lines, in Summer 599, in Autumn 96, and in 
Winter 188, making a total of 968 Unes." 

In another letter to Lord Buchan, written in 
September, 1791, Dr. Bell observes: 

" I have begun to collate the Seasons — the 
edition 1730 with that of 1744. As I proceed fai 
the work, I have more and more reason to think 
that my labour will not be unworthy the atten- 
tion of the public. A great many beautiful pas- 
sages in the edition of 1730 are entirely struck 
out of all subsequent editions, and the other alter- 
ations made are considerable, far more than I 
ad any conception of previous to collating them 
with accuracy. The improvements made on the 
edition 1744 will be taken notice of; they are 
highly important." 



• Memoir, p. viii. 



ADDENDA TO THE MEMOIR OP JAMES THOMSON. 



xxxiii 



Dr. Bell did not execute his design, but a duo- 
decimo edition of the Seasons was published by 
Sibbald, at Edinburgh, in 1789, containing, at 
the end, the variations between the last and pre- 
vious impressions. 

Johnson's remark on the alteration and curtail- 
ment made by Lord Lyttelton in " Liberty" was 
too hastily repeated in the Memoir,* for it was 
afterwards discovered that there is not the slight- 
est ground for it. This had also occurred to Dr. 
Bell, who says, in one of his letters to Lord 
Buchan: 

" I am at a loss to understand what Dr. John- 
son means by saying; in his Life of Thomson, 
that Sir George Lyttelton shortened the poem of 
Liberty. I have just now before me the edition 
of Liberty, printed by Millar, 1735-1736, and, in- 
stead of abridgments after this, find that above 
two dozen of lines have been added, twelve to 
part first, ten to part second, and one to part 
third. Your lordship might, perhaps, be able to 
detect whether that arch-hypercritic be right or 
wrong. I suspect he is in a mistake, but have no 
good reason for saying so, save the opinion 1 
have of the presmnption and arrogance of the 
man." 

An edition of Milton's " Areopagitica" was 
published about 1740, to which Thomson wrote 
the preface. 

The " Amanda" of Thomson was Miss Eliza- 
beth Young, who married Vice Admiral John 
Campbell; and the late Mr. Coutts, in reply to 
an inquiry of Lord Buchan in 1792, stated, that 
the late Admiral Campbell was his "most inti- 
mate and worthy friend," adding, " Mrs. Camp- 
bell was certainly the Amanda of Thomson, and 
he wished to have married her, but his want of 
fortune proved a bar in theway of their union."t 

There is reason to believe that a fragment of a 
poem was found amongst Thomson's papers, as 
Dr. Bell remarks, in his letter to Lord Buchan, 
in September, 1791: 

" I remember to have heard my aunt, Mrs. 
Thomson, say, that the outlines of a fine poem 
were found among her brother's papers after his 
death. If this was the case, Mr. Gray, of Rich- 
mond Hill, got possession of them. The heirs 



• P. xi. 

t In the same letter Mr. Coutts thus speaks of Thomson's 
intimate friend. Dr. Armstrong: "Mr. Dimdas can find no- 
thing of Dr. Armstrong. What a pity almost all that worthy- 
man and elegant judicious poet's works have been lost, or 
fallen a sacrifice in the fire to his delicacy of mind. He had 
so correct a taste, and so clear a judgment, that he was never 
pleased in the morning with what he had written over 
night. And when he went to Germany, in the army, he 
packed up a number of things in a portmanteau, which he 
left in careless hands, and it was lost : also in Germany, upon 
some alarm from the enemy, he lost another portmanteau, 
which, I am persuaded, contained many valuable things." 



of that gentleman will be able to ascertain the 
fact ; and to put it in my power, if they are wor- 
thy of Thomson's character, to give them to the 
public. Your lordsliip has taken so much trouble 
in this little plan of mine, that I am ashamed to 
throw out this hint." 

Elizabeth, the Poet's second sister, who married 
the Reverend Robert Bell,* was, according to her 
son, Dr. Bell, " the favourite and best beloved sis- 
ter of Caledonia's bard." 

An original picture of Thomson, by Slaughter, 
is preserved at Dryburgh Abbey, the seat of Lord 
Buchan. It belonged to the Poet, and hung in 
the room he used at Slaughter's Coffee-house. 
On the back is this inscription, in his Lordship's 
hand writing: 

" Procured for the Earl of Buchan by his friend, 
Richard Cooper, Esq., engraver. Thomson and 
his friends. Dr. Anderson, Peter Murdoch, &c. 
used to frequent old Slaughter's Coffee-house, 
London, and his portrait was painted at that time 
by Slaughter, a kinsman of old Slaughter. 

Dec 3, 1812. Buchan." 

His Lordship's seal is added. This portrait 
has been engraved. 

A monument to Thomson has been at length 
erected on an eminence, about half way between 
Kelso and Ednam, but the only admiration it is 
likely to excite is for the motives of those to whom 
it owes its existence. Taste is rarer even than 
money ; and it is lamentable to reflect that, how- 
ever calculated the monuments in this country, to 
departed greatness, may be to exalt the fame of 
the deceased, they have a contrary effect upon 
the reputation of the person who superintended 
their erection. 



PREFACE, 

BY THOMSON, PREFIXED TO THE SECOND EDITION 
OF WINTER, 1726. 

I AM neither ignorant nor concerned how much 
one may suffer in the opinion of several persons 
of great gravity and character by the study and 
pursuit of poetry. ■ 

Although there may seem to be some appearance 
of reason for the present contempt of it, as man- 
aged by the most part of our modern writers, yet 
that any man should, seriously, declare against 
that divine art is really amazing. It is declaring 
against the most charming power of imagination, 
the most exalting force of thought, the most affect- 
ing touch of sentiment; in a word, against the very 
soul of all learning and pohteness. It is affronting 



* Memoir, p. xxii. 



PREFACE TO WINTER. 



the universal taste of mankind, and declaring 
against what has charmed tlie listening world from 
Moses down to Milton. In fine, it is even de- 
claring against the sublimest passages of the in- 
spired writings themselves, and what seems to be 
the peculiar language of Heaven. 

The truth of the case is this : these weak-sighted 
gentlemen can not bear the strong light of poetry, 
and the finer and more amusing scene of things it 
displa3's; but must those, therefore, whom Heaven 
has blessed with the discerning eye, shut it to keep 
them company'? 

It is pleasant enough, however, to observe, fre- 
quently, in these enemies of poetry, an awkward 
imitation of it. They sometimes have their little 
brightnesses, when the opening glocms will per- 
mit. Nay, I have seen their heaviness, on some 
occasions, deign to turn friskish and witty, in 
which they make just such another figure as 
.ffisop's Ass, when he began to fawn. To com- 
plete the absurdity they would, even in their efforts 
against poetry, fain be poetical; like those gentle- 
men that reason with a great deal of zeal and se- 
verity against reason. 

That there are frequent and notorious abuses 
of poetry is as true as that the best things are most 
liable to that misfortune; but is there no end of that 
clamorous argument against the use of tilings from 
the abuse of them'? And yet I hope that no man, 
who has the least sense of shame in him, will fall 
into it after the present sulphureous attacker of the 
stage. • ■ 

To insist no further on this head, let poetry 
once more be restored to her ancient truth and 
purity; let her be inspired from heaven; and, in 
return, her incense ascend thither: let her exchange 
her low, venal, trifling subjects for such as are 
fair, useful, and magnificent; and let her execute 
these so as at once to please, instruct, surprise, and 
astonish; and then, of necessity, the most invete- 
rate ignorance and prejudice shall be struck dumb, 
and poets yet become the delight and wonder of 
mankind. 

But this happy period is not to be expected till 
some long-wished illustrious man, of equal power 
and beneficence, rise on the wintry world of let- 
ters ; one of a genuine and unbounded greatness 
and generosity of mind; who, far above all the 
pomp and pride of fortune, scorns the little, ad- 
dressful flatterer, pierces through the disguised de- 
signing villain, discountenances all the reigning 
fopperies of a tasteless age, and who, stretching 
his views into late futurity, has the true inter- 
est of virtue, learning, and manldnd entirely at 
heart. A character, so nobly desirable! that, to 
an honest heart, it is almost incredibly so few 
should have the ambition to deserve it. 

Nothing can have a better influence towards the 
revival of poetry than the choosing of great and 



serious subjects, such as at once amuse the fancy, 
enlighten the head, and warm the heart. These 
give a weight and dignity to the poem, nor is the 
pleasure, 1 should say rapture, both the writer and i_ 
the reader feels, unwarranted by reason, or fol- I 
lowed by repentant disgust. To be able to write 1 
on a dry, barren theme, is looked upon by some I 
as the sign of a happy, fruitful, genius — fruitful 
indeed ! like one of the pendent gardens in Cheap- 
side, watered every morning by the hand of the 
alderman himself And what are we commoidy 
entertained with on these occasions, save forced, 
unaffecting fancies, Uttle, glittering prcttinesses, 
mixed turns of wit and expression, which are as 
widely different from native poetry as buffoonery 
is from the perfection of human tliinking. A 
genius fired with the charms of truth and nature 
is tuned to a subUmer pitch, and scorns to asso- 
ciate with such subjects. 

I can not more emphatically recommend this 
poetical ambition than by the four following lines 
from Mr. Hill's poem, Ccjled The Judgment Day, 
wliich is so singular an instance of it. 

For me, suffice it to have taught my muse 

The tuneful triflings of her tribe to shun ; 

And raised her warmth sucli heavenly themes to choose, 

As, in past ages, the best garlands won. 

I know no subject more elevated, more amusing, 
more ready to awake the poetical enthusiasm, the 
philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment 
than the works of Nature. Where can we meet 
with such variety, such beauty, such magnificence^ 
All that enlarges and transports the soul"? What 
more inspiring than a calm, wide survey of them'? 
In every dress Nature is greatly charming ! whether 
she puts on the crimson robes of the morning ! the 
strong effulgence of noon! the sober suit of the 
evening! or the deep sables of blackness and tem- 
pest ! How gay looks the Spring ! how glorious the 
Summer! how pleasing the Autumn! and how 
venerable the Winter ! — But there is no thinking 
of these things without breaking out into poetry, 
which is, by the by, a plain and undeniable argu- 
ment of their superior excellence. 

For this reason the best, both ancient and mo- 
dern, poets have been passionately fond of retire- 
ment and solitude; The wild romantic country I 
was their delight. And they seem never to have | 
been more happy than when lost in unfrequented 
fields, far from the little busy world, they were at 
leisure to meditate, and sing the works of Nature. 

The Book of Job, that noble and ancient poem, 
wliich even strikes so forcibly through a mangling 
translation, is crowned with a description of the 
grand works of Nature, and that, too, from the 
mouth of their Almighty Author. 

It was this devotion to the works of Nature, that, 
in his Georgics, inspired the rural Virgil to write 



COMMENDATORY VERSES. 



so inimitably; and who can forbear joining with 
him in this declaration of his, which has been the 
rapture of ages'? 

Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musse, 
Quarum sacra fero ingenti peixulsus aniore, 
Accipiant; Ceelique vias et sidera nionstrent, 
DefectUB solis varies, lunsque labores : 
TJnde tremor terris : qua vi maria alta tumescant 
Obicibus niptis, rursusque in seipsa residant : 
Quill tantum oceano properent se tingere solea 
Hyberni : vel qucB tardis mora noctibus obstat. 
Sin, has ne possim natuns accedere panes, 
Frigidus obstiterit circum praecordia sanguis ; 
Rura mihi et rigui placeant in valibus amiiis 
Flumina amem silvasque inglorius. 

Which may be Englished thus : 

Me may the Muses, my supreme delight ! 

Whose priest I am, smit with immense desire, 

Snatch to their care ; the starey tracts disclose, 

The sun's distress, the labours of the moon ; 

Whence the earth quakes ; and by what force the deeps 

Heave at the rocljs, then on themselves reflow ; 

Why winter-suns to plunge in ocean speed ; 

And what retai'ds the lazy summer-night. 

But, lest I should these mystic truths attain. 

If the cold current freezes round my heart. 

The country me, the broolcy vales may please 

Mid woods and streams unknown. 

I can not put an end to this Preface without 
taking the freedom to- offer my most sincere and 
grateful acknowledgficnts to all those gentlemen 
who have given my first performance so favourable 
a reception. 

It is with the best pleasure, and a rising ambi- 
tion, that I reflect on the honour Mr. Hill has 
done me in recommending my poem to the world 
after a manner so peculiar- to liimself, than whom 
none approves and obhges with a nobler and more 
unreserving promptitude of soul. His favours are 
the very smiles of humanity, graceful and easy, 
flowing from and to the heart. This agreeable 
train of thought awakens naturally in my irdnd 
all the other parts of his great and amiable cha- 
racter, which I know not well how to quit, and yet 
dare not here pursue. 

Every reader who has a heart to be moved, must 
feel the most gentle power of poetry in the Unes 
with which Mira has graced my poem. 

It perhaps might be reckoned vanity in me, to 
say how -richly I value the approbation of a gentle- 
man of Mr. Malloch's fine and exact taste, so just- 
ly dear and valuable to all those that have the hap- 
piness of knowing him; and who, to say no more 
of him, will abundantly make good to the world 
the early promise his 4*imired piece of William 
and Margaret has given. 

I only wish my description of the various ap- 
pearance of Nature in Winter, and, as I purpose, 
in the other Seasons, may have the good fortune 
29 



to give the reader some of that true pleasure which 
they, in their agreeable succession, arc always sure 
to inspire into my heart. 



COMMENDATORY VERSES. 

TO MR. THOMSON, 

DOUBTFUL TO WHAT PATRON IIF, SHOULD ADDRESS 
HIS POEM CALLED WINTER. 

Some peers, perhaps, have skill to judge, 'tis true; 
Yet no mean prospect bounds the Muse's view. 
Finn in your native strength, thus nobly shown, 
Slight such delusive props, and stand alone; 
Fruitless dependance oft has found too late 
That greatness rarely dwells among the great. 
Patrons are Nature's nobles, not the state's, 
And wit's a title no broad seal creates: 
E'en kings, from whose high source all honours 

flow. 
Are poor m power when they would souls bestow. 

Heedless of fortune then look down on state, 
Balanced within by reason's conscious weight: 
Di^'inely proud of independent will, 
Prince of your passions, live their sovereign still. 
He who stoops safe beneath a patron's shade 
Shines, like the moon, but by another's aid ; 
Free truth should open, and unbias'd steer. 
Strong as heaven's heat, and as its brightness clear. 

O, swell not then the bosoms of the vain 
With false conceit that you protection gain ; 
Poets, like you, their own protectors stand. 
Placed above aid from pride's inferior hand. 
Time, that devours the lord's unlasting name. 
Shall lend her somrdless depth to float your fame. 
• 

On verse like yours no smiles from power expect, 
Born with a worth that doomed you to neglect ; 
Yet, would your wit be noised, reflect no more. 
Let the smooth veil of flattery silk 3rou o'er ; 
Aptly attach'd the court's soft climate try. 
Learn your pen's duty from your patron's eye. 
Ductile of soul, each pliant purpose wind. 
And, tracing interest close, leave doubt behind : • 
Then shaU your name strilce loud the public ear; 
For through good fortmie virtue's self shines clear. 

But, in defiance of our taste to charm ! 
And fancy's force with judgment's caution arm! 
Disturb, with busy thought, so lull'd an age! 
And plant strong meanings o'er the peaceful page ! 
Impregnate sound with sense I teach nature art ! 
And warm e'en Winter till it thaws the heart! 
Howcouldyou thusyour country's rules transgress!, 
Yet think of patrons, and presume success 1 

A. HlLL, 



COMMENDATORY VERSES. 



TO MR. THOMSON, 

ON HIS BLOOMING WINTEH. 

Oh gaudy summer, veil thy blushing head. 
Dull is thy sun, and all thy beauties dead; 
From thy short nights, and noisy mirthful day. 
My kindling thoughts, disdainful, turn away. 

Majestic Winter with his floods appears. 
And o'er the worl3 his awful terrors rears : 
From north to south liis train dispreading slow. 
Blue frost, bleak rain, and fleecy-footed snow. 

In thee, sad Winter, I a kindred find. 
Far more related to poor human kind ; 
To thee my gently drooping head I bend, 
Thy sigh my sister, and thy tear my friend ; 
On thee I muse, and in thy hastening sun. 
See hfe expiring ere 'tis well begun. 

Thy sickening ray and venerable gloorn 
Shows .life's last scene, the solitary tomb ; 
But thou art safe, so shaded by the bays, 
Immortal in the noblest poet's praise ; 
From time and death he will thy beauties save; 
Oh may such numbers weep o'er Mira's grave ! 
Secure and glorious would her ashes he, 
Till Nature fade — and all the Seasons die. 

MiRA. 



TO MR. THOMSON, 

ON HIS PUBLISHING THE SECOND EDITION OF HIS 
POEM, CALLED WINTER. 

Charm'd and instructed by thy powerfiil song, 
I have, unjust, withheld my thanks too long; 
This debt of gratitude at length receive, • 
Warmly sincere, 'tis all thy friend can give. 

Thy worth new lights the poet's darken'd name. 
And shows it, blazing, in the brightest fame. 
Through all thy various Winter full are found. 
Magnificence of thought and pomp of sound. 
Clear depth pf, sense, expression's heightening 

grace, •.. *.■ 
And goodness, eminent in power and place ! 



For this, the wise, the knowing few commend 
With zealous joy — for thou art virtue's friend; 
Even age and truth severe, in reading thee, 
That Heaven inspire's the muse, convinced agree. 

Thus I dare sing of merit faintly known, 
Friendless — supported by itself alone : 
For those whose aided will could lift thee high 
In fortune, see not with discernment's eye. 
Nor place nor power bestows the sight refined, 
And wealth enlarges not the narrow mind. 

How couldst thou think of such emd write so 
wein 
Or hope reward by daring to excel ! 
Unskilful of the age ! untaught to gain 
Those favours which the fawning base obtain! 
A thousand shameful arts to thee unknown, 
Falsehood and flattery must be first thy own. 
If thy loved country lingers in thy breast. 
Thou must drive out the unprofitable guest ; 
Extinguish each bright aim that kindles there. 
And centre in thyself thy every care. 

But hence that vileness — pleased to charm man- 
kind, 
Cast each low thought of interest far behind: 
Neglected into noble scorn — away 
From that worn path where vulgar poets stray; 
Inglorious herd ! profuse of^tenal lays ! 
And by the pride despised, mey stoop to praise ! 
Thou, careless of the statesman's smile or frown. 
Tread that straight way that leads to fair renown. 
By virtue guided, and by glory fired, 
And by reluctant envy slow admired. 
Dare to dowel], and in thy boundless mind 
Embrace the general welfare of thy kind ; 
Enrich them with the treasures of thy thought, 
What Heaven approves and what the Muse has 

taught. 
Where thy power fails, unable to go on, 
Ambitious, greatly will the good undone. 
So shall thy name, through ages, brightening 

shine. 
And distant praise from worth unborn be thine : 
So shalt thou, happy ! merit Heaven's regard, 
And find a glorious, though a late reward. 

D. Malloch. 



THE 



POETICAL WORKS 



^^sffins fflij!i©sas®sri 



THE SEASONS. 



Spring* 



Et nunc omnis ager, nunc omnis paitm'it arbos, 

Nunc froudent silvae, nunc formosissimus annus. — Virg. 



TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
THE COUNTESS OF HERTFORD. 



ARGUMENT. 

The subject proposed. Inscribed to the Countess of Hertford. The Season is described a.s it affects the various parts of 
Nature, ascending from the lower to the higher ; with digressions arising iVom tlie subject. Its influence on inanimai c. J.^at- 
ter, on Vegetables, on brute Animals, and last on Man ; concluding with a dissuasive from the wild and irregular passion of 
Love, opposed to that of a pure and happy kind. 

and adorn society. To whom then could lliese 
sheets be more properly inscribed than to you, Ma- 
dam, whose influence in the world can give them 
the protection they want, wHIe your fine imagi- 
nation, and intimate acquaintance with rural na- 
ture, will recommend them with the greatest ad- 
vantage to your favourable notice 1 Happy ! if I 
hit any of those images, and correspondent senti- 
ments, your calm evening walks, in the most de- 
lightful retirement, have oft inspired. I could add 
too, that as tliis Poem grew up under your encour- 
agement, it has therefore a natural claim to your 
patronage. Should you read it with approbation, 
its music shall not droop ; and should it have the 
good fortune to deserve your smiles, its roses shall 
not wither. But, where the subject is so tempting, 
lest I begin my Poem before the Dedication is end- 
ed, I here break short, and beg leave to subscribe 
myself, with the highest respect, 
Madam, 

Your most obedient, humble servant, 
James Thomson. 



MADAM, 

I HAVE always observed that, in addresses of 
this nature, the general taste of the world demands 
ingenious turns of wit, and disguised artful peri- 
ods, instead of an open sincerity of sentiment flow- 
ing in a plain expression. From what secret im- 
patience of the justest praise, when bestowed on 
others, this often proceeds, rather than a pretend- 
ed dehcacy, is beyond my purpose here to inquire. 
But as notlung is more foreign to the disposition 
of a soul sincerely pleased with the contemplation 
of what is beautiful, and excellent, than wit and 
turn ; I have too much respect for your Ladyship's 
character, either to touch it in that gay, trifling 
manner, or ventu,re on a particular detail of those 
truly amiable qualities of which it is composed. A 
mind exalted, pure, and elegant, a heart overflow- 
ing with humanity, and the whole train of virtues 
thence derived, that give a pleasing spirit to con- 
versation, an engaging simplicity to the manners, 
and form the life to harmony, are rather to be felt, 
and silently admired, than expressed. I have at- 
tempted, in the following Poem, to paint some of 
the most tender beauties and deUcate appearances 
of nature ; how much in vain, your Ladyship's taste 
will, I am afraid, but too soon discover : yet would 
it still be a much easier task to find expression for 
all that variety of colour, form, and fragrance, 
which enrich the season I describe, than to speak 
the many nameless graces and native riches of a 
mind capable so much at once to relish solitude, 



SPRING. 

Come, gentle Spring ! ethereal MOdness ! come, 
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud. 
While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower 
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend. 

O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts 
With unaffected grace, or walk the plain 
With innocence and meditation join'd 
In soft assemblage, listen to my song, 
Which thy own Season paints ; when Nature all 
Is blooming and benevolent, like thee. 



THOMSON'S "WORKS. 



And see where surly Winter passes off, 
Far to the north, and calls liis ruffian blasts: 
His blasts obey, and qxiit the howling hill, 
The shatter'd forest, and the ravaged vale ; 
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch, 
Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost, 
The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. 

As yet the trembling year is unconlirm'd, 
And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze, 
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets 
Deform the day delightless: so that scarce 
The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulf d. 
To shake the sounding marsh; or from the shore 
The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath. 
And sing their wild notes to the listening waste. 

At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun. 
And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more 
The expansive atmosphere is cramp'd with cold; 
But, full of life and vivifying soul. 
Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them 

thin, 
Fleecy, and white, o'er all-surrounding heaven. 

Forth fly the tepid airs: and unconfined. 
Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays. 
Joyous, the impatient husbandman perceives 
Relenting Natiure, and his lusty steers 
Drives from their stalls, to where the well used 

plough 
Lies in the furrow, loosen'd from the frost. 
There, imrefusing, to the harness'd yoke 
They lend their shoulders, and begin their toil, 
Cheer'd by the simple song and soaring lark. 
Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share 
The master leans, removes the obstructing clay. 
Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the 
glebe. 

While through the neighbouring fields the 
sower stalks. 
With measured steps, and liberal throws the grain 
Into the fruitful bosom of the ground ; 
The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene. 

Be gracious. Heaven ! for now laborious Man 
Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow ! 
Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend ! 
And temper all, thou world-reviving sun. 
Into the perfect year! Nor ye who live 
In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride, 
Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear: 
Such themes as these the rural Maro sung 
To wide-imperial Rome, in the full height 
Of elegance and taste, by Greece refined. 

In ancient times the sacred plough employ'd 
The kings and awful fathers of mankind: 
And some, with whom compared your insect- 
tribes 
Arc but the beings of a summer's day. 
Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm 
Of mighty war; then, with unwearied hand, 
Disdaining little delicacies seized 



The plough, and greatly independent Uved. 

Ye generous Britons, venerate the plough ! 
And o'er your hills, and long withdrawing vales, 
Let Autumn spread his treasures to the sun. 
Luxuriant and unbounded: as the sea, 
Far through his azure turbulent domain. 
Your empire owns, and from a thousand shores 
Wafts all the pomp of life into your ports ; 
So with superior boon may your rich soil. 
Exuberant, Nature's better blessings pour 
O'er every land, the naked nations clothe. 
And be the ex:haustless granary of a world ! 

Nor only through the lenient air tliis change, 
Delicious, breathes; the penetrative sun. 
His force deep-darting to the dark retreat 
Of vegetation, sets the streaming Power 
At large, to wander o'er the verdant earth. 
In various hues ; but chiefly thee, gay green! 
Thou smiling Nature's universal robe! 
United light and shade ! where the sight dwells 
With growing strength, and ever-new delight. 

From the moist meadow to the wither'd hill. 
Led by the broeze, the vivid verdure runs. 
And swells, and deepens, to the cherish'd eye. 
The hawthorn whitens ; and the juicy groves 
Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees. 
Till the whole leafy forest stands display'd. 
In full luxuriance to the sighing gales ; 
Where the deer rustle through the twining brake. 
And the birds sing conccal'd. At once array 'd 
In all the colours of the flushing year. 
By Nature's swift and secret working hand, 
The garden glows, and fills the hberal air 
With lavish fragrance ; while the promised fruit 
Lies yet a little embryo, unperceived, 
Witnin its crimson folds. Now from the town 
Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps, 
Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields, 
Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling 

drops. 
From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze 
Of sweetbriar hedges I pursue my walk ; 
Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascend 
Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains. 
And see the country, far diflfused around. 
One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower 
Of mingled blossoms; where the raptured eye 
Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath 
The fair profusion, yellow Autunm spies. 

If, brush'd from Russian wilds, a cutting gale 
Rise not, and scatter from his humid vsdngs 
The clammy mildew; or, dry-blowing, breathe 
Untimely frost; before whose baleful blast. 
The full-blown Spring through all her foliage 

shrinks. 
Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste. 
For oft, engcnder'd by the hazy north. 
Myriads on myriads, insect armies warp 
Keen in the poison'd breeze ; and wasteful eat, 



SPRING. 



Thfbugh buds and bark, into the blacken'd core, 

Their eager way. A feeble race ! yet oft 

The sacred sons of vengeance; on whose course 

Corrosive Famine waits, and kUls the year. 

To check tliis plague, the skilful farmer chaff 

And blazing straw before his orchard burns ; 

Till, all involved in smoke, the latent foe 

From every cranny suffocated falls: 

Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust 

Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe : 

Or, when the cnvcnom'd leaf begins to curl, 

With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest; 

Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill, 

The little trooping birds unwisely scares. 

Be patient, swains ; these cruel ' seeming vdnds 
Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep repress'd 
Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharged 

with rain, 
That o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne, 
In endless train, would quench the summer-blaze; 
And, cheerless, drown the crude unripen'd- year. 

The north-east spends his rage; he now shut 

up 
Within his iron cave, the effusive south 
Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of Heaven 
Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers dis- 
tent. 
At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise, 
Scarce staining ether; but by swift degrees. 
In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails 
Along the loaded skies, and mingling deep 
Sits on the horizon round a settled gloom: 
Not such as wintry-storms on mortals shed, 
Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind. 
And full of every hope and every joy, 
The wish of Nature. Gradual sinks the breeze 
Into a perfect calm; that not a breath 
Is heard to quiver through the closing woods, 
Or rustling turn the many-twinkhng leaves 
Of aspin tall. Th' uncurling floods, diffused 
In glassy breadth, .seem through delusive lapse 
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all 
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks 
Drop the dry sprig, and mute-imploring eye 
The falling verdure. Hush'd in short suspense. 
The plumy people streak their wings with oil, 
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off: 
And wait the approaching sign to strike, at once, 
Into the general choir. ■ E'en mountains, vales, 
And forests, seem, impatient, to demand 
The promised sweetness. Man superior walks 
Amid the glad creation, musing praise, 
. And looking lively gratitude. At last, 
The clouds consign their treasures to the fieldsj 
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool 
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow, 
In large effusion, o'er the freshen'd world. 
The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard, 
By such as wander through the forest walks, | 



Beneath the vunbragcous multitude of leaves. 
But who can hold the shade, while Heaven de- 
scends 
In universal bounty, shedding herbs, 
And fruits, and flowers, on Nature's ample lapl 
Swift fancy fired anticipates their growth; 
And, while the milky nutriment distils, 
Beholds the kindling country colour round. 

Thus all day long the full-distended clouds 
Indulge their genial stores, and well-shower'd 

earth 
Is deep enrich'd with vegetable life; 
Till, in the western sky, the downward sun 
Looks out, effulgent, from amidst the flush 
Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam. 
The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes 
The illumined mountain, through the forest 

streams, 
Shakes on the floods, and in the yellow mist, 
Far smoking o'er the interminable plain, 
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems. 
Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs 

around. 
Full swell the woods; their every music wakes, 
Mix'd in wild concert vnth the warbling brooks 
Increased, the distant bleatings of the hills, 
And hollow lows responsive from the vales. 
Whence blending all the sweeten'd zephyr springs. 
Meantime, refracted from yon eastern cloud, 
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow 
Shoots up immense ; and every hue unfolds, 
In fair proportion, running from the red 
To where the violet fades into the sky. 
Here, awful Newton, the dissolving clouds 
Form, fronting on the sun, thy showery prism; 
And to the sage instructed eye unfold 
The various twine of light, by thee disclosed 
From the white mingling maze. Not so the boy; 
He wondering views the bright enchantment bend. 
Delightful o'er the radiant fields, and runs 
To catch the falling glorj ; but amazed 
Beholds the amusive arch before him fly, 
Then vanish quite away. Still night succeeds, 
A softened shade, and saturated earth 
Awaits the morning beam, to give to light, 
Raised through ten thousand different plastic 

tubes, 
The balmy treasures of the former day. 
■ Then spring the living herbs, profusely wild, ' 
O'er all the deep green earth, beyond the power 
Of botanist to number up their tribes : 
Whether he steals along the lonely dale, 
In silent search; or through the forest, rank 
With what the dull incurious weeds account. 
Bursts liis blind way; or climbs the mountain 

rock, 

Fired by the nodding verdure of its brow. 
With such a liberal hand has nature flung 
Their seeds abroad blown them about in winds, 



i 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Innumerous mix'd them with the nursing mould, 
The moistening current, and proUfic rain. 

But who their virtues can declare 1 who pierce, 
With vision pure, into these secret stores 
Of health, and life, and joy 1 the food of Man, 
While yet he lived in innocence, and told 
A length of golden years; unflesh'd in blood, 
A stranger to the savage arts of Ufe, 
Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease; 
The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world. 

The first fresh dawn then waked the gladden'd 
race 
Of uncorrupted Man, nor blush'd to see 
The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam; 
For their light slumbers gently fumed away; 
And up they rose as vigorous as the sun. 
Or to the culture of the willing glebe, 
Or to the cheerful tendance of the flock. 
Meantime the' song went round; and dance and 

sport. 
Wisdom and friendly talk, successive, stole 
Their hours away: while in the rosy vale 
Love breath'd liis infant sighs, from anguish free. 
And full replete with bliss ; save the sweet pain, 
That inly thrilhng, but exalts it more. 
Not yet injurious act, nor surly deed, 
Was known among those happy sons of Heaven; 
For reason and benevolence were law. 
Harmonious Nature too look'd smiling on. 
Clear shone the sides, cool'd with eternal gales. 
And balmy spirit aU. The youthful sun 
Shot his best rays, and still the gracious clouds 
Dropp'd fatness down ; as o'er the swelling mead 
The herds and flocks, commixing, play'd secure. 
This when, emergent from the gloomy wood. 
The glaring lion saw, his horrid heart 
Was meeken'd, and he join'd his sullen joy; 
For music held the whole in perfect peace : 
Soil sigh'd the flute; the tender voice was heard. 
Warbling the varied heart; the 'woodlands round 
Applied their choir; and winds and waters flow'd 
In consonance. Such were those prime of da3^s. 

But now those white unblemish'd manners, 
whence 
The fabUng poets took their golden age, 
Are found no more amid these iron times. 
These dregs of hfe! now the distemper'd mind 
Has lost that concord of harmonious powers, 
Which forms the soul of happiness; and all 
Is oflf the poise within : the passions all 
Have burst tlieir bounds; and reason half extinct. 
Or impotent, or else approving, sees 
The foul disorder. Senseless, and deform'd. 
Convulsive anger storms at large ; or pale. 
And silent, settles into fell revenge. 
Base envy withers at another's joy, 
And hates that excellence it can not reach. 
Desponding fear, of feeble fancies full, 
Weak and unmanly, loosens every power. 



E'en love itself is bitterness of soul, * 

A pensive anguish pining at the heart; 
, Or, sunk to sordid interest, feels no more 
That noble wish, that never cloy'd desire. 
Which, selfish joy disdaining, seeks alone 
To bless the dearer object of its flame. 
Hope sickens with extravagance ; and grief. 
Of life impatient, into madness swells ; 
Or in dead silence wastes the weeping hours. 

These, and a thousand mixt emotions more, 
From ever changing views' of good and ill, 
Form'd infinitely various, vex the mind 
With endless storm: whence, deeply rankling, grows 
The partial thought, a listless unconcern. 
Cold, and averting from our neighbour's good ; 
Then dark disgust, and hatred, winding wiles. 
Coward deceit, and ruffian violence : 
At last, extinct each social feeling, fell 
And joyless inhumanity pervades 
And petrifies the heart. Nature disturb'd 
Is deem'd vindictive, to have chang'd her course. 

Hence, in old dusky time, a deluge came : 
When the deep-cleft disparting orb, that arch'd 
The central waters round, impetuous rush'd. 
With universal burst, into the gulf. 
And o'er the high piled hills of fractured earth 
Wide dash'd the waves, in undulation vast ; 
Till, from the centre to the streaming clouds, 
A shoreless ocean tumbled round the globe. 

The Seasons since have, with severer sway, 
Oppress'd a broken world : the Winter keen 
Shook forth liis waste of snows : and Summer shot 
His pestilential heats. Great Spring, before, 
Green'd all the year; and fi'uits and blossoms 

blush'd. 
In social sweetness, on the selfsame bough. 
Pure was the temperate air ; an even calm 
Perpetual reign'd, save what the zephyrs bland 
Breathed o'er the blue expanse : for then nor storms 
Were taught to blow, nor hurricanes to rage ; 
Sound slept the waters ; no sulphureous glooms 
Swell'd in the sky, and sent the lightning forth ; 
While sickly damps and cold autumnal fogs 
Hung not, relaxing, on the springs of Ufa* 
But now, of turbid elements the sport. 
From clear to cloudy tost, from hot to cold, 
And dry to moist, with inward-eating change. 
Our drooping days are dwindled down to nought, 
Their period finish'd ere 'tis well begun. 

And yet the wholesome herb neglected dies ; 
Though with the pure exhilarating soul 
Of nutriment and health, and vital powers, 
Beyond the search of art, 'tis copious blest. 
For, with hot ravin fired, ensanguined man 
Is now become the lion of the plain. 
And -worseii' The wolf, who from the nightly fold 
Fierce drags the bleating prey, ne'er drunk her 

milk. 
Nor wore her warming fleece : nor has the steer. 



SPRING. 



At whose strong chest the deadly tiger hangs, 
E'er plough'd for him. They too aretemper'd Iiigh, 
With hunger stung and wild necessity ; 
Nor lodges pity in their shaggy breast. 
But Man, whom Nature form'd of milder clay. 
With every kind emotion in his heart, 
And taught alone to weep ; while from her lap 
She pours ten thousand delicacies, herbs. 
And fruits, as numerous as the drops of rain 
Or beams that gave them birth : shall he, fair form ! 
Who wears sweet smiles, and looks erect on Hea- 
ven, 
E'er stoop to mingle with the prowling herd, 
And dip his tongue in gore 1 The beast of prey, 
Blood-stain'd. deserves to bleed : but you, ye flocks. 
What have you done; ye peaceful people, what, 
To merit death 1 you, who have given us milk 
In luscious streams, and lent us your own coat 
Against the Winter's cold 1 and the plain ox, 
That harmless, honest, guileless animal. 
In what has he offended 1 he, whose toil. 
Patient and ever ready, clothes the land 
With all the pomp of harvest ; shall he bleed. 
And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands 
E'en of the clown he feeds 1 and that, perhaps, 
To swell the riot of the autumnal feast, 
Won by his labour 1 Thus the feeling heart 
Would tenderly suggest : but 'tis enough. 
In this late age, adventurous, to have touch'd 
Light on the numbers of the Samian sage. 
High Heaven forbids the bold presumptuous strain, 
Whose wisest will has fixed us in a state 
That must not yet to pure perfection rise. 

Now when the first foul torrent of the brooks, 
Swell'd with the vernal rains, is ebb'd away, 
And, whitening, down their mossy-tinctured stream 
Descend the billowy foam : now is the time, 
While yet the dark-brovm water aids the guile. 
To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly, 
The rod fine-tapering with elastic spring, 
Snatch'd from the hoary steed the floating line, 
And all thy slender watry stores prepare. 
But let not on thy hook the tortured worm, 
Convulsive, twist in agonizing folds ; 
Which, by rapacious hunger swallow'd deep, 
Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding breast 
Of the weak helpless uncomplaining wretch, 
Harsh pain and horror to the tender hand. 
• When with his lively ray the potent sun 
Has pierced the streams, and roused the finny-race. 
Then, issuing cheerful, to thy sport repair; 
Chief should the western breezes curling play. 
And light o'er ether bear the shadowy clouds. 
High to their fount, this day, amid the hills. 
And woodlands warbling round, trace up the 

brooks ; 
The next, pursue their rocky-channel'd maze, 
Down to the river, in whose a:mple wave 
Their little naiads love to sport at large. 



Just in the dubious point, where with the pool 
Is mix'd the trembling stream, or where it boils 
Around the stone, or from the hoUow'd bank 
Reverted plays in undulating flow. 
There throw, nice-judging, the delusive fly ; 
And as you lead it round in artful curve, 
With eye attentive mark the springing game. 
Straight as above the surface of the flood 
They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap, 
Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook : 
Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank, 
And to the shelving shore slow dragging some, 
With various hand proportion'd to their force. 
If yet too young, and easily deceived, 
A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod 
Him, piteous of his youth and the short space 
He has enjoy'd the vital light of Heaven, 
Soft disengage, and back into the stream 
The speckled captive throw. But should you lure 
From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots 
Of pendant trees, the monarch of the brook, 
Behoves }'ou then to ply your finest art. 
Long time he, following cautious, scans the fly ; 
And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft 
The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear. 
At last, while haply o'er the shaded sun 
Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death, 
With sullen plunge. At once he darts along, 
Deep-struck, and runs out all the lengthened line; 
Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed, 
The cavern'd bank, his old secure abode ; 
And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool, 
Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand. 
That feels him still, yet to his furious course 
Gives way, you, now retiring, followdng now 
Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage : 
Till floating broad upon his breathless side. 
And to his fate abandon'd, to the shore 
You gaily drag your unresisting prize. 

Thus pass the temperate hour's; but when the 

sun 
Shakes from his noon-day throne the scattering 

clouds. 
Even shooting listless langour through the deeps ; 
Then seek the bank where flowering elders crowd, 
Where scatter'd wild the hly of the vale 
Its balmy essence breathes, where cowslips hang 
The dewy head, where purple violets lurk, 
With all the lowly children of the shade : 
Or he reclined beneath yon spreading ash. 
Hung o'er the steep; whence, borne on liquid 

wing, 
The sounding culver shoot; or where the hawk, 
High, in the beetling cliff, his eyry builds. 
There let the classic page thy fancy lead 
Through rural scenes; such as the Mantuan 

swain 
Paints in the matchless harmony of song. 
Or catch thyself the landscape, gliding swift 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Athwart imagination's vivid eye: 
Or by the vocal woods and waters lull'd, 
And lost in lonely musing, in the dream, 
Confused, of careless solitude, where mix 
Ten thousand wanderuig images of tilings, 
Soothe every gust of passion into peace; 
All but the swellings of the soften'd heart. 
That waken, not disturb, the tranquil mind. 

Behold yon breatliing prospect bids the Muse 
Throw all her beauty forth. But who can paint 
Like Nature 1 Can imagination boast, 
Amid its gay creation, hues Uke hers 1 
Or can it mix them with that matchless sldll, 
And lose them in each other, as appears 
In every bud that blows'? If fancy then . 
Unequal fails beneath the pleasing task. 
Ah, what shall language dol Ah, where find 

words 
Tinged with so many colours ; and whose power. 
To Ufe approaching, may perfume my lays 
With that fine oil, those aromatic gales, 
That inexhaustive flow continual round 1 

Yet, though successless, will the toil delight. 
Come then, ye virgins and j^e youths, whose hearts 
Have felt the raptures of refining love ; 
And thou, Amanda, come, pride of my song ! 
Form'd by the Graces, loveliness itself! 
Come with those downcast eyes, sedate and sweet. 
Those looks demure, that deeply pierce the soul. 
Where, with the light of thoughtful reason mix'd. 
Shines Uvely fancy and the feeling heart : 
Oh come 1 and while the rosy-footed May 
Steals blushing on, together let us tread 
The morning dews, and gather in their prime 
Fresh-blooming flowers, to grace thy braided hah', 
And thy loved bosom that improves their sweets. 

See, where the vdnding vale its lavish stores, 
Irriguous, spreads. See, how the lily drinks 
The latent rill, scarce oozing through the grass, 
Of growth luxuriant ; or the humid bank, 
In fair profusion, decks. Long let us walk. 
Where the breeze blows from yon extended field 
Of blossom'd beans. Arabia can not boast 
A fuller gale of joy, than, liberal, thence 
Breathes through the sense, and takes the ravished 

soul. 
Nor is the mead unworthy of thy foot. 
Full of fresh verdure, and unnumber'd flowers. 
The negligence of Nature, wide, and wild; 
Where, undisguised by mimic Art, she spreads 
Unbounded beauty to the roving eye. 
Here their dehcious task the fervent bees. 
In swarming millions, tend : around, athwart, 
Through the soft air, the busy nations fly. 
Cling to the bud, and, with inserted tube, 
Suck its pure essence, its ethereal soul; 
And oil, with bolder wing, they soaring dare 
The purple heath, or where the wild thyme grows. 
And yellow load them with the Iijscious spoil. 



At length the finish'd garden to the view 
Its vistas opens, and its alleys green. 
Snatch'd through the verdant maze, the hurried 

eye 
Distracted wanders; now the bowery walk • 
Of covert close, where scarce a speck of day 
Falls on the lengthen'd gloom, protracted sweep.?: 
Now meets the bending sky; the river now 
Dimpling along, the breezy ruflSed lake, 
The forest darkening round, the glittering spire, 
The ethereal mountain, and the distant main. 
But why so far excursive 1 when at hand. 
Along these blushing borders, bright with dew. 
And in yon mingled wilderness of flowers. 
Fair-handed spring unbosoms every grace; 
Throws out the snowdrop and the crocus first; 
The daisy, primi'ose, violet darkly blue, 
And polyanthus of unnumber'd dyes; 
The yellow wall-flower, stain'd with iron brown; 
And lavish stock that scents the garden round: 
From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed, 
Anemones; auriculas, enriched 
With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves; 
And full ranunculas, of glowing red. 
Then comes the tulip-race, where Beauty plays 
Her idle freaks; from family diflfiised 
To family, as flies the father-dust. 
The varied colours run; and, while they break 
On the charm'd eye, the exulting florist marks. 
With secret pride, the wonders of his hand. 
No gradual bloom is wanting; from the bud. 
Firstborn of Spring, to Summer's musky tribes: 
Nor hyacinths, of purest virgin white, 
Low-bent, and blushing inward ; nor jonquils, 
Of. potent fragrance ; nor Narcissus fair, 
As o'er the fabled fomitain hanging still; 
Nor broad carnations, nor gay-spotted pinks; 
Nor, shower'd from every bush, the damask-rose. 
Infinite numbers, delicacies, smells. 
With hues on hues expression can not paint, 
The breath of Nature, and her endless bloom. 
', tlail. Source of Being! Universal Soul y^ 
Of Heaven and earth ! Essential Presence, hail r ■ 
To Thee I bend the knee ; to Thee my thoughts, 
Continual, cUmb ; who, with a master-hand, 
Hast the great whole into perfection touched. 
By Thee the various vegetative tribes. 
Wrapt in a filmy net, and clad with leaves, 
Draw the live ether, and unbibe the dew: 
By Thee disposed into congenial soils. 
Stands each attractive plant, and sucks, and swells 
The juicy tide ; a twining mass of tubes. 
At Thy command the vernal sun awakes 
The torpid sap, detruded to the root 
By wintry winds ; that now in fluent dance. 
And lively fermentation, mounting, spreads 
All tills innumerous-colour'd scene of things. 

As rising from the vegetable world 
My theme ascends, with equal wing ascend, 






SPRING. 



My panting Mase; and hark, how loud the woods 
Invite you forth in all your gayest trim. 
Lend me your song, yc nightingales ! oh, pour 
The mazy-running soul of melody 
Into my varied verse ! while I deduce, 
From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings, 
The symphony of Spring, and touch a theme 
Unknown to fame, — the passion of the groves. 

When first the soul of love is sent abroad. 
Warm through the vital air, and on the heart 
Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin. 
In gallant- thought, to plume the painted wing ; ' 
And try again the long-forgotten strain, 
At first faint-warbled. But no sooner grows 
The soft infusion prevalent, and wide, 
Than, all alive, at once their joy o'erflows 
In music unconfined. Up-springs the lark. 
Shrill-voiced, and loud, the messenger of morn; 
Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings 
Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts 
Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse 
Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush 
Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads 
Of the coy quiristers that lodge within, 
Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush 
And wood-lark, o'er the Idnd-contending throng 
Superior heard, run through the sweetest length 
Of notes; when hstening Philomela deigns 
To let them joy, and purposes, in thought 
Elate, to make her night excel their day. 
The black- bird whistles from the thorny brake; 
The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove : 
Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze 
Pour'd out profusely, silent. Join'd to these 
Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade 
Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix 
Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw, 
And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone. 
Aid the full concert : while the stock-dove breathes 
A melancholy murmur through the whole. 

'Tis love creates their melody, and all 
This waste of music is the voice of love; 
That even to birds, and beasts, the tender arts 
Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind 
Try every winning way inventive love 
Can dictate, and in courtship to fheir mates 
Pour forth their Uttle souls. First, wide around, 
With distant awe, in airy rings they rove, 
Endeavouring by a thousand tricks to catch 
The cunning, conscious, half-averted glance 
Of the regardless charmer. Should she seem 
Softening the least approvance to bestow, 
Their colours burnish, and by hope inspired, 
They brisk advance; then, on a sudden struck, 
Retire disorder'd; then again approach; 
In fond rotation spread the spotted wing. 
And shiver every feather with desire. 
■ Connubial leagues agreed, to the deep woods 
They haste away, all as their fancy leads. 



Pleasure, or food, or secret safety prompts; 
That Nature's great command may be obey'd: 
Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive 
Indulged in vain. Some to the hdly-hedge 
Nestling repair, and to the thicket some ; 
Some to the rude protection of the thorn 
Commit their feeble oflspring. The cleft tree 
Ofltrs its kind concealment to a few. 
Their food its insects, and its moss their nestf. 
Others apart far in the grassy dale. 
Or roughening waste, their humble texture weave. 
But most in woodland solitudes delight. 
In unfrequented glooms, or shaggy banks, 
Steep, and divided by a babbling brook. 
Whose murmurs sooth them all the live-long day. 
When by kind duty fix'd. Among the roots 
Of hazel, pendent o'er the plaintive stream. 
They frame the first foundation of their domes ; 
Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid, 
And bound with clay together. Now 'tis nought 
But restless hurry through the busy air. 
Beat by unnumber'd wings. The swallow sweeps 
The slimy pool, to build his hanging house 
Intent. And often, from the careless back 
Of herds and flocks, a thousand tugging bills 
Pluck hair and wool; and oft, when unobserved, 
Steal from the barn a straw : till soft and warm, 
Clean and complete, their habitation grows. 

As thus the. patient dam assiduous sits, 
Not to be tempted from her tender task. 
Or by sharp hunger, or by smooth delight, 
Though the whole loosen'd Spring around her 

blows. 
Her sympathizing lover takes his stand 
High on the opponent bank, and Ceaseless sings 
The tedious time away; or else supphes 
Her place a moment, while she sudden flits 
To pick the scanty meal. The appointed time 
With pious toil fulfill'd, the callow young, 
Warm'd and expanded into perfect life. 
Their brittle bondage break, and come to light, 
A helpless family, demaifding food 
With constant clamor : O what passions then. 
What melting sentiments of kindly care. 
On the new parents seize ! Away they fly 
Aflfectionate and undesiring, bear 
The most delicious morsel- to their young ; 
Which equally- distributed, again 
The search begins. Even so a gentle pair 
By fortune sunk, but form'd of generous mould, 
And charm'd with cares beyond the vulgar breast, 
In some lone cot amid the distant woods, . 
Sustain'd alone by providential Heaven, 
Oft, as they weeping eye their infant train. 
Check their ovm appetites, and give them all. 

Nor toil alone they scorn : exalting love. 
By the great Father of the Spring inspired, 
Gives instant courage to the fearful race, 
And to the simple art. With stealthy wing. 



8 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Should some rude foot their woody haunts molest, 

Amid a neighbouring bush they silent drop, 

And whirring thence as if alarm'd, deceive 

The unfeclin<r gchoolboy. Hence, around the head 

Ofwandcringswain,thewhite-wing'd plover wheels 

Her sounding flight, and then directly on 

In lono- excursion skims the level lawn. 

To tempt him from her nest. The wild-duck, hence. 

O'er the rough moss, and o'er the trackless waste 

The heath-hen flutters, pious fraud! to lead 

The hot pursuing spaniel far astray. 

Be not the muse ashamed, here to bemoan 
Her brothcK of the grove, by tyrant Man 
Inhuman caught, and in the narrow cage 
From liberty confined, and boundless air. 
Dull are the pretty slaves, their plumage dull, 
Ragged, and all its brightening lustre lost; 
Nor is that sprightly wildness in their notes, 
Which, clear and vigorous, warbles from the beach. 
O then ye friends of love and lovc-tauglit song, 
Spare the soft tribes, this barbarous art forbear; 
If on your bosom innocence can win, 
Music engage; or piety persuade. 

But let not chief the nightingale lament 
Her ruin'd care too delicately framed 
To brook the harsh confinement of the cage. 
Oft when, returning with her loaded bill. 
The astonish'd mother finds a vacant nest, 
By the hard hand of unrelenting clowns 
Robbed, to the ground the vain provision .falls; 
Her pinions ruflle, and liiw-drooping scarce 
Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade; 
Where, all abandoned to despair, she sings 
Her sorrows through the night; and, on the bough, 
Sole-sitting, still at every dying fall 
Takes up again her lamentable strain 
Of winding wo; till, wide around, the woods 
Sigh to her song, and with her wail resound. 

But now the feather'd youth their former bounds. 
Ardent, disdahi ; and, weighing oft their wings, 
Demand the free possession of the sky : 
This one glad oflTicc more, and then dissolves 
Parental love at once, now needless grown. 
Unlavish wisdom never works in vain. 
'Tis on some evening, sunny, grateful, mild, 
When nought but balm is breathing through the 

woods, 
With yellow lustre bright, that the new tribes 
Visit the spacious heavens, and. look abroad 
On Nature's connnon, far as they can see. 
Or wing, their range and pasture. • O'er the boughs 
Dancing about, still at the giddy verge 
Their resolution fails; their pinions still, 
In loose libration stretched, to trust the void 
Trembling refuse: till down before them fly 
The parent guides, and chide, exhort, command. 
Or push them off. The surging air receives 
Its plumy burden; and their self-taught \vings 
Winnow the wa\ing element. On ground 



Alighted, bolder up again they lead, 
Farther and farther on, the lengthening flight; 
Till vanish'd every fear, and every power 
Roused into life and action, light in air 
The acquitted parents src their soaring race, 
And once rcyoicing never know them more. 
High from the summit of a craggy cliff. 
Hung o'er the deep, such as amazing frowns 
On utmost Kilda's* shore, whose lonely race ' 
Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds. 
The royal eagle draws his vigorous young, 
Sti-ong-pounced, and ardent with paternal fire. 
Now fit to raise a kingdom of their own. 
He drives them from his fort, the towering seat, 
For ages, of his empire; which, in peace. 
Unstained he holds, while many a league to sea 
He wings his course, and preys in distant isles. 

Should I my steps turn to the rural seat. 
Whose lofty elms, and venerable oaks, 
Invite the rook, who high amid the boughs 
In early Spring, his airy city builds, 
And ceaseless caws amusive; there, well pleased, 
I might the various polity survey .-Z 

Of the mix'd household kind. The careful hen ' 
Calls all her chirping family around, 
Fed and defended by the fearless cock; 
Whose breast with ardour flames, as on he walks. 
Graceful, and crows defiance. In the pond. 
The finely checker'd duck, before her train, 
Rows garrulous. The stately-sailing swan 
Gives out Ills snowy plumage to the gale; 
And, arching proud liis neck, with oary feet 
Bears forward fierce, and guards lus osier-isle, 
Protective of his young. The turkey nigh. 
Loud-threatening, reddens ; while the peacock 

sjDreads 
His every-colour'd glory to the sun. 
And swims in radiant majesty along. 
O'er the whole homely scene, the cooing dove 
Flies thick in amorous chase, and wanton rolls 
The glancing eye, and turns the changeful neck- 
While thus the gentle tenants of the shade 
Indulge their purer loves, the rougher world 
Of brutes, below, rush furious into flame. 
And fierce desire. Through all his lusty veins 
The bull, deep-s«orch'd, the raging passion feels. 
Of pasture sick, and negligent of Ibod, 
Scarce seen, he wades among the yellow broom, 
While o'er his ample sides the rambling spray 
Luxuriant shoot ; or through the mazy wood 
Dejected wanders, nor the inticing bud 
Crops, though it presses on his careless sense. 
And oft, in jealous maddening fancy wrapt. 
He seeks the fight ; and, idly-butting, feigns 
His rival gored in every knotty trunk. 
Him should he meet, the bellowing war begins : 
Their eyes flash fury ; to the hollow'd earth. 



The farthest of the western islands of Scotland. 



SPRING. 



Whence the sand flies, they mutter bloody deeds, 
And groaning deej), the impetuous battle mix : 
While the fair heifer, balmy-breathing, near. 
Stands kindling up their rage. The trembling 

steed, 
With this hot impulse seized in every nerve, 
Nor heeds the rein, nor hears the sounding thong; 
Blows are not felt ; but tossing high his head, 
And by the well-known joy to distant plains 
Attracted strong, all wild he bursts away ; 
O'er rocks, and woods, and craggy mountains flies; 
And, neighing, on the aerial summit takes 
The exciting gale; then, steep-descending, cleaves 
The headlong torrents foaming' down the hills, 
E'en where the madness of the straitcn'd stream 
Turns in black eddies round : such is the force 
With which his frantic heart and sinews swell. 

Nor undelighted by the boundless Spring 
Are the broad monsters of the foaming deep : 
From the deep ooze and gelid cavern roused, 
They flounce and tumble in unwieldy joy. 
Dire were the strain, and dissonant to sing 
The cruel raptures of the savage kind : 
How by this flame their native wrath sublimed, 
They roam, amid the fury of their heart, 
The far-resounding waste in fiercer bands, 
And growl their horrid loves. But this the theme 
I sing, enraptured, to the British Fair, 
Forbids, and leads me to the mountain-brow, 
Where sits the shepherd on the grassy turf. 
Inhaling, healthful, the descending sun. 
Around him feeds his many-bleating flock. 
Of various cadence ; and his sportive lambs. 
This way and that convolved, in friskful glee. 
Their frolics play. And now the sprightly race 
Invites them forth ; when swift, the signal given, 
They start away, and sweep the massy mound 
That runs around the hill ; the rampart once 
Of iron war, in ancient barbarous times. 
When disunited Britain ever bled. 
Lost in eternal broil: ere yet she grew 
To this deep-laid indissoluble state, 
.. Where Wealth and Commerce lift their golden 

heads ; 
And o'er our labours. Liberty and Law, 
Impartial, watch ; the wonder of a world ! 

What is this mighty breath, ye sages, say, 
That, in a powerful language, felt, not heard, 
Instructs the fowls of Heaven ; and through their 

breast 
These arts of love difTuses 1 What, but God 1 
Inspiring God ! who boundless Spirit all, 
And unremitting Energy, pervades. 
Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole. 
He ceaseless works alone ; and yet alone 
Seems not to work : with such perfection framed 
In this complex stupendous scheme of things. 
But, though conceal'd, to every purer eye 
The informing Author in his works appears : 



Chief, lovely Spring, in thee, and thy soft scenes, 
The Smiling God is seen ; while water, earth, 
And air attest his bounty ; which exalts 
The brute creation to this finer thought, 
And annual melts their undesigning hearts 
Profusely thus in tenderness and joy. 

Still let my song a nobler note assume, 
And sing the infusivc force of Spring on man ; ' 
When heaven and earth, as if contending, vie 
To raise his being, and serene his soul. 
Can he forbear to join the general smile 
Of nature 1 Can fierce passions vex his breast. 
While every gale is peace, and every grove 
Is melody 1 hence ! from the bounteous walks 
Of flowing Spring, ye sordid sons of earth, 
Hard, and unfeeling of another's woe;. 
Or only lavish to yourselves ; away ! 
But come, ye generous minds, in whose wide 

thought. 
Of all his works, creative Bounty burns 
With warmest beam ; and on your open front 
And liberal eye, sits, from his dark retreat 
Inviting modest Want. Nor, till invoked, 
Can restless goodness wait : your active search 
Leaves no cold wintry corner unexplored 
Like silent- working Heaven, surprising oft 
The lonely heart with unexpected good. 
For you the roving spirit of the wind 
Blows Spring abroad; for you the teeming clouds 
Descend in gladsome plenty o'er the world ; 
And the sun sheds his kindest rays for you. 
Ye flower of human race ! in these green days, 
Reviving Sickness lifts her languid head ; 
Life flows afresh ; and young-eyed Health exalts 
The whole creation round. Contentment walks 
The sunny glade, and feels an inward bliss 
Spring o'er his mind, beyond the power of kings 
To purchase. Pure serenity apace 
Induces thought, and contemplation still. 
By swift degrees the love of Nature works. 
And warms the bosom ; till at last sublimed 
To rapture, and enthusiastic heat. 
We feel the present Deity,, and taste 
The joy of God to see a happy world ! 

These are the sacred feelings of thy heart, 
Thy heart inform'd by reason's purer ray, 
O Lyttelton, the Mend ! thy passions thus 
And meditations vary, as at large, 
Courting the Muse, through Hagley Park thou 

stray 'st ; 
The British Teirlpe ! there along the dale. 
With woods o'erhung, and shagg'd with mossy 

rocks. 
Whence on each hand the gushing waters play, 
And down the rough cascade white-dashing fall, 
Or gleam in lengthened vista through the trees. 
You silent steal ; or sit beneath the shade 
Of solemn oaks, that tuft the swelling mounts 
Thrown graceful round by Nature's careless hand, 



10 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



And jwnsivc listen to tlie various voice 
Of rural peace : the herds, the flocks, the birJs, 
The hollow-whispering breeze, the plaint of rills, 
That, purling down amid the twisted roots 
Which creep around, their dewy murmurs shake 
On the soothed ear. From these abstracted oil, 
You wander through the philosophic world ; 
Wlicre in bright train continual wonders rise, 
Or to the curious or the pious eye. 
And oft, conducted by historic truth, 
You tread the long extent of backward time : 
Planning, with warm benevolence of ■ mind, 
And honest zeal unwarp'd by party rage, 
Britannia's weal ; how from the venal gulf 
To raise her virtue, and her arts revive. 
Or, turning thence thy view, these graver thoughts 
The Muses charm : wliile, with sure taste refined, 
You draw the inspiring breath of ancient song ; 
Till nobly rises, emulous, thy own. 
Perhaps thy loved Lucinda shares thy walk. 
With soul to thine attuned. Then Nature all 
Wears to the lover's eye a look of love ; 
And all the tumult of a guilty world, 
Tost by ungenerous passions, sinks away. 
The tender heart is animated peace ; 
And as it pours its copious treasures forth, 
In varied converse, softening eveiy theme, • 
You, frequent-pausing, turn, and from her eyes, 
Where meeken'd sense, and amiable grace, 
And lively sweetness dwell, enraptureJ, drink 
That nameless spirit of ethereal joy. 
Unutterable happiness ! which love, 
Alone, bestows, and. on afavour'd few. 
Meantime you gain the height, from whose fair 

brow 
The bursting prospect spreads immense around : 
And snatch'do'er hill and dale, and wood and lawn, 
And verdant field, and darkening heath between, 
And villages embosom'd soft in trees, 
And spiry towns by surging columns mark'd 
Of household smoke, your eye excursive roams : 
Wide-stretching from the hall, in whose kind haunt 
The Hospitable Genius lingers still, 
To where the broken landscape, by degrees, 
Ascending, roughens into rigid hills ; 
O'er which the Cambrian mountains,like far clouds 
That skirt the blue horizon, dusky rise. 

Flush'd by the spirit of the genial year, 
Now from the virgin's cheek a fresher bloom 
Shoots, less and less, the live carnation round ; 
Her lips blush deeper sweets ; she breathes of youth ; 
The sluning moisture swells nito her eyes. 
In brighter flow; her wishing bosom heaves, 
With palpitations wild ; kind tumults seize 
Her veins, and all yer yielding soul is love. 
From the keen gaze her lover turns away 
Full of the dear ecstatic power, and sick 
With sighing languishment. Ah then, ye fair ! 
Be greatly cautious of your sliding hearts : ! 



Dare not the infectious sigh ; the pleading look, 
Dovni-cast and low, in meek submission dress' d, 
But full of guile. Let not the fervent tongue, 
Prompt to deceive, v/ith adulation smooth, 
Gam on your purposed will. Nor in the bower. 
Where woodbines flaunt, and roses shed a couch, 
Wliile Evening draws her crimson curtains round. 
Trust your soft minutes with betraying Man. 

And let' the aspiring youth beware of love. 
Of the smooth glance beware ; for 'tis too late, 
When on his heart the torrent-softness pours ; 
Then wisdom prostrate lies, and fading fame 
Dissolves in air away ; while the fond soul, 
Wrapp'd in gay visions of unreal bliss. 
Still paints the illusive form ; the kindling grace ; 
The enticing smile ; the modest-seeming eye, 
Beneath whose bep-uteous beams, belying Heaven, 
Lurk searchless cunning, cruelty, and death : 
And still false-warbling in his cheated ear. 
Her siren voice, enchanting, draws him on 
To guileful shores, and meads of fatal joy. 

E'en present, in the very lap of love 
Inglorious laid ; while music flows around, 
Perfumes, and oils, and wine, and wanton hours; 
Amid the roses fierce Repentance rears 
Her snaky crest : a quick returning pang 
Shoots through the conscious heart ; where honour 

still. 
And great design, against the oppressive load 
Of luxury, by fits, impatient heave. 

But absent, what fantastic woes, aroused, 
Rage in each thought, by restless musing fed, 
Chill the warm check, and blast the bloom of hfel 
Neglected fortune flies; and sliding swift, 
Prone into ruin fall liis scorn'd affairs. 
'Tis nought but gloom around: the darken'd sun 
Loses his light. The rosy-bosom'd Spring 
To weeping fancy pines; and yon bright arch, 
Contracted, bends into a dusky vault. 
All Nature fades extinct : and she alone, 
Heard, felt, and seen, possesses every thought, 
Fills every sense, and pants in every vein. 
Books are but formal dulness, tedious friends; 
And sad amid the social band he sits. 
Lonely, and unattentive. From Ms tongue 
The unfinish'd period falls : while borne away 
On swelling thought, his wafted spirit flies- 
To the vain bosom of his distant fair; 
And leaves the semblance of a lover, fix'd 
In melancholy site, with head declined. 
And love-dejected eyes. Sudden he starts, 
Shook from his tender trance, and restless runs 
To gUmmc;:ing shades, and sympathetic glooms; 
Where the dun umbrage o'er the falling stream, 
Pwomantic, hangs ; there through the pensive dusk 
Strays, in heart-thrilling meditation lost, 
Indulging all to love: or on the bank 
Thrown, amid drooping lilies, swells the breeze 
With sighs unceasing, and the brook with tears'. 



SPRING. 



11 



" ■ Thus in soft anguish he consumes the day, 
Nor quits his deep retirement, till the Moon 
Peeps through the chambers of the fleecy east, 
Enlightened by degrees, and in her train 
Leads on the gentle Hours; then forth he walks, 
Beneath the trembling languish of her beam. 
With soften'd soul, and woos the bird of eve 
To mingle woes with his: or, while the world 
And all the sons of Care lie hush'd in sleep. 
Associates with the midnight shadows drear; 
And, sighing to the lonely taper, pours 
His idly-tortured heart into the page. 
Meant for the moving messenger of love; 
"Where rapture burns on rapture, every line 
With rising frenzy fired. But if on bed 
Delirious flung, sleep from his pillow flies. 
All night he tosses, nor the balmy power 
In any posture finds; till the gray Morn 
Lifts her pale lustre on the paler wretch. 
Exanimate by love: and then perhaps 
Exhausted Nature sinks a while to rest. 
Still interrupted by distracted dreams, 
That o'er the sick imagijiation rise. 
And in black colours paint the mimic scene. 

Oft with the enchantress of his soul he talks ; 
Sometimes in crowds distress'd ; or if retired 
To secret winding flower-enwoven bowers, 
Far from the dull impertinence of Man, 
Just as he, credulous, his endless cares 
Begins to lose in blind oblivious love, , • 
Snatch'd from her yielded hand, he 'knows not 

how, 
Through forests huge, and long untravel'd heaths 
With desolation brown, he wanders waste. 
In night and tempest wrapp'd: or shrinks aghast. 
Back, from the bending precipice ; or wades 
The turbid stream below, and strives to reach 
The farther shore; where succourless, and sad, 
She with extended arms his aid implores; 
But strives in vain ; borne by the outrageous flood 
To distance down, he rides the ridgy wave, 
Or whelm'd beneath the boiling eddy sinks. 

These are the charming agonies of love. 
Whose misery delights. But through the heart 
Should jealousy its venom once diffuse, 
'Tis then delightful misery no more, 
But agony unmix'd incessant gall. 
Corroding every thought, and blasting all 
Love's paradise. Ye fairy prospects, then, 
Ye beds of roses, and ye bowers of joy. 
Farewell! ye gleamings of departed peace. 
Shine out your last ! the yellow-tinging plague 
Internal vision taints, and in a night 
Of livid gloom imagination wraps. 
Ah then ! instead of love-enliven'd cheeks, 
Of sunny features, and of ardent eyes 
With flowing rapture bright, dark looks succeed, 
Suflused and glaring with untender fire ; 
A clouded aspect, and a burning cheek, 



Where the whole poison'd soul, malignant, sits, 
And frightens love away. Ten thousand fears 
Invented wild, ten thousand frantic views 
Of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms 
For which he melts his fondness, eat him up 
With fervent anguish, and consuming rage. 
In vain reproaches lend their idle aid. 
Deceitful fmde, and resolution frail. 
Giving false peace a moment. Fancy pours, 
Afresh, her beauties on his busy thought. 
Her first endearments twining round the soul, 
With all the witchcraft of ensnaring love. 
Straight the fierce storm involves his mind anew. 
Flames through the nerves, and boils along the 

■ veins; 
While anxious doubt distracts the tortured heart : 
For e'en the sad assurance of his fears 
Were ease to what he feels. Thus the warm 

youth, 
Whom love deludes into his thorny wilds. 
Through flowery tempting paths, or leads a lifp 
Of fever'd rapture or of cruel care ; 
His brightest aims extinguish'd all, and all 
His lively moments running down to waste. 

But happy they ! the happiest of their kind ! 
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate 
Their hearts, their fortunes, and- their beings blend. 
'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws. 
Unnatural oft and foreign to the mind. 
That binds their peace, but harmony itself, 
Attuning all their passions into love ; 
Where friendship full-exerts her softest power, 
Perfect esteem enliven'd by desire 
Ineffable, and sympathy of soul ; 
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will, 
With boundless confidence : for nought but love 
Can answer love, and render bliss secure. 
Let him, ungenerous, who, alone intent 
To bless hunself, from sordid parents buys 
The loathing virgin, in eternal care. 
Well-merited, consume his nights and days : 
Let barbarous nations, whose inhuman love 
Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they feel; 
Let eastern tyrants, from the light of Heaven, 
Seclude their bosom-slaves, meanly possess'd 
Of a mere lifeless, violated form : 
While those whom love cements in holy faith. 
And equal transport, free as Nature live. 
Disdaining fear. What is the world to them. 
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all 1 
Who in each other clasp whatever fair 
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish ; 
Something than beauty dearer, should, they look 
Or on the mind, or mind-illumin'd face ; 
Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love. 
The richest bounty of indulgent Heaven. 
Meantime a smiling offspring rises round, 
And mingles both their graces. By degrees, - " 
The human blossom blows : and every day, 



12 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm, 
The father's lustre, and the mother's bloom. 
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls 
For the kind hand of an assiduous care. 
Delightful task ! to rear the tender thought, 
To teach the young idea how to shoot, 
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind, 
To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix 
The generous purpose in the glowing breast. 
Oh, speak the joy ! ye, whom the sudden tear 
Surprises often, while you look around, 
And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss, 
All various Nature pressing on the heart: 
An elegant sufficiency, content. 
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books. 



Ease and alternate labour, useful lifej 
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven ! 
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love ; 
And thus their moments fly. The Seasons 

thus. 
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll, 
Still find them happy ; and consenting Spring 
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads : 
Till evening comes at last, serene and mild ; 
When after the long vernal day of life, 
Enamour'd more, as more remembrance swells 
With many a proof of recollected love. 
Together down they sink in social sleep ; 
Together freed, their gentle spirits fly 
To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign 



mtntwet*^ 



Jam clarus occultum Andromeda? pater 
Ostendit igneni : jam Procyon fiuit, 
Et Stella vesani Leonis, , 
Sole dies. referente siccos. 
.lam pastor umbras cum grc?e languido, 
Rivumque fessiig quaerit, et horridi 
Dumeta Sylvani : caretque 
Ripa vagis taciturna ventis. — Hot. 



ARGUMENT. 

The subject proposed. Invocation. Address to Mr. Dodington. An introductory reflection on the motion of the Hea- 
venly Bodies; whence the succession of the Seasons. As the face of Nature in this season is almost uniform, the progress 
of the poem is a description of a Summer's Day. The Dawn. Sunrising. Hymn to the Sun. Forenoon. Summer In- 
sects described. Haymaking. Sheepshearing'. Noonday. A Woodland Retreat. Group of Herds and Flocks. A solemn 
Grove: how it affects a contemplative mind. A Cataract, and rude scene. View of Summer in the torrid zone. Storm 
of thunder and lightning. A Tale. The storm over. A serene afternoon. Bathing. Hour of Walking. Transition to 
the prospect of a rich, well cultivated Country ; which introduces a panegyric on Great Britain. Sunset. Evening. Night. 
Summer Meteors. A Comet. The whole concluding with the praise of Philosophy.. 



TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
MR. DOPINGTON, 

ONE OF THE LORDS OF HIS MAJESTY'S TEEASUHY, 
ETC. 



Sir, 

It is not my purpose, in this address, to run 
into the' common tract of dedicators, and attempt a 
panegyric which would prove ungrateful to you, 
too arduous for me, and superfluous with regard 
to the world. To you it would prove ungrateful, 
since there is a certain generous delicacy in men 
of the most distinguished merit, disposing them 
to avoid those praises they so powerfully attract. 
And when I consider that a character in which 
the virtues, the graces, and the muses join their 
influence as much exceeds the expression of the 
most elegant and judicious pen, as the finished 
beauty does the representation of the pencil, I 
have the best reasons for declining such an ardu- 
ous undertaking. As, indeed, it would be super- 



fluous in itself, for what reader need be told of 
those great abilities in the management of public 
affairs, and those amiable accomplishments in pri- 
vate hfe, which you so eminently possess. The 
general voice is loud in the praise of so many vir- 
tues, though posterity alone will do them justice. 
But may you, Sir, live long to illustrate your own 
fame by your own actions, and by them be trans- 
mitted to future times as the British Maecenas! 

Your example has recommended poetry with 
the greatest grace to the admiration of those who 
are engaged in the highest and most active scenes 
of life: and this, though confessedly the least 
considerable of those exalted qualities that dignify 
your character, must be particularly pleasing to 
one whose only Jiope of being introduced to your 
regard is through the recommendation of an art 
in which you are a master. But I forget what I 
have been declaring above; and must, therefore, 
turn my eyes to the following sheets. I am not ig- 
norant that, when offered to your perusal, they are 
put into the hands of one of the finest and, con- 



SUMMER. 



13 



sequently, the most indulgent judges of the age: 
but, as there is no mediocrity in poetry, so there 
should be no limits to its ambition. I venture di 
rectly on the trial of my fame. If what I here 
present you has any merit to gain your approba- 
tion, I am not afraid of its success; and if it fails 
of your notice, I give it up to its just fate. This 
advantage, at least, I secure to myself, an occasion 
of thus publicly declaring that I am, with the 
profoundest veneration. 

Sir, your most devoted, 

Humble servant, 
James Thomson, 



SUMMER. 

From brightening fields of ether fair disclosed, 
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes, ■ 
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth: 
He comes attended by the sultry Hours, 
And ever fanning breezes, on his way ; 
WhUe, from his ardent look, the turning Spring 
Averts her blushful face; and earth, and skies, 
All-smiling, to his hot dominion leaves. 

Hence, let me haste into the mid-wood shade. 
Where scarce a sunbeam wanders through the 

gloom: 
And on the dark green grass, beside the brink 
Of haunted stream, that by the roots of oak 
Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large, 
And sing the glories of the circling year. 

Come, Inspiration ! from thy hermit-seat, 
By mortal seldom found: may Fancy dare. 
From thy fix'd serious eye, and raptured glance 
Shot on surrounding Heaven, to steal one look 
Creative of the Poet, every power 
Exalting to. an ecstasy of soul. 

And thou, my youthful Muse's early friend, 
In whom the human graces all unite : 
Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart ; 
Genius, and wisdom ; the gay social sense, 
By decency chastised ; goodness and wit, 
In seldom-meeting harmony combined; 
Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal 
For Britain's glory, liberty, and Man: 
O Dodington ! attend my rural song, 
Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line. 
And teach me to deserve thy just applause. . 

With what an awful world-revolving power 
Were first the unwieldy planets launch'd along 
The illimitable void! thus to remain. 
Amid the flux of many thousand years. 
That oft has swept the toiling race of men, 
And all their labour'd monuments away, 
Firm, unremitting, matchless, in their course ; 
To the kind-temper'd change of night and day, 
And of the seasons ever stealing round, 
D 



Minutely faithful : such the All-perfect hand ! 
•That poised, impels, and rules the steady whole. 

When now no more the alternate Twins are 
fired. 
And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze, 
Short is the doubtful empire of the night; 
And soon, observant of approacliing day, 
The meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews, 
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east: 
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow 
And, from before the lustre of her face, 
White break the clouds away. With quicken'd 

step, 
Brown Night retires: young Day pours in apace, 
And opens all the lawny prospect wide. 
The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top 
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn. 
Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine ; 
And from the bladed field the fearful hare 
Limps, awkward: while along the forest-glade 
The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze 
At early passenger. Music awakes 
The native voice of undissembled joy; 
And thick around the woodland hymns arise. 
Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves 
His mossy cottage^ where with Peace he dwells; 
And from the crowded fold, in order, drives 
His flock, to taste the verdure of the mom. 

Falsely luxurious ! will not Man awake ; 
And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy 
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour. 
To meditation due and sacred song'? 
For is there ought in sleep can charm the wise"? 
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half 
The fleeting moments of too short a life ; 
Total extinction of the enlightened soul I 
Or else to feverish vanity alive, 
Wilder'd, and tossing through distemper'd dreams 1 
Who would in such a gloomy state remain 
Longer than Natm-e craves ; when every Muse 
And every blooming pleasure wait without, 
To bless the wildly-devious morning walkl 

But yonder comes the powerful King of Day, 
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud, 
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow 
Illumed with fluid gold, his near approach 
Betoken glad. Lo! now, apparent all. 
Aslant the dew-bright earth, and colour'd air. 
He looks in boundless majesty abroad; 
And sheds the shining day, that burnish'd plays 
On -rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering 

• streams. 
High gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer, Light* 
Of all material beings first and best ! 
Efflux divine ! Nature's resplendent robe ! 
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt 
In unessential gloom ; and thou, O Sun ! 
Soul of surrounding worlds ! in whom best seen 
Shines out thy Maker! may, I sing of theel 



14 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force, 
As with a ctain indissoluble bound, • 
Thy system rolls entire : from the far bourne 
Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round 
Of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk . 
Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye, 
Lost in the near efi'ulgence of thy blaze. 

Informer of the planetary train ! 
Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous 

orbs ' • 
Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead, 
And not, as now, the green abodes of life I 
How many forms of being wait on thee ! 
Inhaling spirit; from the unfetter'd mind, 
By thee subUmed, down to the daily race, 
The mixing myriads of thy setting beam. 

The vegetable world is also thine. 
Parent of Seasons'? who the pomp precede 
That waits thy throne, as through thy vast domain. 
Annual, along the bright ecliptic road. 
In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime. 
Meantime, the expecting nations, circled gay 
With all the various tribes of foodful earth. 
Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up 
A common hymn : wliile, round thy beaming car. 
High-seen, the Seasons lead, in sprightly dance 
Harmonious knit, the rosy-fingered Hours, 
The Zephyrs floating loose, the timely Rains, 
Of bloom ethereal the light-footed Dews, 
And softened into joy the surly Storms. 
These, in successive turn, with lavish hand, 
Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower, 
Herbs, flowers, and fruits; and, kindUng at thy 

touch, ... • 

Prom land to land is flush'd the Ternal year. 

Nor to the surface of enliven'd earth, 
Graceful with hills and dales, and leafy woods, i 
Her liberal tresses, is thy force confined: 
But, to the bowel'd cavern, darting deep, 
The mineral kinds confess thy mighty power. 
Effulgent, hence the veiny marble sjiines ; 
Hence Labour draws his tools; hence burnish 'd 

War 
Gleams on the day; the nobler works of Peace 
Hence bless mankind, and generous Commerce 

binds 
The round of nations in a golden chain. 

The unfruitful rock itself, impregn'd by thee, 
In dark retirement forms the lucid stone. 
The lively diamond drinks thy purest rays. 
Collected light, compact ; that polish'd bright, 
And all its native lustre let abroad. 
Dares, as it sparkles on the fair one's breast, 
With vain ambition emulate her eyes. 
At thee the ruby lights its deepening glow. 
And with a waving radiance inward flames. 
From thee, the sapphire, solid ether, takes 
Its hue cerulean; and, of evening tinct, 
The purple-streaming amethyst is thine. 



With thy own smile the yellow topaz burns. 
Nor deeper verdure dyes tha robe of Spring, 
When first she gives it to the southern gale, 
Than the green emerald shows. But, all combined, 
Thick through the whitening opal play thy beams; 
Or, flying several from its surface, form 
A trenibling variance of revolving hues, 
As the site varies in the gazer's hand. 

The very dead creation, from thy touch, 
Assmnes a mimic life. By thee refined, 
In brighter mazes the relucent stream 
Plays o'er the mead. The precipice abrupt, 
Projecting horror on the blacken'd flood) 
Softens at thy return. The desert joys. 
Wildly, through all liis melancholy bounds. 
Rude ruins ghtter; and the briny deep. 
Seen from some pointed promontory's top. 
Par to the blue horizon's utmost verge. 
Restless, reflects a floating gleam. But this. 
And all the much-transported Muse can suig. 
Are to thy beauty, dignity, and use. 
Unequal far ; great delegated source 
Of Hght, and life, and grace, and joy belq.w ! 

How shall I then attempt to sing of Him ! 
Who, Light Himself, in uncreated fight 
Invested deep, dwells awfully retired 
From mortal eye, or angel's purer ken ; 
Whose single smile has, from the first of time, 
Fill'd, overflowing, all those lamps of Heaven, 
That beam for ever through the boundless sky : 
But, should he hide his face, the.astonish'd sun, 
And all the extinguish'd stars, would loosening 

reel 
Wide fi-om their spheres, and Chaos come again. 
,' And yet was every faltering tongue of Man, 
Almighty Father ! silent in thy praise ; 
Thy works themselves would raise a general voice, 
E'en in the depth of solitary woods • ' 
By hmnan foot untrod ; proclaim thy power 
And to the choir celestial- Thee resound, 
The eternal cause, support, and end of all ! 

To me be Nature's volume broad display'd ; 
And to peruse its all instructing page. 
Or, haply catching inspiration thence. 
Some easy passage, raptured, to translate 
My sole delight; as through the falling glooms 
Pensive I stray, or with the rising dawn 
On Fancy's eagle-wing excursive soar. 

Now, flaming up the heavens, the potent sun 
Melts into limpid air the high-raised clouds. 
And morning fogs, that hover'd round the hills 
In party-colour'd bands ; till wide unveil'd 
The face of Nature shines, from where earth 

seems, 
Far-stretch'd around, to meet the bending sphere. 

Half in a blush of clustering roses lost, 
Dew-dropping Coolness to the shade retires; 
There, <pi the verdant. turf, or flowery bed, 
By gelid founts and careless rills to muss ; 



SUMMER. 



15 



While tyrant Heat, dispreading through the sky, 
With rapid sway, his burning iafluence darts 
On man, and beast, and herb, and tepid stream, 

Who can unpitying see the flowery race. 
Shed by the morn, their new-flush'd bloom resign. 
Before the parching beam"? so fade the fair, 
When fevers revel through their azure veins. 
But one the lofty follower of the sun. 
Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves. 
Drooping all night ; and, when he warm returns, 
Points her enamour'd bosom to liis ray. 

Home, from his morning task, the swain re- 
treats ; 
His flock before him stepping to the fold : 
While the ftill-udder'd mother lows around 
The cheerful cottage, then expecting food. 
The food of innocence and health ! the daw, 
The rock, and magpie, to the gray-grown oaks 
That the calm \dllage in their verdant arms. 
Sheltering, embrace, direct their lazy flight ; 
Where on the mingling boughs they sit embower'd. 
All the hot noon, till cooler hours arise. 
Faint, underneath, the household fowls convene ; 
And, in a corner of the buzzing shade. 
The house-dog, with the vacant greyhound, lies, 
Out-stretch'd, and sleepy. In his slumbers one 
Attacks the nightly thief, and one exults 
O'er hill and dale ; till, vvaken'd by the wasp. 
They starting snap. Nor shall the Muse disdain 
To let the little noisy summer race 
Live in her lay, and flutter through her song : 
Not mean though simple ; to the sun ally'd. 
From him they draw their animating fire. 

Waked by his warmer ray, the reptile young 
Come wing'd abroad ; by the light air upborne. 
Lighter, and full of soul. From every chink 
And secret corner, where they slept away 
The wintry storms ; or rising from their tombs. 
To higher life ; by myriads, forth at once. 
Swarming they pour ; of all the varied hues 
Their beauty-beaming parent can disclose. 
Ten thousand forms, ten thousand different tribes. 
People the blaze. To sunny waters some 
By fatal instinct fly ; where on the pool 
They, sportive, wheel : or, sailing down the stream. 
Are snatch'd immediate by the quick-eyed trout, 
Or darting salmon. Thro' the green-wood glade 
Some love to stray ; there lodged, amused, and fed. 
In the fresh leaf. Luxurious, others make 
The meads their choice, and visit every flower, 
And every latent herb : for the sweet task, 
To propagate their kinds, and where to wn-ap, 
In what soft beds, their young yet undisclosed. 
Employs their tender care. Some to the house, 
■ The fold, and dairy, hungry bend their flight ; 
Sip round the pail,, or taste the curdling cheese ; 
Oft, inadvertent, from the milky stream 
They meet their fate ; or, weltering in the bowl, 
With powerless wings around them wiapt, expire. 
30 



But cliief to heedless flies the window proves 
A constant death; where, gloomily retired. 
The villain spider lives, cunning, and fierce. 
Mixture abhorr'd ! amid a mangled heap 
Of carcasses, in eager watch he sits, 
O'erlooking all his waving snares around. 
Near the dire cell the dreadless wanderer oft 
Passes, as oft the ruffian shows his front; 
The prey at last ensnared, he dreadful darts, 
With rapid glide, along the leaning line ; 
And, fixing in the wretch his cruel fangs, 
Strikes backward grimly pleased; the fluttering 

wing 
And shriller sound declare extreme distress, • 
And ask the helping hospitable hand. 

Resounds the Hving surface of the ground: 
Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum. 
To him who muses through the woods at noon ; 
Or drowsy shepherd, as he lies reclined. 
With half-shut eyes, beneath the floating shade 
Of vsdllows gray, close crowding o'er the brook. 

Gradual, from these what numerous kinds de- 
scend. 
Evading e'en the microscopic eyel 
Pull Nature swarms with life ; one wondrous mass 
Of animals, or atorps organised. 
Waiting the vital breath, when parent Heaven 
Shall bid his spirit blow. The hoary fen. 
In putrid streams, emits the living cloud 
Of pestilence. Through subterranean cells. 
Where searching sunbeams scarce can find a way, 
Earth animated heaves. The flowery leaf 
Wants not its soft inhabitants. Secure, 
Within its winding citadel, the stone 
Holds multitudes. But chi^f the forest boughs,- 
That dance unnumber'd to the playful breeze, 
The downy orchard, and the melting pulp 
Of mellow fruit, the nameless nations feed 
Of evanescent insects. Where the pool 
Stands mantled o'er with green, invisible, 
Amid the floating verdure millions stray. 
Each liquid too, whether it pierces, sooths, 
Inflames, refreshes, or exalts the taste, , 

With various forms aibounds. Nor is the stream 
Of purest crystal, nor the lucid air, 
Though one transparent vacancy it seems. 
Void of their unseen people. These, conceai'd 
By the kind art of forming Heaven, escape 
The grosser eye of man: for, if the worlds 
In worlds inclosed should on his senses burst, 
From cates ambrosial, and the nectar'd howl, 
He would abhorrent turn ; and in dead night, 
When silence sleeps o'er all, be stunn'd with noise. 

Let no presuming impious railer tax 
Creative Wisdom, as if ought was form'd 
In vain, or not for admirable ends. 
Shall little haughty Ignorance pronounce 
His works unwise, of wliich the smallest part 



16 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Exceeds .the narrow vision of her mind? 

As if upon a full proportion'd dome, 

On swelling columns heaved, the pride of art! 

A critic fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads 

An inch around, with Wind presumption bold. 

Should dare to tax the structure of the whole. 

And lives the man, whose universal eye 

Has swept at once the unbounded scheme of 

things ; 
Mark'd their dependance so, and firm accord, 
As with unfaltering accent to Conclude 
That this availeth nought"? Has any seen 
The mighty chain of beings, lessening down 
From Infinite Perfection to. the brink 
Of dreary nothing, desolate abyss ! 
From which astonish'd thought, recoiling, turns 1 
Till then alone let zealous praise ascend, 
And hymns of holy wonder, to that Power, 
Whose wisdom shines as lovely on our minds. 
As on our smiling eyes his servant-sun. 

Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways. 
Upward, and downward, thwarting, and convolved, 
The quivering nations sport; till, tempest-wing'd. 
Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face. of day. 
E'en so luxurious men, unheeding, pass 
An idle summer life in fortune's shine, 
A season's glitter ! thus they flutter on 
From toy to toy, from vanity to vice; 
Till, blown away by death, oblivion comes 
Behind, and strikes them from the book of life. 

Now swarms the village o'er the jovial mead: 
The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil. 
Healthful and strong ; full as the summer-rose 
Blown by prevailing suns; the ruddy maid, 
Half naked, swelling on the sight, and all 
Her kindled graces burning o'er her cheek. 
E'en stooping age is here ; and infant hands 
Trail the long rake, or, with the fragrant load 
O'ercharged, amid the kind oppression roll. 
Wide flies the tedded grain ; all in a row 
Advancing broad, or wheeling round the field, 
They spread the breathing harvest to the sun, 
That throws refreshful round a rural smell : 
Or, as they rake the green-appearing ground, 
And drive the dusky wave along the mead, 
The russet hay-cock rises tliick behind. 
In order gay. While Ireard from dale to dale, ,• 
Waking the breeze, resounds the .bkudcd voice 
Of happy labour, love, and social glee. 

Or rushing thence, in one diffusive band, 
They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog 
Compell'd, to where the mazy-running brook 
Forms a deep pool ; this bank abrupt and high. 
And that fair-spreading in a pebbled shore. 
Urged to the giddy brink, much is the toil, 
The clamour much, of men,, and boys, and dogs. 
Ere the soft fearful people to the flood 
Commit their woolly sides. And oft the swain, 
On some impatient seizing, hurls tliemiii: 



Embolden'd then, nor hesitating more, 
Fast, fast, they plunge ainid the flashing wave, 
And panting labciur to the farthest shore. 
Repeated this, till deep the w.ell-wash'd fleece 
Has drunk the flood,' and from his hvely haunt. 
The trout is banish'd by the sordid stream ; 
Hea%y , and dripping, to- the breezy brow 
Slow moye the harmless race : where, as they spread 
Their swelling treasures' to the sunny ray. 
Inly disturb 'd, and wondering what this wild 
Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints 
The country fill ; and, toss'd from rock to rock, 
Incessant bleatings run around the hills. 
At last, of snow^ white, the gather'd flocks 
Are in the wattled pen innun:ierous press'd. 
Head above head : and ranged in lusty rows 
The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears. 
The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores, 
With all her gay-drest maids attending round. 
One, chief, in gracious dignity enthroned, ' 
Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and rays 
Her smiles, sweet-beaming, on her shepherd-king ; 
While the glad circle round them yield their souls 
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall. 
Meantime, their joyous task goes on apace : 
Some mingling stir the melted tar, and some, 
Deep on the new-shorn vagrant's heaving side, 
To stamp the master's cypher ready stand ; 
Others the unwilling wether djag along ; 
And, glorying in his might, the sturdy boy 
Holds by the twisted horns the indignant -ram^ 
Behold where bound, and of its robe bereft. 
By needy man, that all-depending lord, 
How meek, how patient, the mild creature Ues ! 
What softness in its melancholy face. 
What dumb complaining innocence appears! 
Fear not, ye gentle tribes, 'tis not the knife 
Of horrid slaughter that is o'er you waved ; 
No, 'tis tlie tender swain's well-guided shears, 
Who having now, to pay his annual care, 
Borrow'd your fleece, to you a cumbrous load. 
Will send you bounding to your hills again. 

A simple scene ! 3'et hence Britannia sees 
Her solid grandeur rise : hence she commands 
Th5 exalted stores of every brighter clime. 
The treasures of the sun without his rage : 
Hence, fervent all, with culture, toil, and arrts. 
Wide gloves her land : her dreadful thunder hence 
Rides o'er the waves .sublime, and now, e'en now, 
Impending hangs o'er Gallia's humbled coast ; 
Hence rules the circling deep, and awes the world. 

'Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the sun 
Darts on the head direct his forceful rays. 
O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye ■ 
Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all 
From pole to pole is undistinguish'd blaze. 
In vain the sight, dejected, to the ground 
Stoops for relief; thence hot-ascending steams 
And keen reflection pain. Deep to the root 



SUMMER. 



17 



Of vegetation parch'd; the cleaving fields 

And slippery lawn an arid hue disclose, 

Blast Fanc3-'s bloom, and wither e'en the soul. 

Echo no more returns the cheerful sound 

Of sharpening scythe: the mower sinking heaps 

O'er him the humid hay, with flowers perfumed ; 

And scarce a chirping grasshopper is heard 

Through the dumb mead. Distressful Nature pants. 

The very streams look languid from afar;. 

Or, through the unshelter'd glade, impatient, seem 

To hurl into the covert of the grove. 

All-conquering Heat, oh intermit thy wrath ! 
And on my throbbing temples potent thus 
Beam not so fierce ! incessant stiH you flow, ■ 
And stilj another fervent flood succeeds, 
Pour'd on the head profuse. In vain I sigh, 
And restless turn, and look around for night ; 
Night is far off; and hotter hours approach. 
Thrice happy he ! who on the sunless side 
Of a romantic mountain, forest-crown'd, ■ 
Beneath the whole collected shade reclines : 
Or in the gelid caverns, woodbine-wrought. 
And fresh bedew'd with ever-spouting streams, 
Sits coolly calm ; while all the world without, 
Unsatisfied, and sick, tosses in noon. 
Emblem instructive of the virtuous man, 
Who keeps his temper'd mind serene and pure. 
And every passion aptly harmonized. 
Amid a jarring world with vice inflamed. 

Welcome, ye shades ! ye bowery thickets, hail ! 
Ye lofty pines I ye venerable oaks ! 
Ye ashes wild, resounding o'er the steep ! 
Delicious is your shelter to the soul. 
As to the hunted hart the sallying spring. 
Or stream, full-flowing, that his swelUng sides 
Laves, as he floats along the herbaged brink. 
Cool, through the nerves, your pleasing comfort 

glides; • -; 

The heart beats glad ; the fresh-expanded eye 
And ear resume their watifh ; the sinews knit ; 
And life shoots swift through all the lighten'd limbs 

Around the adjoining brook, that purls along 
' The vocal grove, now fretting b'er a rock, 
Now scarcely moving through a reedy pool. 
Now starting to a sudden stream, and now 
Gently diffused into a limpid plain ; 
A various group, the herds and flocks compose, 
Rural confusion ! on the grassy bank 
Some ruminating lie ; while others stand 
Half in the flood, and often bending sip 
The circling surface. In the middle droops 
The strong laborious ox, of honest front, 
Which incomposed he shakes ; and from his sides 
The troublous insects lashes with his tail. 
Returning still. Amid his subjects safe. 
Slumbers the monarch-swain ; his careless arm 
Thrown round his head, on downy moss sustain'd ; 
Here laid his scrip, with wholesome viands fill'd ; 
There, listening every noise, his watchful dog. 



Light fly liis slumbers, if percliancc a fliglit 
Of angry gad-flies fasten on the herd ; 
That startling scatters from the shallow brook, 
In search of lavish stream. Tossing the foam. 
They scorn the keeper's voice, and scour the plain. 
Through all the bright severity of noon; 
While, from their labouring breasts, a hoUow moan 
Proceeding, runs low-bcilovving round the hills. 

Oft; in this season too the horse, provoked, 
Wliile his big sinews full of spirits swell. 
Trembling with vigour, in the heat of blood. 
Springs the high fence ; and, o'er the field efl^ised, 
Darts on the gloomy flaodj with steadfast eye, 
And heart estranged to fear: his nervous chest, 
Luxuriant, and erect, the seat of strength*! 
Bears down the opposing stream : quenchless his 

thirst; 
He takes the river at redoubled draughts; 
And with wide nostrils, snorting, skijns the wave. 

Still let me pierce into the midnight depth 
Of yonder grove, of wildest largest growth: 
That, forming high in air a woodland quire, 
Nods o'er the mount beneath. At every step, 
Solemn and slow, the shadows blacker fall, 
And all is awful listening gloom around. 

These are the haunts of Meditation, these 
The scenes where ancient bards the insphing 

breath, 
Ecstatic, felt; and, frftm this world retired, 
Conversed' with angels, and immortal forms, 
On gracious errands bent : to save the fall 
Of virtue struggling on the brink of vice ; 
In waking whispers, and repeated dreams. 
To hint pure thought, and warn the favour'd soul 
For future trials fated to prepare ; 
To prompt the poet, who devoted gives 
His muse to better themes ; to sooth the pangs 
Of dying worth, and from the patriot's breast 
(Backward to mingle in detested war. 
But foremost when engaged) to turn the death; ' 
And numberless such offices of love. 
Daily, and nightly, zealous to perform. 

Shook sudden from the bosom of the sky 
A thousand shapes or glide athwart-the dusk, 
Or stalk majestic on. Deep-roused, I feel 
A sacred terror, a severe delight. 
Creep through my mortal frame; and thus, me- 

thinks, 
A voice than human more, the abstracted ear 
Of fancy strikes: — " Be not of us afraid. 
Poor kindred man1 thy fellow-creatures, we 
From the same Parent -Power our beings drew, 
The same our Lord, and laws, and great pursuit. 
Once some of us, like thee, through stormy life, 
Toil'd, tempest-beaten, ere we could attain 
This holy calm, this harmony of mind. 
Where purity and peace immingle charms. 
Then fear not us; but with responsive song, 
Amid these dim recesses, undisturb'd 



18 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



By noisy folly and discordant vice, 

Of Nature sing with us, and Nature's God. 

Here frequent, at the vi sionary hour. 

When musing midnight reigns or silent noon, 

Angelic harps are in full concert heard, 

And voices chanting from the wood-crovpn'd hill, 

The deepening dale, or inmost sylvan glade; 

A privilege bestow'd by us, alone, 

On Contemplation, or the hallow'd "ear . 

Of poet, swelling to seraphic strain^" 

And art thou, Stanley,* of that sacred band 1 
Alas, for us too soon I though raised above 
The reach of human pain, above the flight 
Of human joy; yet, with a mingled ray- 
Of sadl^ pleased remembrance, must thou feel 
A motlTeifs love, a mother's tender woe : 
Who seeks thee still, in many a former scene; 
Seeks thy fair form, thy lovely beaming, eyes, 
Thy pleasing converse, by gay lively sense 
Inspired: where moral wisdom mildly shone, 
Without the toil of art; and virtue glow'd,- "' 
In all her smiles, without forbidding pride. 
But, O thou best of parents! wipe thy tears; 
Or rather to Parental Nature pay' 
The tears of grateful joy, who for a while 
Lent thee this younger self, this opening bloom 
Of thy enlighten'd mind and gentle worth. 
Believe the Muse : the wintry blast of death 
Kills not the buds ef virtue ; no, they spread. 
Beneath the heavenly beam of brighter. suns, 
Through endless ages, into higher powers. 

Thus up the mount, in airy vision wrapt, 
I stray, regardless wliitlier; till the sound 
Of a near fall of water every sense 
Wakes from the charm- of thought : swift-shrink- 
ing back, 
I check my steps, and view the broken scene. 

Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood 
Rolls fair, and placid ; where collected all, 
In one impetuous torrent, down the steep 
It thundering shoots, and shakes the country 

round. 
At first, an azure sheet, it rushes broad ; 
Then whitening by degrees, as prone it falls, 
And from the loud resounding rocks below 
Dash'd in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft 
A hoary mist, and forms a ceaseless shower. 
Nor can the tortured wave here find repose : 
But, raging still amid the shaggy rocks. 
Now flashes o'er the scatter'd fragments, now 
Aslant the hollow channel rapid darts ; 
And falling fast from gradual slope to slope, 
With wild infracted course, and lessen'd roar, 
It gains a safer bed, and steals, at last, 
Along the mazes of the quiet vale. 

Invited from the cliff", to whose dark, brow 



* A young lady, who died at the age of eighteen, in the year 
1738, upon whom Thomson wrote an Epitaph. 



He clings, the steep-ascending eagle soars, 
With upward pinions through the flood of day; 
And, giving full his bosom to the blaze, 
Gains on the sun; while all the tuneful race, 
Smit by afflictive noon, disordered droop. 
Deep in the thicket; or, from bower to bower 
Responsive, force art interrupted strain. 
The stock-dove only through the forest coos. 
Mournfully hoarse; oft ceasing feom his plaint, 
Short interval of weary wo ! again 
The sad idea of his murder'd jmate, 
Struck from his side by savage fowler's guile, 
Across liis fancy comes; and then resounds 
A louder song of sorrow through the grove.- 

Beside the dewy border let me sit," 
All in the freshness of the humid air: 
There in that, hollow'd rock, grotesque and wild, 
An ample chair moss-lined, and over head 
By flowering umbrage shaded; where the bee 
Strays diligent ; and with the extracted balm 
Of fragrant woodbine loads his little thigh. 

Now, while I taste the sweetness of the shade 
While Nature lies -around deep-luU'd in noon, 
Now come, bold Fancy, spread a daring, flight, 
And view the wonders of the torrid zone: 
Climes unrelenting ! with, whose rage compared, 
Yon blaze is feeble, and yon skies are cool. 
See, how at once the bright eflUgent sun, 
Rising direct, swift chases from the sky 
The short-lived twilight; and with ardent blaze 
Looks gaily fierce through all the dazzling air: 
He mounts his throne; bufkind before him sends, 
-Issuing from out the portals of the morn. 
The general breeze,* to mitigate his fire. 
And breathe refreshment on a fainting world. 
Great are the scenes, with dreadful beauty crown'd 
And barbarous wealth, that see, each circling year. 
Returning suns and dbuble seasonst pass : 
Rocks rich in gems, and mountains big with mines, 
That on the high equator ridgy rise, 
Whence many a bursting stream auriferous plays: 
Majestic woods, of every vigorous green. 
Stage above stage, 'high waving o'er the hills; 
Or to the fair horizon vyide diffused, 
A boundless deep immensity of shade. 
Here lofty trees, to ancient song unknown, 
The noble sons of potent heat and floods 
Prone-rushing from the clouds, rear high to Heaven 
Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw 
Meridian gloom. Here, in eternal prime. 
Unnumbered fruits of keen dehcious taste 
And vital spirit, drink amid the cliffs, 



* Which blows constantly between the tropics from the 
east, or t lie collateral points, the northeast and soiitli-east; 
caused by the pressure of the rarefied air on that before i(, ac- 
cording to the diurnal motion of the sun from east to west. 

I In all climates between the tropics, the sun, as he passes 
and repasses in his annual raotiofl, is twice 'a year vertical, 
which produces this effect. 



SUMMER. 



19 



And burning sands that bank the shrubby vales, 
Redoubled day, yet in their rugged coats 
A friendly juice to cool its rage contain. 

Bear pie, Pomono! to thy citron groves; 
To where the lemon and. the piercing lime, 
With the deep orange, glowing through the greien. 
Their lighter gloTies blend. Lay me reclined 
Beneath the spreading- tamarind that sha,kes, 
Fann'd by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit. 
Deep in the night the massy locust sheds, 
duench my hot limbs; or lead me through the 

maze. 
Embowering endless, of the Indian fig; 
Or thrown at gayer ease, on some fair brow, . 
Let me behold, by breezy murmurs cool'd. 
Broad o'er my head, the verdant cedar wave, 
And high palmetos lift their graceful shade. 
Or stretch'd amid these orchards of the sun, 
Give me to drain the cocoa's milky bowl. 
And from the palm to draw its freshening wine ! 
More bounteous far than all the frantic juice. 
Which Bacchus pours. Nor, on its slender' twigs 
Low-bending, be the full pomegranate scom'd ; 
Nor, creeping through the woods, the gelid race 
Of berries. Oft in humble station dwells 
Unboastful worth, above fastidious pomp. 
Witness, thou best Anana, thou the pride 
Of vegetable life, "beyond whate'ef 
The poets imaged in the golden age: 
Cluick let me strip thee of thy tufty coat. 
Spread thy ambrosial stores, and feast vnih Jove ! 

From these the prospect varies. Plains immense 
■Lie stretch'd below, interminable meads 
And vast savannahs, where the wandering eye, ' 
Unfix'd, is in a verdant ocean lost. 
Another Flora there, of bolder hues. 
And richer sweets, beyond our garden's pride, 
Plays o'er the fields, and showers with sudden hand 
Exuberant spring : for oft those valleys shift 
Their green embroider'd robe to fiery brown, 
And swift to green again, as scorching suns. 
Or streaming dews and torrent rains, prevail. 

Along these lonely regions, where, retired 
From little scenes, of art, great Natui'e dwells 
In awful soUtude, and nought is seen 
But the wild herds that own no master's stall 
Prodigious rivers roll their fattening seas: 
On whose luxuriant 'herbage, half conceal'd, 
Like a fallen cedar, far diffused his train. 
Cased in green scales, the crocodile extends. 
The flood disparts : behold ! in plaited mail 
' Behemoth* rears his head. .Glanced from his side, 
The darted steel in idle shivers flies : • 
He fearless walks the plain, or seeks the hills ; 
Where, as he crops his varied fare, the herds, 
In wideining circle round, forget their food. 
And at the harmless stranger wondering gaze. 



* The hippopotamus, or river-horse. 



Peaceful, beneath primeval trees, that cast 
Their ample shade o'er Niger's stream. 
And where the Ganges rolls his sacred wave ; 
Or mid the central depth of blackening woods, 
High ra^cd in solemn theatre around. 
Leans the huge elephant: wisest of brutes! 
O truly wise, with gentle might endow'd. 
Though powerful, not destructive '..here he sees 
Revolving ages sweep the changeful earth, 
And empires rise and fall; regardless he 
Of what the never-resting race of men 
Project: thrice happy! could he 'scape their guile, 
Who mine, from cruel avarice, his steps; 
Or with his towery grandeur swell their state, 
The pride of kings I or else his strength pervert, 
And bid him rage amid the mortal fray, 
Astonish'd at the madness of mankind. 

Wide o'er the winding umbrage of the floods. 
Like vivid blossoms, glowing from afar, 
Thick swarm the brighter birds. ForNature'shand, 
That with a sportive vanity has deck'd 
The plumy nations, there her gayest hues 
Profusely pours.* But, if she bids them shine, 
Array'd in all the beauteous beams of day, 
Yet frugal still, she humbles them in song. ' 
Nor envy we the gaudy robes they lent 
Proud, Montezuma's realm, whose legions cast 
A boundless radiance waving on the sun. 
While Philomel is ours; while in our shades, 
Through the soft silence of the listening night, 
The sober-suited songstress thrills her lay. 

But come, my muse, the desert-barrier burst, 
A wild expanse of lifeless sand and fky : 
And, swifter than the toiling caravan. 
Shoot o'er the vale of Sennar; ardent climb 
The Nubian mountains, and the secret "bounds 
Of jealous Abyssinia boldly pierce. 
Thou art no ruffian, who beneath the mask 
Of social commerce comest to rob their wealth; 
No holy fury thou, blaspheming Heaven, 
With consecrated steel to stab their peace. 
And through the land, yet red from civil wounds, 
To spread the purple tyranny of Rome. 
Thou, like the harmless bee, mayest freely range. 
From mead to mead bright with exalted flowers. 
From jasmine grove to grove mayst wander gay. 
Through palmy shades and aromatic woods, 
That grace the plains', invest the peopled hills, 
And up the more than Alpine mountains wave. 
There on the breezy summit, spreading fair, 
For many a league ; or on stupendous rocks. 
That from the sun-redoubling valley lift, 
Cool to the middle air, their lawny tops; 
Where palaces, and fanes, and villas rise; 
And gardens smile around, and cultured fields; 



• In all the regions of the torrid zone the birds, though 
more beautiful in their plumage, are observed to be less me- 
lodious then ours. 



20 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



And fountains gush; and careless herds and flocks 
Securely stray ; a world within itself, 
Disdaining all assault : there let me draw 
Ethereal soul, there drink reviving gales, 
Profusely breathing iron-) the spicy grove^ 
And' vales of fragrance ; there at distance hear 
The roaring floods, and cataracts, that sweep 
From disembowel'd earth the virgin gold ; 
And o'er the varied landscape, restless, rove, 
Fervent with life of every fairer kind: • 
A land of wonders ! which the sun still eyes 
With ray direct, as of the lovely realm 
Enamour'd, and delighting there to dwell. 
How changed the scene ! in blazing height of 

noon, 
The sun, oppress'd, is plunged in thickest gloom, 
Still horror reigns, a dreary twilight round, 
Of struggling night and day malignant mix'd. 
For to the hot equator crowding fast, 
Where, highly rarefied, the yielding air 
Admits their stream, incessant vapours roll. 
Amazing clouds on clouds continual heap'd ; 
Or whirl'd tempestuous, by the gusty wind. 
Or silent borne along, heavy and slow. 
With the big stores of steaming oceans charged. 
Meantime, amid these upper seas, condensed 
Around the cold aerial mountain's brow, • 
And by conflicting winds together dash'd, < 
The thunder holds Ms black tremendous throne ; 
From cloud to cloud the (ending lightnings rage ; 
Till, in the fmious elemental war 
Dissolved, the whole precipitated mass 
Unbroken floods and solid torrents pours. 

The treasures these, hid from the bounded 

search 
Of ancient knowledge; whence, with annual 

pomp, 
Rich king of floods ! o'erflows the swelling Nile. 
From his two springs, in Gojam's sunny realm, 
Pure welling out, he through the lucid lake 
Of fair Dambea rolls his infant stream. 
There, by the naiads nursed, he sports away 
His playful youth, amid the fragrant isles. 
That with unfading verdure smile around. 
Ambitious, thence the manly river breaks; 
And gathering many a flood, and copious fed 
With all the mellow'd treasures of the sky,. 
Winds in progressive majesty along: 
Through splendid kingdoms now devolves^ his 

maze. 
Now wanders wild o'er solitary tracts 
Of life-deserted sand ; till, glad to quit 
The joyless desert, down the Nubian rocks 
From thundering steep to steep, he pours his urn 
And Egypt joys beneath the spreading wave. 

His brother Niger too, and all the floods 
In which the fuU-form'd maids of Afric lave 
Their jetty limbs; and all that from the tract 
Of woody mountain stretch'd through gorgeousind 



Pall on Cor'mandel's coast, or Malabar; 
From Menam's* orient stream, that nightly shines 
With insect-lamps, to where Aurora sheds 
On Indus' smiling banks the rosy shower. 
All, at this bounteous season, ope their urns, 
Arid pour untoiling harvest o'er the land. 

Nor less thy world, Columbus, drinks, refreshed, 
The lavish moisture of the melting year. 
Wide o'er his isles, the braiiching Oronoque 
Rolls a brown deluge ; and the native drives ' 
To dwell aloft on life-sufhcing trees. 
At once his dome, his robe, his food, and arms. 
Swell'd by a thousand streams, impetuous hurl'd 
From all the roaring Andes, huge descends 
The mighty Orellana.t Scarce the Muse 
Dares stretch her wing o'er this enormous mass 
Of rushing water; scarce she dares attempt 
The sea-like Plata; to whose dread expanse. 
Continuous depth, and wondrous length of course, 
Our floods are rills. With unabated force,. 
In silent dignity they sweep along. 
And traverse realms unknown, and blooming 

wilds,. - ■ ' 

And fruitful deserts, worlds of solitude. 
Where the sun smiles and seasons teem in vain, 
Unseen and unenjoy'd. Forsaking these. 
O'er peopled plains they fair-diffusive flow, 
And majiy a hafton feed, and circle safe. 
In their soft bosom, many a happy isle ; 
The seat of blameless Pan', yet undisturb'd 
By Christian crimes, and Europe's cruel sons. 
Thus pouring on they proudly seek the deep, 
Whose vanquish'd tide recoiling from the shock, 
Yields to the hquid weight of half the globe, 
And Ocean trembles for his green domain. • . 
But what avails this wondrous waste of wealth 1 
This gay profusion of luxurious bliss 1 
This pomp of Nature 1 what their balmy meads, 
Their powerful herbs, and Ceres void of pain 1 
By vagrant birds dispersed and wafting winds. 
What their unplanted fruits? what the .cool 

draughts. 
The ambrosial food, rich gums, and spicy health, 
Their forests yield 1 their toiling insects what 1 
Their silky pride, and vegetable robes'? 
Ah ! what avail their fatal treasures, hid 
Deep in the bowels of the pitying earth, 
Grolconda's gems, and sad Pofosi's mines ; 
Where dwelt the gentlest children of the sun 1 
What all that Afric's golden rivers roll. 
Her odorous woods, and shining ivory stores 1 
Ill-fated race ! the softening arts of Peace, 
Whate'er the humanizing Muses teach ; 
The godUke wisdom of the temper'd breast • 



* The river that runs tlirough Siam : on whose banks a 
vast multitude of iliose insects, called fire-flies, make a beau- 
tiful appearance in the night. 

t Tlie river of the Amazons. 



SUMMER.- 



21 



Progressive truth, the patient force of thought; 
Investigation cahn, whose silent powers 
Command the world ; the light that leads to Hea- 
ven ; 
Kind equal rule, the government of laws, 
And all-protecting Freedom, which p,lone 
Sustains the name and dignity of man : 
These are not theirs. The parent sun himself 
Seems o'er this world of slaves to tyrannize ; 
And, with oppressive ray, the roseate bloom ' 
Of beauty blasting, gives the gloomy hue. 
And feature gross : or worse, to ruthless deeds, 
• Mad' jealousy, blind rage, and fell revenge, 
Their fervid spirit fires. Love dwells^ not there, 
The soft regards, the. tenderness of life, 
The heart-shed tear, the ineffable delight 
Of sweet humanity ; these court the beam 
Of milder elimes ; in, selfish fierce desire, 
And the wild fury of voluptuous sense, 
There lost. The very brute-creation there 
This rage partakes, and burns with horrid fire. 
Lo ! the green serpent, from his dark abode, 
Which even Imagination fears to tread, 
At noon foiih-issuing, gathers up his train 
In orbs immense, then, darting out anew, 
Seeks the refreshing fount; by wliich diffused, 
He throws his folds ; and while, with threatening 

tongue 
And. deathful jaws erect, the monster curls 
His flaming crest, all other thirst appall'd, 
Or shivering flies or check'd at distance stands, . 
Nor dares approach'. But still more direful he, 
The small close-lurking minister of fate, 
Whose high-conc.octed venom through the veins 
A rapid lightning darts, arresting swift 
The vital, current. Form'd to humble man, 
This child of vengeful Nature ! tliere, sublimed 
To fearless lust of blood, the savage race 
Roam, Ucensed by the shading hour of guUt, 
And foul misdeed, when the pure day has shut 
His sacred eye. The tiger darting fierce 
Impetuous ort the prey his glance has doom'd : * 
The lively shining leopard, speckled o'er 
With many a spot, the beauty of the waste ; 
And, scorning all the taming tirts of man, 
The keen hyena, fellest of the fell. 
These, rushing from the inhospitable woods 
Of Mauritania, or the tufted isles, ' . ' . 
That verdant rise amid the Libyan wild,' 
Innumerous glare around their shaggy king 
Majestic, stalking o'er the printed sand ; 
And, with imperious and repeated, roars, 
Demand their fated food. The fearful flocks 
Crowd near the guardian swain-; the nobler herds, 
Where round their lordly bull, in rural ease 
They ruminating lie, with horror hear 
The coming rage. The awaken'd village starts ; 
And to her fluttering breast the mother strains 
Her thoughtless infiint. Frpm the pyrate's den, 



Or stern Morocco's tyrant fang escaped, 
The wretch half wishes for his bonds again : 
While, uproar all, the wilderness resounds, 
From Atlas eastward to the frighted Nile. . 

Unhappy he ! who from the first of joys, 
Society, cut off, is loft alone 
Amid this world of death. Day after day. 
Sad on the jutting eminence he sits, 
And views the main that ever toils below; . 
Still fondly formhig in the fartlicst verge, - 
Where the round ether mixes with the wave, 
Ships, dim-discovcr'd dropping from the clouds ; 
At evening, to the setting sun he turns 
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart 
Sinks helpless ; while the wonted roar is up, 
And hiss contmual through the tedious night. 
Yet here, e'en here, into these black abodes 
Of monsters, unappall'd, from stooping Rome ■ 
And guilty Ccesar, Liberty retired, 
Her Cato following through Numidian wilds; 
Disdainful of Campania's gentle plains. 
And all the green deUghts Ausonia pours; 
When for them she must bend the servile knee, 
And fawning take the splendid robber's boon. 

Nor stop the terrors of these regions here. ' 
Commission'd demons oft, angels of wrath, 
Let foose the raging elements. Breathed hot 
From all the boundless furnace of the sky, ■ . - 
And the wide glittering waste of burning sand, 
A suffocating Wind the pilgrim smites 
With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil, 
Son of the desert.! e'en the camel feels, 
Shot through his wither'd heart, the fiery blast. 
Or from the black-red ether, bursting broad, 
Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands, 
Commoved around, in gathering eddies play: 
Nearer and nearer still they darkening come j 
Till, with the general all-involving storm 
Swept up, the whole continuous wild arise ; 
And by their noonday fovmt dejected thrown 
Or sunk at night in sad disastrous sleep, 
Beneath descending hills, the caravan 
Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets 
The impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain, 
And Mecca saddens at the long delay. 

But chief at sea, whose every flexile wave 
Obeys the blast, the aerial tumult swells. 
In the dread ocean, imduJating wide, 
Beneath the radiant Une that girts the globe, 
The circling' Typhon,* whirl'd from point to point, 
Exhausting all the rage of all the sky, 
And dire Ecnephia* reign. Amid the heavens, 
Falsely serene, deep in a cloudy speck t 
Compress'd, the mighty tempest brooding dwells : 



* Typhon and Ecn?phia, names^of particular storms or hur- 
ricanes, known only between the tropics. 

t Called by'sailors the Ox-eye, being in appearance at first 
no bigger. 



22 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Of no regard, save to the skilful eye, 

Fiery and foul,, the small prognostic hangs 

Aloft, or on the promontory's brow 

Musters its force. A faint deceitful calm, 

A fluttering gale, the demon sends before, 

To tempt the spreading sail. Then down at once, 

Precipitant, descends a mingled mass 

Of roaring winds, and flame, and rushing floods. 

In wild amazement fix'd the sailor stands. 

Art is too slow: by jraj)id fate oppress'd. 

His broad-winged vessel drinks the whelming tide, 

Hid in the bosom of tlie black abyss. 

With such mad seas the daring Gama* fought. 

For many a^day, and many a di'eadful night, 

Incessant, labouring round the stormy Cape.; 

By bold ambition led, and bolder thirst 

Of gold. For then from ancient gloom emerged 

The rising world of trade : the Genius, then, 

Of navigation, that, m hopeless sloth. 

Had slumber'd on the vast Atlantic deep, 

For idle ages, starting, heard at last 

The Lusitanian Prince ;t who. Heaven-inspired, 

To love of useful glory roused mankind. 

And in unbounded commerce mix'd the world. 

Increasing still the terrors of these storms, 
His jaws horrific arm'd with threefold fate. 
Here dwells the direful shark. Lured by the scent 
Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death, 
Behold! he rushing cuts the briny flood. 
Swift as the gale can bear the ship along ; 
And, from the partners of that cruel trade, 
Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her sons, 
Demands his share of prey; demands themselves. 
The stormy fates descend : one death involves 
Tyrants and slaves; when straight, their mangled 

limbs 
Crashing at once, he dyes the purple seas 
With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.. 

When o'er this world, by equinoctial rains 
Flooded immense, looks out the joyless sun, 
And draws the copious stream : from swampy fens, 
Where putrefaction into life ferments, 
And breathes destructive myriads ; or from woods, 
Impenetrable shades, recesses foul. 
In vapours rank and blue corruption wrapt, 
Whose glooitiy horrors yet no desperate foot 
Has ever .dared to pierce ; then, wasteful, forth 
Walks the dire Power of pestilent disease. 
A thousand hideous fiends her coijrsc attend, 
Sick Nature blasting, and to heartless woe, 
And feeble desolation, casting down 
The towering hopes and all the pride of Man. 
Such as, of late, at Carthagcna quench'd 
The British fire. You, gallant Vernon, saw 



* Vasco <Je Gama, the first who sailed round Africa, by the 
Cape of Good Hope, to the East Indies. 

I Don Henry, third son to John the First, King of Portugal. 
His strong genius to the discovery of new countries was the 
chief source of all the modern Improvements in navigation. 



The miserable scene, you pitying, saw 
To infant-\^eakness sunk the warrior's arm ; 
Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly foma, 
The lip pale quivering, and the beamless eye 
Nomore w.ith ardour bright: you heard the groans 
Of agonizing_ships, from shore to shore; 
Heard, nightly plunged amid the sullen waves, 
The frequent corse; while on each other fix'd, 
In sad presage, the blank assistants seem'd, 
Silent, to ask, whom Fate would next demand. 

What need I mention those inclement skies, 
Where, frequent o'er the sickening city, Plague, 
The fiercest child of Nemesis divine, 
Descends 1 From Ethiopia's poison'd woods. 
From stifled Cairo's filth, and fetid fields 
With locust-armies putrefying heap'd, 
This great destroyer -sprung. Her awful rage 
The brutes escape : Man is her destined prey, 
Intemperate Man ! and, o'er his guilty domes. 
She draws a close incumbent cloud of death; 
Uninterrupted by the Kving winds, ■ 
Forbid to bjow a wholesome breeze ; and stain'd 
With many a mixture by the sun, suffused. 
Of angry aspect. Princely wisdom, then. 
Dejects his watchful eye; and from the hand 
Of feeble justice, ineffectual, drop 
The sword and balance: mute the voice of joy. 
And hush'd the clamour of the busy world. 
Empty the streets, with uncouth verdure clad ; 
Into the worst of deserts sudden turn'd 
The cheerful haunt of men : unless escaped 
From the doom'd house, where matchless horrpr 

reigns, 
Shut up by barbarous fear, the smitten wretch, • 
With frenzy wild, breaks loose; and, loud to 

Heaven 
Screaming, the dreadiul policy arraigns. 
Inhuman, and unwise.. The sullen door. 
Yet uninfected, on its cautious hinge 
Fearing to turn, abhors society : . 
Dependants, friends, relations. Love himself, 
Sa?vaged by woe, forget the tender tie. 
The sweet engagement of the feeling heart. 
But vain their selfish care: the circling sky, 
The wide enlivening air is full of fate; 
And, struck by turns, in sohtary pangs 
They fall, unblest, untended, and unmourn'd. 
Thus o'er the prostrate city black Despair 
Extends her ra.ven wing : while, to complete * ' 
The scene of desolation, stretch'd aVound, 
The grim guards stand, denying all retreat, 
And give the flying wretch a l)etter death. 

Much yet remains unsung: the rage intense 
Of brazen-vaulted skies, of iron fields, 
Where drought and famine stai"ve the blasted year: 
Fired by the torch of noon to tenfold rage. 
The infuriate hill that shoots the pillar'dffome; 
And, roused within the subterranean world. 
The expanding earthquake, tliat resistless shakes 



SUMMER. 



23 



Aspiring cities from their solid base,- 
And buries mountains in the flaming gulf. 
But 'tis enough ; return, my vagrant Muse : 
A nearer scene of horror calls thee home. 

Behold, slow-sctthng o'er the lurid grove 
Unusual darkness broods , and growing gains 
The full possession of the sky, surcharged 
With wrathful vapour, from the secret beds, 
Where sleep the mineral generations, drawn. 
Thence nitre, sulphuf , and the iie'ry spume 
Of fat bitumen, steaming on the day, 
With various-tinctured trains of latent flame," 
Pollute the sky, and in yon baleful cloud, 
A reddening gloom, a magazine of fate, 
Ferment ; till, by the touch ethereal roused, 
The dash of clouds, or irritating war 
Of fighting winds, while all is calm below, 
They furious spring. A boding silence reigns, 
Dread through the dun expanse ; save the dull sound 
That from the mountain, previous to the storm, , 
Rolls, o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood. 
And shakes the forest-leaf without a breath. 
Prone, to the lovyest vale, the aerial tribes 
Descend : the tempest-loving raven scarce 
Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gaze 
The cattle stand, and on the scowling heavens 
Cast a deploring eye, by man forsook, 
Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast, 
Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave. 
'Tis listening fear, and dumb amazement all: . 
When to the startled eye the sudden glance 
Appears far South, eruptive through the cloud ; 
And following slower, in explosion vast, ■ . 
The Thimder raises his tremendous voice. 
At first, heard solemn o'er the verge of Heaven, 
The tempest growls ; - but as it nearer comes, 
And rolls its awful'burden on -the wind, 
The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more 
The noise astounds : till over head a sheet 
Of livid flame discloses wide ; then shuts. 
And opens wider ; shuts and opens still 
Expansive, wrapping ether.in a blaze. 
Follows the loosen'd aggravated roar. 
Enlarging, deepening, mingling ; peal on peal 
• Crush'd horrible, convulsing heaven and earth. 

Down comes a deluge of sonorous hail, 
Or prone-descending rain; Wide-rent, the clouds 
Pour a whole flood ; and yet, its flame unquench'd. 
The unconquerable lightning struggles through. 
Ragged and fierce, or in red whirling balls. 
And fires the mountains with redoubled rage. 
Black from the stroke, ^bove, the smouldring pirje 
Stands a sad shatter'd trunk; and, stretch'd telow, 
A lifeless group the blasted cattle lie: 
Here the soft flocks, with that same harmless look 
They wore alive, and ruminating still 
In fancy's eye; and there the frownirig bull. 
And ox half-raised. Struck on the castled cliff, 
The venerable tower and spiry fane 



Resign their aged pride. The gloomy woods 
Start at the flash, and from their deep recess, 
Wide-flaming out, their trembling inmates shake. 
Amid Carnarvon's mountains rages loud 
The repcfcussive rodcr: with mighty crush, 
Into the flashing deep, from the rude rocks 
Of Penmanmaur heap'd hideous to. the sky, ^ 
Tumble the smitten clifl's ; and Snowden's peak, 
Dissolving, instant yields his wintry load. 
Far seen, the heights of heathy Cheviot blaze. 
The Thule bellows through her utmost isles. 

Guilt hears appall'd, with deeply troubled 
thought, . ■ • 

And yet not always on the guilty head 
Descends the fated flash. Young. Celadon 
And his Amelia were a matchless pair; 
With equal virtue fonn'd, and equal grace. 
The same, distinguish'd by their sex alone: 
Hers the mild lustre of the blooming mom, 
And lais the radiance of the risen day, 

They lov'd: but such the guileless passion was, 
As in the dawn of time inform'd the heart 
Of innocence and undissembling truth. 
'Twas friendship, hcighten'd by the mutual wish; 
The enchanting hope, and sympathetic glow, 
Beam'd from the mutual eye. Devoting all 
To love, each wag to each a dearer self; 
Supremely happy in the awaken'd power 
Of giving joy. Alone, amid the shades. 
Still in harmonious intercourse they lived 
The rural day, and talk'd the flowing heart. 
Or sigh'd and look'd unutterable things. 

So pass'd their life, a clear united stream, 
By care unruffled ; till, in an evil hour. 
The tempest caught them on the tender walk. 
Heedless how far and where its mazes stray'd, 
While with each other blest, creative love 
StUl bade 'eternal Eden smile around. 
Presagitig instant fate, her bosom heaved 
Unwonted sighs, and stealing oft a look 
Of the big gloom, on Celadon her eye 
Fell tearful, wetting her disorder'd cheek. 
In vain assuring love, and confidence 
In Heaven, repress'd her fear; it grew, and shook 
Her frame near dissolution. He perceived 
The unequal conflict, and as angels look 
On dying saints, his eyes compassion shed, 
With love illumined high. " Fear not," he said, 
" Sweet innocence I thou stranger to offence, 
And inward storm ! He, who yon skies involves 
In frowns of darkness, ever smiles on thee 
With kind regard. O'er thee the secret shaft 
That wastes at midnight, or the undreaded hour 
Of noon, flies harmless : and that very voice. 
Which thunders terror through the guilty heart, 
With tongues of seraphs whispers peace to thine. ) 
'Tis safety to be near thee sure, and thus 
To clasp perfection !" From his void embrace, 
(Mysterious Heaven!) that moment, to the ground, 



04 



.THOMSON'S WORKS. 



A Wacken'd corse, was struck the beauteous maid. 
But who can paint the lover, as he stood, 
Pierced by severe amazement, hating life. 
Speechless, and fix'd in all the death of woe! 
So, faint resemblance ! on tlit marble tomb, 
The well-dissembled mourner stooping stands, 
For ever silent and for ever sad. 

As from the face of Heaven the shatter'd clouds 
•Tumultuous rove, the interminable sky 
Sublimer swells, and o'er the world expands 
A purer azure. Through the lighten'd air 
A higher lustre and a clearer calm. 
Diffusive, trembJe ; while, as if in sign 
Of.danger past, a glittering robe of joy, 
Set off abundant by the yellow ray. 
Invests the fields; and nature smiles revived. 

'Tis beauty all, and graceful song aromid, 
Join'd to the low of kine, and numerous bleat 
Of flocks thick-nibbUng through the clover'd vale; 
And shall the hymn be marr'd by thankless Man, 
Most-favoured ! who with voice articulate 
Should lead the chorus of this lower world ; 
Shall he, so soon forgetful of the Hahjd 
That hiish'd the thunder, and serenes the sky, 
Extinguish'd feel that spark the tempest waked. 
That sense of powers exceeding far his own, 
Ere yet his feeble heart has lost jts fears "? 

Cheer'd by the milder beam, the sprightly youth 
Speeds to the well-known pool, whose crystal depth 
A sandy bottom shows. Awhile he stands 
Gazing the'inverted landsc'ape, half afraid 
To meditate the blue profound below; 
• Then plunges headlong down the circling flood.- 
His ebon tresses, and his rosy cheek 
Instant enierge ; and through the obedient wave, 
At each short breathing by his lip repell'd, 
With arms and legs according well, he makes, 
As humour leads, an easy winding path ; 
While, from his polish'd sides, a dew.y light 
Effuses on the pleased spectators reund. 
" This is the purest exercise of health. 
The kind refresher of the summer-heats; 
Nor when cold Winter keens the brightening flood. 
Would I weak-shivering linger on the brink. 
Thus life redoubles, and is oft preserved, ■• 
By the bold swimmer, in the swift elaipse ■ 
Of acbident disastrous. Hence the limbs 
Knit into force ; and the same Roman arm, 
That rose victorious o'er the conquer'd earth,. 
First learn'd, while tender, to subdue the wave. 
Even from the body's purity the mind 
Receives a secret sympathetjic aid.' 

Close in the covert of a hazel copse, 
Where, winded into pleasing solitudes. 
Runs out the rambling dale, young Damon sat, 
Pensive, and picrc'd with love's delightful pangs. 
There to the stream that down the distant rocks 
Hoaise-murmuring fell, and plaintive hrecze that 
play'd 



Among the bending willows, falsely he 
Of Musidora's cruelty complain 'd. 
She felt his flame ; but deep within her breast 
In bashful coyness, or m maiden pride^ 
The soft return conceal'd; save when it stole- 
In sidelong glances from her downcast eye, 
Or from her sweUing soul in stifled sighs. 
Touch'd by the scene, no stranger to his vows, 
He framed a melting lay^ to .try her heart ; 
And, if an infant passion struggled there, 
To call. that passion forth. Thrice hagpy swain! 
A lucky, chance that oft decides the fate 
Of mighty monarchs,- then decided thine. 
For lo! conducted by the laugliing Loves, 
This cool retreat his Musidora. sought: 
Warm in her cheek the sultry season glow'd ; 
And, robed in loose array, she came to bathe 
Her fervent limbs in the refreshing stream. 
What shall he do 1 In sweet confusion lost, 
And dubious flutterings, he a while remam'd: 
A pure ingenuous el(?gance of soul, 
A delicate refinement, known to tew, 
Perplex'd liis .breast, and urged lym to retire : 
But love forbade. Ye prudes in virtue, pay, 
Say, ye severest, what would you have done.'? 
Meantime, tliis fairer nymph than ever blest 
Arcadian Stream, with timid eye around 
The banks surveying, stripp'd her beauteous limbs, 
To taste the lucid coolness of the flood. 
Ah then ! not Paris on the piny top • 
Of Ida panted stronger, when aside 
The rival-goddesses the veil divine 
Cast.unconfined, and -gave him all their charms, 
Than, Damon^-thou; as from the snowy leg. 
And slender foot, the inverted silk she drew; 
As the soft touch dissolved the virgin zone : 
And, through the parting robe, the alternate breast, 
With youth wild-throbbing, on thy lawless gaze 
In full luxuriance rose. But, desperate youth 
How durst thou risk the soul-distracting view. 
As from her naked limbs of glowing white. 
Harmonious swell'd by. Nature's finest hand. 
In folds loose floating fell the fainter lawn ; 
And fair exposed she stood, shrunk from herself. 
With fancy blushing, at the doubtful breeze 
Alarin'd, and starting like the fearful fawn7 
Then to the flood she rnsh'd; the parted flood 
Its lovely guest with closing waves received} ' 
And every beauty Softening, every grace 
Flushing anew, a mellow lustre shed : 
As shines the lily through the crystal mild ; 
Or as the rose amid the morjiing dew. 
Fresh Trom Aurora's hand, more sweetly glows, 
While thus she wanton'd, now beneath the wave 
But ill-conceal'd; and ndwwith streaming locks. 
That half-emhraced her in a humid veil. 
Rising again, the. latent Damon drew 
Such ma.ddening draughts of beauty to the soul, 
As for a while o'erwhelm'd his raptured thought 



SUMMER. 



25 



With luxury too daring. (Check'd, at last, 
By love's respectful modesty, he deem'd 
The theft profane, if aught profane to love 
Can e'er be deem'd; and struggling from the 

" shade, . ... 

With headlong hurry fled': but first these lines, 
Traced by his ready pencil, on the bank 
With trembUng hand he threw :— ' Bathe on, my 

fair, .■ . ■ / 

Yet unbeheld save by the sacred eye 
Of faithful Tove : I go to guard thy haunt, 
To keep from thy recess each .vagrant foot, 
And each licentious eye.' . With wild surprise, 
As if to marble struck, devoid of sense, . • 
A stupid moment motionless she stood : 
So stands the statue* that enchunts the world, 
So bending tries to veil the matchless boast, 
The mingled beauties of exulting' Greece. 
Recovering, swift she flew to find those robes 
Which blissful Eden knew- not; and, array 'd 
In careless haste, the alamiing paper snatch'd. 
But, when her Damon's well known hand sTie 

saw, •; • 
Her terrors variish'd,'and a softer train 
Of mix'd emotions, hard to be described, 
Her sudden bosom seized: shame void of guilt, 
The charming blush of innocence, esteem, 
And admira,tion of her lover's flame. 
By modesty exalted : e'en a sense 
Of self-approving beauty stole across 
Her busy thought. At. length a tender calm 
Hush'd by degrees thp tumult of her soul ; 
And on the spreading beech, thato'er the stream 
Incumbent hung, she with the sylvan pen 
Of rural lovers this confession carved. 
Which soon her Damon kiss'd with weeping joy: 
'Dear youth! sole judge of what these verses 

mean, ■ ■ 

By fortune too, much favour'd, but by love, 
Alas ! not favour'd less, be still as now . 
■Discreet: the time may come you need not fly.' 
The sun has lost liis rage: his downward orb 
Shoots nothing now but animating warmth 
And vital lustre; that with various ray 
Lights up the clouds, those beauteous robes of 

Heaven, 
Incessant roU'd into romantic shapes. 
The dream of waking -fancy ! broad below, 
Cover'd with ripening fruits, and swelling fast 
Into the perfect year, the pregnant earth 
And all her tribes rejoice. Q*iow the soft.hour 
Of walking comes : for him who lonely loves 
To seek the distant hills, and there converse 
With Nature; there. to harmonize his heart. 
And in pathetic song to breathe around 
The harmony to others. Social friends, 
Attuned to happy unison of soul; 



To whose exalting eye a. fairer world. 
Of which the vulgar never had a glimpse. 
Displays its charms; whose niinds are richly 

fraught • ' 

With philosophic stores, superior light; 
And in whose breast, enthusiastic, burns 
Virtue, the sons of interest deem romance; 
Now call'd abroad enjoy the falling day :^ 
Now to the verdant Portico of woods, ■ 
To Nature's vast Lyceum forth they walk ; 
By tliat kind School where no proud master 

reigns, 
The full free converse of the friendly heart. 
Improving and improved. ^^ Now from the world, . 
Sacred to sweet retirement, lovers steal, 
And pour their souls in transport, which the Sire 
Of love approving hears, and calls it good. 
Which way, Amanda, shall we bend our course 1 
The choice perplexes. Wherefore should we 

choose 1 
All is the same with thee. Say, shall we wind. 
Along the streams'? or walk the smiling mead"? 
Or court the forest glades 1 or wander wild 
Among the waving harvests 1 or ascend, . 
While radiant Summer opens all its pride, 
Thy hill, delightful Shene 1* Here let us sweep 
The boundless landscape : -now the raptured eye, 
Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send. 
Now to the Sister-Hillst that skirt her plain, 
To lofty Harrow^ now, and now to where 
Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow. 
In lovely contrast to this glorious view 
Calmly magnificent, then will we turh 
To where the silver Thames first rural grows. 
There let thefeagted eye unwearied stray: 
Luxurious, there, rove through the pendant woods 
That nodding hang o'er Harrington's retreat ; 
And, stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks,' 
Beneath whose shades, in spotless peace retired. 
With Her the pleasing partner of his heart, 
The worthy GLueensberry yet laments his Gay,- 
And poHsh'd Cornbury woos the wilhrig Muse, . 
Slow let US' trace the matcldess vale of Thames ; 
Fair winding up to where the Muses haunt 
In Twit'nam's bowers, and for their Pope im- 

• plore 
The healing God ;1i to royal Hampton's pile. 
To Clermont's terraced height, and Esher's 

groves, 
Where in the sweetest solitude, embraced 
By the soft windings of the silent Mole, 
From courts and senates Pelham finds repose. 
Inchanting vale ! beyond whate'er the Muse 
Has of Achaia or Hesperia svmg ! 



' The Venus of Medici. 



•* Tiie old name of Richmond, signifying in Saxon, Sliining; 
or Splendour, 
t Higligate and Hampstead. 
i In his last sickiiess. 



26 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



O vale of bliss ! O softly swelling hills ! 
On which the Power of Cultivation lies, 
And joys to see the wonders of his toil. 

Heavens! what agoodly prospect spreads around, 
Of hills, and dales, and Tvqpds, and lawns, and 

spires. 
And glittering towns, and gilded streams, till all 
The stretching landscape into smoke decays ! 
Happy Britannia ! where the Q,ueen of Arts, 
Inspiring vigour, Liberty abroad 
Walks, unconfined, even to thy farthest cots, • 
And scatters plenty with unsparing hand. 

Rich is thy soil, and merciful thy clime ; " 
Thy streams unfailing in the Summer's drought ; 
TJnmatch'd thy guardian oaJts ; thy valleys float 
With golden waves : and on thy mountains flocks 
Bleat numberiess ! while, roving round their sides. 
Bellow the blackening herds in lusty droves. 
Beneath^ thy meadows glow, and rise unquell'd 
Against the mower's scythe. On every hand 
Thy villas shine. Thy country teems with wealth; 
And property assures it to the swain, 
Pleased and unwearied, in his guarded toil. 

Full, are thy cities with the Sons of Art ; 
And trade and joy, in every busy street. 
Mingling are heard ; e'en Drudgery himself, 
As at the car he sweats, or dusty hews 
The palace stone, looks gay.- Thy crowded portSj 
Where rising masts an endless prospect yield, ■ 
With laboui; burn, and echo to the shouts 
Of hurried sailor, as he hearty waves 
His last adieu, and loosening every sheet, 
Ilesigns the -spreading vessel to the wind. 

Bold, firm, and graceful are thy generous youth, 
•By hardship sinew'd, and by danger fired,. 
Scattering the nations where they go ; and first 
Or on the listed plain, or stormy seas. 
Mild are thy glories too, as .o'er the plans 
Of thriving peace thy thoughtful sires preside ;* 
In genius, and substantial learning, high; 
For every virtue, every worth renown'd ; 
Sincere, plain-hearted, hospitable, kind.; 
Yet like the mustering thiinder when provoked. 
The dread of tyrants, and the sole resource . ' 
Of those that under grim oppression groan. 

Thy sons of Glory many I Alfred thine, 
In whom the Splendour of heroic war, 
And more heroic peace,, when govcrn'd well. 
Combine ; whose hallow'd name the Virtues saint. 
And his own Muses love ; the best of kings ! 
With him thy Edwards and thy Henries shine, 
Names dear to fame ; the first who deep impress'd 
On haughty Gaul the terror of thy arms, 
That awes her genius still. In statesmen thou. 
And patriots, fertile. Thine d, steady More, 
Who, with a generous though mistaken zeal. 
Withstood a brutal tyrant's useful rage, 
Like Cato firm, like Aristides just. 
Like rigid Cincinnatus nobly poor, 



A dauntless soul erect, who smiled on death. 
Frugal and wise, a Walsingham is thine, 
A Drake, who made thee mistress of the deep, 
And bore thy name in thunder round the world. 
Then flamed thy spirit high : but who can spea,k 
The numerous worthies of the Maiden Reign 1 
In Ralei*h mark their every glory mix'd ; 
Raleigh, the scourge of Spain ! whose breast with all 
The sage, the patriot, and the hero burn'd. 
Nor sunk his vigour, when a coward-reign 
The warrior fetter'd, and at last resigned. 
To glut the vengeance of a vanquish'd. foe. 
Then active still and unrestrain'd, hrs mind 
Explored the vast extent of ages past. 
And with his prison-hours ehrich'd the world ; 
Yet found no times, in all the long research, . 
So glorious, or, so base, as those he proved, 
In which he conqjier'd, and in which he bled. 
Nor can the Muse the gallant Sidney pass, " 
The plume of war ! with early laurels crown'd; 
The lover's myrtle, and the poet's bay. 
A Hampden too is thine, illustrious land, 
Wise, strenuous, firm, of unsubmitting soul, 
Who stemm'd the torrent of a downward age 
To slavery prone, and bade thee rise again, 
In all thy native pomp of freedom bold. 
Bright, at his call, thy Age of Men efTulged, 
Of Men on whom late time a kindling eye 
Shall turn, and tyrants tremble while they rea^d'. 
Bring every sweetest flower, and let me strew 
The grave where Russel lies; whose temper'd blood 
With calmest cheerfulness for thee resign'd, 
Stain'd the sad annals of a giddy reign; • 
Aiming At lawless power, though meanly sunk 
In loose inglorious luxury. With him 
His friend, the British Cassius,* fearless bled ; 
Of high determined spirit, roughly brave, 
By ancient learning to the enlighten'd love 
Of ancient freedom- warm'd. Fair- thy renown 
In awful sages and in noble bards ; 
Soon as the Ught of dawning Science spread" 
Her orient ray, and waked the Muses' song. 
Thine is a Bacon; hapless in his choice. 
Unfit to stand the civil storm of state, ' 
And through the smooth barbarity of courts, 
With firni but pliant virtue, forward still 
To urge his course : him for the studious shade 
Kind Nature form'd, deep, comprehensive, clear, 
Exact, and elegant : in one rich soul, 
Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully join'd. 
The gi-eat deliverer he ! who from the gloom 
Of cloister'd monks, and jargon-teaching schools, 
Let forth the true philosophy; there long 
Held in the magic chain of words and forms. 
And definitions void: he led her forth, 
Daughter of Heaven ! that slow-ascending still, 
Investigating sure the chain of things, 



• Algernon Sidney. 



SUMMER. 



27 



With radiant finger points to Heaven again. 
The generous Ashley* thine, the friend of man; 
"Who scann'd his nature with a brother's eye, 
His weakness prompt to shade, to raise his aim, 
To touch the finer movements of the mind, 
And with the nioral beauty charm the heart. 
Why need I name thy Boyle, whose pious search 
Aniid the dark recesses of his works. 
The great Creator sought 1 And why thy Locke, 
Who made the whole internal world his own'? 
Let Newton, pure intelligence, whom God 
To mortals lent, to trace His boundless works 
From laws sublimely simple, speak thy fame 
III all philosophy. For lofty sense. 
Creative fancy, and inspection keen 
Through the deep windings o^ the human "heart. 
Is not wild Shakspeare thine and Nature's boast 1 
Is not each great, each amiable Muse 
Of classic ages in thy Milton mef? 
A genius universal as his theme; . 

Astonishing as chaos, as the bloom 
Of blowing Eden fair, as Heaven sublime ! 
Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget, ' • 
The gentle Spenser, fancy's pleasing son; 
Who, Uke a copious river, pour'd his song 
O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground; 
Nor thee, his ancient master, laughing sage, . 
Chaucer, whose 'native manners-painting verse. 
Well moralised, shines through the gqthic cloud 
Of time and language o'er thy genius, thrown. 

May my song soften as thy daughters I, . , 
Britannia, haU! for beauty is their own,' ' , 
The feeling heart, simplicity of Ufe, , . . " 

And elegance and taste: the faultless form, " . 
Shaped by the hand of harmony ; the cheek. 
Where the live cribason, through the native, white 
Soft-shooting, o'er the face diffuses bloom, 
And every nameless grace; the parted lip. 
Like the red rose bud moist with morning dew, 
Breathing dehght"; and, under flowing jet, , 
Or sunny ringlets, or of circling brown. 
The neck shght-shaded, and the swelling breast; 
The look resistless, piercing to the soul, 
And by the soul infornt'd, when dress'd in love 
She sits high smihng in the conscious eye. ' 

Island of bliss! amid the subject seas. 
That thunder round thy rocky coast, set up, 
At once the wonder, terror, and delight 
Of distant nations; whose remotest shores. 
Can soon be shaken by thy ijaval arm; 
Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults 
BaiHing, as thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave. 
/ O Thou ! by whose Almighty nod the scale 
Of empire rises, or alternate falls, 
Send forth the saving V^iiies. round the land, 
In bright patrol : white Peace and social Love ; 
The tender-looking Charity, intent 



* Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. 



On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles; 
Undaunted Truth, S,nd Dignity of mind: 
Courage composed, and keen : sound Temperance, 
Healthful in heart and look; clear Chastity, 
With blushes reddening as she moves along, 
Disorder'd at the deep regard she draws; 
Rough Industry ; Activity untired, • 
With copious Ufe inform'd, and all awake: 
While in the radiant front, superior shiaes . 
That first paternal virtue. Public Zeal; 
Who throws o'er all an equal wide survey. 
And, ever musing on the common weal. 
Still labours glorious with some great design. 
. - LoVv walks the sun, and broadens by degrees, 
Just o'er the verge of day. The shifting clouds 
Asstobled gay, a richly gorgeops train, 
In all their pomp attend his setting throne. 
Air, earth, and ocean, smile immense. And now. 
As if his weary chariot. sought the bowers 
Of Amphitrite, and her tending nymphs, 
(So Grecian fable sung) he dips his orb; 
Now half-immersed ; and now a golden curve 
Gives one bright glance, then total disappears. 

For ever running an elichanted round ^ 
Passes the day, deceitful,' vain, and void; 
As fleets, the vision o'er the formful brain. 
This moment hurrying wild the impassion'd soul, 
The next in nothing lost. 'Tis so to him. 
The dreamer of this earth, an idle blank: 
A sight of horror to the cruel wretch, 
Who all day long in sordid pleasure roll'd, 
Himself a .useless load, has squandered vile. 
Upon his scoundrel train, what might have.chepr'd 
A drooping family of modest worth. 
But to the generous still-improving mind, 
That gives the hopeless heart .to sing for joy, ' 
Diflusing kind beneficence around, 
Boastless, as now descends the silent dew; 
To him the long revie.w, of order'd life 
Is inward rapture, only to be felt. 

Cqnfess'd from yonder slow-extinguish'd clouds, 
All ether softening; sober Evening takes . 
Her wonted station in the middle air ; 
A thousand shadows at her beck. First this 
She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye 
Steals soft behind ; and then a deeper still. 
In circle following circle, gathers round, 
To close the face of things. A fresher gale 
Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream. 
Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn; 
While, the quail clamours for his running mate. 
Wide o'er the-thistly laWn, as swells. the breeze, 
A whitening shower of vegetable down 
Amusive floats. The kind unpartial care 
Of Nature nought disdains: thoughtfial to feed 
Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year. 
From field to field the feather'd seed she wings. 

His folded flock secure, the shepherd home 
Hies, merry-hearted; and by turns relieves 



28 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



The ruddy milk-maid of lier brimming pail; 
The beauty whom perliaps his^^witlcss heart, ■ 
Unknowing what the joy-niix'd anguish means, 
Sincerely loves, by that best language shown 
Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds. 
Onward they pass, o'er many a panting height, 
And valley smik, and unfrequented ; where 
At fall of eve the fairy people throng. 
In various game, and revelry, to pass 
The summer -night, as village stories tell. 
But far about they wander from the grave 
Of him, whom his ungentle fortune urged 
Against his own sad breast to Uft the hand 
Of impious violence. The lonely tower 
Is also shunn'd ; whose mournful chambers hold, 
So night-struck Fancy dreams, the yelUng ghost. 

Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge, 
The glow-worm hghts his gem; and through the 

dark 
A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields 
The world to Night ; not in her winter-robe 
Of massy stygian woof, but loose afray'd 
In mantle dun. A faint- erroneous ray, 
Glanced, from the imperfect surfaces of things. 
Flings half an image on the straining eye ; 
"While wavering woods, and villages, and streams. 
And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retain'd 
The ascending gleam, are all one Swimmiiig -scene, 
Uncertain if beheld. Sudden to Heaven 
Thence weary vision turns; where, leading soft 
The silent hours of love, with purest ray 
Sweet Venus shines ; and from her genial rise, 
When day-light sickens till it springs afresh, 
Unrival'd reigns the fairest lamp of Night. 
As thus the eftulgence tremulous I drink. 
With cherish'd gaze, the lambent lightnings shoot 
Across the sky ; or horizontal dart 
In wondrous shapes: by fearful murmuring 

crowds • ■ 

Portentous deem'd. Amid the radiant orbs. 
That more than deck, that animate the sky. 
The life-infusing suns of other Worlds : 
Lo! from the dread immensity of space 
Returning, with accelerated course. 
The rushing comet to the sun descends; 
And as he sinks below the shading earth. 
With awful train projected o'er the heavens, 
The guilty nations tremble. But, above 
Those superstitious horrors that enslave 
The fond sequacious herd, to mystic faith 
And blind amazement prone, the cnlighten'd few, 
Wliose godlike minds philosophy exalts^ - 
The glorious stranger hail. . They feel a joy 
Divinely great; they in their powers exult. 
That wondrous force of thought, vvliich mounting 

spurns 
This dusky spot, and measures all the sky; 
While, from his far excursion through the wilds 
Of barren ether, faithful to his time, 



They seethe blazing wonder rise anew, 
In seeming terror clad, but kindly bent 
To work the will of all-sustaining Love: 
From his huge vapoury train perhaps to shake 
Reviving moisture on the numerous orbs, 
Through wjiich his long elhpsis wind ; perhaps 
To lend new fuel to declining suns, 
To light up worlds, and feed the eternal fire. . 

With thee, serene Philosophy, with thee. 
And thy bright garland, let me crown my song I 
Eftusive source of evidence, and truth ! 
A lustre shedding o'er the ennobled mind, 
Stronger than summer-noon; and pure as that, 
Whose mild vibrations sooth the parted soul. 
New to the dawning of celestial day. 
Hence- through her nourish'd powers, enlarged by 

thee. 
She springs aloft, with elevated pride, 
Above the tangling mass of low desires, I 

That bind the fluttering crowd ; and, angel- 1 

wing'd, - 

The heights of science and of virtue gains, 
Where all is calm and clear; with Nature round, 
Or in the starry regions, or the abyss, 
To Reason's and to Fancy's eye display'd: 
The First up-tracing, from the dreary void, 
The. chain of causes and effects to Him, 
The world-producing Essence, who alone 
Possesses being; whUe the Last receives 
The whole magnificence of heaven and earth, 
And every beauty, delicate or bold. 
Obvious or more remote, with livelier sense, 
Diffusive painted on the rapid mind. 

Tutor'd by thee, hence Poetry exalts 
Her voice to ages ; and informs the page 
With music, image, sentiment, and thought, 
Never to die ! the treasure of mankind ! 
Their highest honour, and their truest joy ! 

Without thee what were unenlightened Manl 
A savage roaining through the woods and wilds,' , 
In quest of prey ; and with the unfashion'd fur 
Rough-clad; devoid of every finer art, ■ 
And elegance of life. Nor happin.ess 
Domestic, mix'd of tenderness and cafe, 
Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss. 
Nor guardian law were liik; nor various skill . 
To turn the furrow, or to guide the tool 
Mechanic: nor the heaven-conducted prow 
Of navigation bold, that fearless braves 
The burning line or dares the wintry pole ; 
Mother severe of infinite delights ! 
Nothing, save rapine, indoleiice, and guile, 
And woes en woes, a still-revolving train ! 
Whose horrid circle had made hulnan life 
Than non-existence worse : but, taught by thee, 
Ours are the plans of policy and peace ; 
To live like brother?, and conjunctive all 
Embellish life. While thus laborious crowds 
Ply the tough oar, Pliilosophy directs 



SUMMER. 



29 



The ruling helm ; or like the liberal breath 

Of potent Heaven, invisible, the sail 

Swells out, and bears the inferior world along. 

Nor to this cvanescejit speck of earth 
Poorly confined, the radiant tracts on high 
Are her exalted range ; intent to gaze 
Creation through ; and, fronj that full coniplex 
Of never ending wonders, to conceive 
Of the^ie^Bcingj^ght, "who^ spoke the. Word, 
And Nature moved complete. With inward 

^vlew, ■ 
Thence-.on the ideal kingdom swift she turns 
Her eye ; and instant, at her powerful glance, 
The obedient phantoms vanish or appear; ' 



Compound, divide, and into order shift. 
Each to his. rank, fcom plain perception up 
To the fair forms of Fancy's fleeting train: 
To reason then, deducing truth from truth ; 
And notion quite abstract ; whfcre" first begins 
The world of spirits, action all, and Ufe 
Unfettcr'd, and unmixt. But here the cloud, 
(So. wills Eternal Providence) sits deep. 
Enough for us to know that this dark state 
In wayward passions lost and vain pursuits. 
This Infancy of Being, cannot prove 
• The final issue of the works of God, 
By boundless Love and perfect Wisdom form'd, 
And ever rising with the rising mind ) 



^tiiumn. 



INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ARTHUR ONSLOW, ESa. 
SPEAICER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 



ARGUMENT. 

The subject proposed. Addressed to Mr. Onslow. A prospect of the Fields ready for Harvest. Reflections in praise 
of Industry raised by that view. Reaping. ATale relative to it, A Harvest Storm. Shooting and Hunting; their barba- 
rity. A ludicrous account of Foxhuming. A vie* of an Orchard. Wall Fruit. A Yineyard. A description of Fogs, 
frequent in the latter part of Autumn ; whence-a digressioii, inquiring into the rise of Fountains and Rivers. Birds of Sea- 
son considered, that now shift their Habitation. The prodigious number of them that cover the Northern and Western 
Isles of, Scotland. Hence a view of the Country. A prospect of the discoloured, fading Woods. After a gentle dusky day, 
Moonlight. Autumnal Meteors. Morning : to- which succeeds a calm, pure, sunshiny Day, such as usually shuts up the 
season. The Harvest being gathered in, the CounU-y dissolved in joy. The whole concludes with a Panegyric on a philo- 
sophical Country Life. ■ . . .,.'.■ 



Crown'd with the sicMe and the wheaten sheaf, 
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain. 
Comes jovial oh ; the Doric reed once" rnore. 
Well pleas'd, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost 
Nitrous prepared; the various blossom'd Spring 
Put in white promise forth ; and Summer-suns 
Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view. 
Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme. 

Onslow ! the Muse, ambitious of thy name, . 
To grace, mspire, and dignify her song. 
Would from .the public voice thy gentle ear ,' 
A while engage. Thy noble cares she knows,' 
The patriot virtues that distend thy: thought, . . • 
Spread on thy front, Snd in thy bosom glow ; 
While listening senates hang upon thy tongue, ' 
Devolving through the maze of eloquence 
A roll of periods, sweeter than her song. 
But she too pants for public virtue, she. 
Though weak of power, yet strong in ardent will, 
Whene'er her country rushes on her heart, 
Assumes a bolder note, and fondly tries 
To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame. 

When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous 
days. 
And Libra weighs in equal scales the year ; 
Fipm Heaven's high cope the fierce effulgence 

shook 
Of parting Summer, a serener blue,. 
With golden light enliven'd, wide' invests 
E . ' ■■ 



The liappy world. Attemper'd suns arise, 
Sweet-beam'd, and shedding -.oft 'through lucid 

clouds ■ ■ ■ . , '. 

A pleasing calm ; while hroad, and brown, belpw 
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head. 
Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale 
Rolls its liglit billows o'er the banding plain ; 
A calm of plenty ! till the raffled air 
Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow. 
Rent is the fleecy mantla of the sky ; 
The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun 
By fits effulgent gilds the illumined field, 
And black by fits the shadows sweep alorio- 
A gaily chequer'd heart-expanding view, 
Fa'r as the circling eye cari shoot around, 
Unbounded tossing in si flood of com. 
These are thy blessings, Industry ! rough power! 
Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain; 
■Yet the kind source of every gentle art. 
And all the soft civility of life : 
Raiser of human kind! by Nature cast. 
Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods 
And wilds, to rude inclement elements; 
With various seeds of art deep in the mind 
Implanted, and profusely pour'd around 
Materials infinite^ but idle all. 
Still unexerted, in the conscious breast. 
Slept the lethargic powers; Corruption still. 
Voracious, swallow'd what the liberal- hand 



30 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Of bounty scatter'd o'er the savage year: 
And still the sad barbarian, roving, mix'd 
"With beasts of preyj or for his acorn meal 
Fought the fierce tusky boar; a shivering wretch! 
Aghast, and comfortless, when the bleak north, 
With Winter charged, let the mix'd tempest fly. 
Hail, rain, and snow, and bitter-breathing frost : 
Then to the shelter of the hut he fled; 
And the wild season, sordid, pined away. 
For home he had not ; home is the resort 
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where, 
Supporting and supported, poUsh'd friends, 
And dear relations mingle into bliss. 
But this the rugged savage never felt. 
E'en desolate in crowds; and thus his days 
Roll'd heavy, dark, and unenjoy'd along: 
A waste of time ! till Industry approach'd, 
And roused him from his miserable sloth : 
His faculties unfolded; pointed out. 
Where lavish Nature the directing hand 
Of art demanded; shrtw'd him how to raise 
His feeble force by the mechanic powers, 
To dig the mineral from the vaulted earth, 
On what to turn the piercing rage of fire, 
On what the torrent, and the gather'd blast ; 
Gave the tall ancient forest to his axe; 
Taught him to chip the Vfood, and hew the stone, 
Till by degrees the finish'd fabric rose ; 
Tore from his Umbs the blood-polluted fur, 
And wTapt them in the woolly vestment warm'. 
Or bright in glossy silk, and flowing lawn ; ■ • , 
With wholesome viands fill'd liis table, pCur'd 
The generous glass around, inspired to wake 
The life-refining soul of decent wit: 
Nor stopp'd at barren bare necessity; 
But still advancing bolder, led liim on . . 
To pomp, to pleasure, elegance, and grace; 
And, breathing high ambition through .his soul, 
Set science, wisdom, glory, in his view, 
And bade him be the Lord of. all below; 

Then gathering men their natural powers com- 
bined, 
And form'd a Public; to the general good 
Submitting, aiming, and conducting all. 
For this the Patriot-Council met, the full, 
The free, and fairly represented Whole; 
For this they plann'd the holy guardian laws, 
Distinguish'd orders, animated arts. 
And wifh joint force Oppression chaining, set 
Imperial Justice at the helm; yet still 
To them accountable: nor slavish dream'd 
That toiUng millions must resign their weal, 
And all the honey of their search, to such 
As for themsdves alone themselves have raised. 

Hence every form of cultivated life 
In order set, protected, and inspired. 
Into perfection wrought. Uniting all, • ' 
Society grew numerous, high, poUte, 
And happy. , Nurse of art! the city rear'd 



In beauteous pride her tower-encircled head ; 
And, stretching street on street, by thousands' 

drew, 
From twihing woody haunts, or the tough yew 
To bows strong-straining, her aspiring sons. 

Then Commerce brought into the public walk 
The busy merchant; the big warehouse built; 
Raised the strong crane; choked up the loaded 
• * street • 

With foreign plenty: and thy stream, O Thames, 
Large, gentle, deep, majestic, king of floods! 
Chose for his grand resort. On either handj 
Like a long wintry forest, groves of masts 
Shot up their spires ; the bellying sheet between 
Possess'd the breezy void; the sooty hulk 
Steer'd sluggish on; the splendid barge along 
Row'd, regular, to harmony; around, 
The boat, light-skimming, stretch'd its oary wings; 
While deep the various voice of fervent toil 
From banlc to bank increased ; whence ribb'd with 

oak,- 
To bear the British thunder, black, and bold, 
The roaring vessel rush'd into the main. 

Then too the pillar'd dome, magnific, hekved 
Its ample roof; and Luxury within 
Pour'd out her . glittering stores: the canvass 

smooth. 
With glowing life protuberant, to the view 
Embodied rose ; the statue seem'd to breathe. 
And soften into flesh ;_ beneath the touch 
Of forming art, imagination-flush'd. 

All is the gift of Industry ; whate'er 
Exalts, embellishes, and renders life 
Delightful. Pensive Winter cheer'd by him 
Sits at the social fire, and happy.hears 
The excluded tempest idly ravei along ;•' 
His harden'd fingers deck the gaudy Spring; 
Without him Summer were an arid waste ; 
Nor to the Autumnal months could thus transmit 
Those ftall, mature, immeasurable stores, 
That, waving round, recall my wandering song. 

Soon as the morning trembles o'er the sky, 
And, unperceived, unfolds the spreading day ; 
Before the ripen'd field the reapers stand. 
In fair array, each by the lass he loves, 
To bear the rougher part, and mitigate 
By nameless gentle offices her toil. 
At once they stoop, and swell the lusty sheaves ; 
While through their cheerful band the rural talk^ 
The rural scandal, arid the rural jest, 
Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time, 
And steal unfelt the sultry hours away. 
Behind the master walks, builds up the shocks; 
And, conscious, glancing oft on every side 
His sated eye, feels his heart heave with joy. 
The gleaners spread around, and here and these, 
Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick. 
Be not too'narrow, husbandmen ! but fling 
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth, - 



AUTUMN. 



31 



The liberal handful. Think, oh grateful think ! 
How good the God of Harvest is to you ; 
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields ; 
While these unhappy partners of your kind 
Wide-hover round you, like the fowls of heaven, 
■And ask their humble dole. The various turns 
Of fortune ponder ; that your sons may want 
What now, with hard reluctance, faint, ye give. 
The lovely /oung Lavinia once had friends ; ' 
And Fortune smiled, deceitful, on her birth. 
For, in her helpless years deprived of all, 
Of every stay, save Innocence and Heaven, - ■ 
She with her widow'd mother, feeble, old, 
And poor, lived in a cottage, far retired 
Among the windings of a woody vale ; 
By solitude and. deep surrounding shades, 
But more by bashful modesty, conceal'd. 
Together thus thej shunn'd the cruel scorn 
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet ■ 
From giddy passion and low-minded pride : 
Almost on Nature's common bounty fed ; 
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose, 
Content, arid careless of to-morrow's fare. 
Her form was fresher than the morning rose. 
When the dew wets its leaves ; unstained and pure 
As is the lily, or the mountain snow. 
The modest Virtues mingled in her eyes, 
Still on the ground dejected, darting all 
Their humid beams mto the blooming flowers : 
Or when the mournful tale her mother told. 
Of what her faithless fortune promised once, 
Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy star 
Of evening, shone in tears. , A native grace 
Sat fair-proportion'd on her pohsh'd limbs, 
Veil'd in a simple robe, then: best attire. 
Beyond the pomp of dress ; for loveUness 
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, 
But is when unadorn'd, adom'd the most. 
Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty's self. 
Recluse amid the close-embowering woods. 
As in the hollow breast of Appenine, 
Beneath the shelter of encircUng hills, 
A myrtle rises, far from human eye, 
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild ; 
So flourish'd blooming, and unseen by all, 
The sweet Lavinia ; till, at length, compell'd 
By strong Necessity's supreme command, 
With smiling patience in her looks, she went 
To glean Palemon's fields. The pride of %wains 
Palemon was, the generous, and the rich ; 
Who led the rural life in all its joy 
And elegance, such as Arcadian song 
Transmits from ancient uncorrupted times ; 
When, tyrant custom had, not shackled man, 
But free to follow Nature was the mode. 
He then, his fancy with autumnal scenes 
Aniusing, chanced beside his reaper-train 
To walk, when poor LaAdnia drew his eye ; ' 
Unconscious of her power, and turning quick 



With unaffected blushes from his gaze : 
He saw her charming, but he saw not half 
The charms her down-cast modesty conceal'd. 
That very moment love and chaste desirer 
Sprung in his bosom, to himself unknown; 
For still the world provail'd and its dread laugh, 
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn, 
Should his heart own a gleaner in the field ; 
And thus in secret to his soul he sigh'd : — 

" What pity ! that so -delicate a form, 
By beauty kindled, where enlivening sense 
And more than vulgar goodness seem to dwell, 
Should be devoted to the rude embrace 
Of some indecent clown ! She looks, methinks, 
Of old Acasto's fine ; and to my mind 
Recalls that patron of my happy hfe, 
From whom my hberal fortune took its rise ; 
Now to the dust gone dovm; his houses, lands, 
And once fair-spreading family, dissolved. 
'Tis said that in some lone obscure retreat. 
Urged by remembrance sad, and decent pride. 
Far from those scenes which knew their better days, 
His aged widow and- his daughter Jive, 
Whom yet my fruitless search could never find. 
Romantic wish ! would this the daughter were !" 
When, strict inquiring, from herself he found 
She was the same, the daughter of Ms friend, 
Of bountiful Acasto ; who can speak 
The mingled passions that surprised his heart. 
And through his nerves in shivering transport ran 1 
Then blazed his smother'd flame, avow'd, and boldj 
And as he view'd her, ardent, o'er and o'er, 
Love, gratitude, and pity wept at once. 
Confused, and frighten'd at his sudden tears, 
Her rising beauties flush'd a higher blooro 
As thus Palemon, passionate and just, 
Pour'd out the pious rapture of his soul : 

" And art thou then Acasto's dear remains 1 
She, whom my restless gratitude has sought, 
So long in vain 1 O heavens ! the very same, 
The soften'd image of my noble friend ; 
Alive his every look, his every feature, 
More elegantly touch'd. Sweeter than Spring ! 
Thou sole surviving blossom from the root 
That nourish'd up my fortune ! say, ah where. 
In what sequester 'd desert hast thou drawn 
The kindest aspect of delighted Heaven? 
Into such beauty spread, and blown so fair; 
Though Poverty's cold wind and crushing rain 
Beat keen and heavy on thy tender years 1 
O let me now into a richer soil 
Transplant thee safe! where vernal suns and 

showers 

Diffuse their warmest, largest influence; 
And of my garden be the pride and joy ! 
Ill it befits thee, oh, it ill befits 
Acasto's daughter, liis, whose open stores, 
Though vast, were little to liis ampler heart. 
The father of a country, thus to pick 



32 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



The very refuse of those harvest fields, 
Which from his bounteous friendship I enjoy. 
Then throw that shameful pittance from thy hand, 
But ill applied to such a rugged task ; 
The fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine; 
If to the various blessings vphich thy house 
Has on me lavish'd, thou Vfilt add that bhss. 
That dearest bhss, the power of blessing thee !" 

Here ceased the youth : yet still his speaking eye 
Express'd the sacred triumph of his soul, 
With conscious virtue, gratitude, and love, 
Above the vulgar joy divinely raised. 
Nor waited he reply. Won by the charm 
Of goodness irresistible, and all 
In sweet disorder lost, she blush'd consent. 
The news immediate to her mother brought. 
While, pierced with anxious thought, she pined 

away 
The lonely moments for Lavinia's fate; 
Amazed, and scarce believing what she heard, i 
Joy seized her wither'd veins, and one bright gleam 
Of setting life shone on her evening hours : 
Not less enraptured than the happy pair; 
Who flourish'd long in tender bhss, and rear'd 
A numerous offspring, lovely like themselves, 
And good, the. grace of all the country round. 

Defeating oft the labours of the year. 
The sultry south collects a potent blast. 
At first, the groves are scarcely seen to stir 
Their trembUng tops; and a still murmur runs 
Along the soft-inclining fields of corn. 
But as the aerial tempest fuller swells. 
And in one riiighty stream, invisible, 
Immense, the whole excited atmosphere 
Impetuous rushes o'er the sounding world ; 
Strain'd to the root, the stooping forest pours 
A rustling shower of yet- untimely leaves. 
High beat, the circling' mountains eddy in. 
From the bare wild, the dissipated stonn, 
And send it in a torrent dowir the vale. 
Exposed, and naked, .to its utmost rage. 
Through all the sea of harvest rolling round. 
The billowy plain floats wide; nor can evade, 
Though pliant to the blast, its seizing force; 
Or whirl'd in air, or into vacant chaff . 
Shook waste. And sometimes too a burst of rain. 
Swept from the black horizon, broad, descends 
In one continuous flood. Still over head 
The mingling tempest weaves its gloom, and still 
The deluge deepens; till the fields around 
Lie sunk, and flatted, in the sordid wave. 
Sudden, the ditches swell; the meadows swim. 
Red, from the hills, innumerable streams 
Tumultuous roar ; and high above its banks 
The river lift; before whose rushing tide 
Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages, and swains, 
Roll mingled down ; all that the winds had spared 
In one wild moment ruin'd; the big hopes. 
And well earn'd treasures of the painful year. 



Fled to some eminence, the husbandman 
Helpless beholds the miserable wreck 
Driving along ; liis drowning ox at once 
Descending, with his labours scatter'd round, 
He sees ; arid instant o'er his shivering thought 
Comes Winter unprovided, and a train 
Of claimant children dear. Ye masters, then, 
Be mindful of the rough laborious hand 
That sinks you soft in elegance arid ease; 
Be mindful of those lirnbs in russet clad, 
Who.se toil to yours is warmth and graceful pride j 
And, oh! be mindful of that sparijig board, 
Which covers yours with luxury profuse, 
Makes your glass sparkle, and your sense rejoice! 
Nor cruelly demand what the deep rains 
And all-involving winds have swept away. 

Here the rude clamour of the sportsman's joy, 
The gun fast-thundering, and the winded horn, 
Would tempt the muse to ang the rural game: 
How in his mid-career the spaniel struck, 
Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose, 
Outstretch'd and finely sensible, draws full, ■ 
Fearful and cautious, on the latent prey; 
As in the sun the circling covey bask 
Their varied plumes, and watchful every way, 
Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye. 
Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat 
Their idle wings, entangled more and more: 
Nor on the surges of the boundless air, 
Though borne triumphant, are they safe; the gun. 
Glanced just, and sudden, from the fowler's eye, 
O'ertakes their soundiug pinions: and again, 
Immediate, brings them from the towering wing, 
Dead to the ground ; or drives theni wide dispersed, 
Wounded, and wheeling various, down the wind. 
These are not subjects for the peaceful Muse, 
Nor will she stain with such her spotless song; 
Then most delighted, when she social sees 
The whole mix'd animal-creation round 
Alive and happy. 'Tis not joy to her. 
The falsely cheerful barbarous game of death, 
This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth 
Awakes, impatient, with the gleaming morn : 
When beasts of prey retire, that all night long, ■ 
Urged by necessity,. had ranged the dark. 
As if their conscious ravage shunn'd the light, 
Ashamed- Not so the steady tyrant Man, 
Who with the thoughtless insolence of power 
Inflamflfi, beyond the most infuriate wrath 
Of the worst monster that e'er roam'd the waste, 
For sport alone pursues the cruel chase. 
Amid the beamings of the gentle days. 
Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage. 
For hunger kindles you, and lawless want ; 
But lavish fed, in Natm-e's bounty roll'd. 
To joy at anguish, and delight in blood,, 
Is what your horrid bosoms never knew. 

Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare ! 
Scared from the corn, and now to some lone seat 



AUTUMN. 



33 



Retired: the rushy fen; the ragged furze, 
Stretch'd o'er the stony heath; the stubble chapt; 
The tliistly lawn; the thick entangled broom; 
Of the same friendly hue, the withcr'd fern; 
The fallow ground laid open to the sun, 
Concoctive ; and the nodding sandy bank, 
Hung o'er the mazes of the mountain brook. 
Vain is her best precaution ; though she sits 
Conceal'd, with folded ears ; unsleeping eyes, , 
By Nature raised to take the horizon in ; 
And hca.d couch'd close betwixt her hairy feet, 
In act to spring away. The scented dew 
Betrays her early labyrinth ; and deep, 
In scatter'd sullen openings, far behind. 
With every breeze she hears the coming storm. ' 
But nearer, and more frequent, as it loads 
The. sighing gale, she springs amazed, and all 
The savage soul of game is up at once : 
The pack fuU-openuig, various ; the shrill horn 
Resounded from the hills ; the neighing steed, 
Wild for the chase ; and the loud hunter's shout; 
O'er a weak, harmless, flying creature, all 
Mix'd in mad tumiolt, and discordant joy. 

The stag too, singled ftom the herd, where long 
He ranged the branching monarch of the shades. 
Before the tempest drives. At first, in speed 
He, sprightly, puts his faith ; and, roused by- fear. 
Gives all his swift aerial soul to flight; 
Against the breeze he darts, that way the mor6 
To leave the lessening murderous cry behind : 
Deception short! though fleeter than the winds 
Blown o'er the keen-air'd mountain by the north. 
He bursts the thickets, glances through the glades. 
And plunges deep into the wildest wood ; 
If slow, yet sure, adhesive to the track 
Hot-steanung, up behind him come again 
The inhuman rout^ and from the shady depth 
Expel him, circling through his every shift. 
He sweeps the forest oft; and sobbing sees 
The glades, mild opening to the golden day; 
Where, in kind contest, with his butting fiiends 
• He wont to struggle, or his loves enjoy. 
Oft in the full-descending flood he tries 
To lose the scent, and lave his burning sides : 
Oft; seeks the herd ; the watchful herd, alarm'd,^ • 
With selfish care avoid a brother's woe. 
What shall he dol His once so vivid nerves, 
So full of buoyant spirit, now no more 
Inspire the course ; but fainting breathless toil, 
Sick, seizes on his heart; he stands at bay ; 
And puts his last weak refuge in despair. 
The big round tears run down his dappled face ; 
He groans in anguish : while the growling pack, 
Blood-happy, hang at his fair jutting chest. 
And mark his beauteous chequer'd sides with gore. 

Of this enough. But if the sylvan youth, 
Whose fervent blood bttls into violence, 
Must have the chase ^rehold, d.espising flight, 
The roused up lion, resolute, and slow, 



Advancing full on the protended spear, 
And coward band, that circling wheel aloof. 
Slunk from the cavern, and the troubled wood, 
Sec the grun wolf; on him his shaggy foe 
Vuidictive fix, and let the ruflian die : 
Or, growling horrid, as the brindled boar 
Grins fell destruction, to the monster's heart 
Let the dart lighten from the nervous arm. 

These Britain knows not; give, ye Britons, 
then 
Your sportive fury, pitiless, to pour 
Loose on the nightly robber of the fold 
Him, from his craggy winding haunts unearth'd, 
Let all the thunder of the chase pursue. 
Throw the broad ditch behind you ; o'er the hedge 
High bound, resistless ; nor the deep morass 
Refuse, but through the shaking wilderness 
Pick your nice way; into the perilous flood 
Bear fearless, of the raging instinct full ; 
And as you ride the torrent, to the banks 
Your triumph sound sonorous, running round, 
From rock to rock, in circling echoes tost; 
Then scale the mountains to their woody tops ; 
Rush down the dangerous steep ; and o'er the 

lawn. 
In fancy swallowing up the space between, 
Pour all your speed into the rapid game. 
For happy he ! who tops the wheeling chase ; 
Has every maze evolved, and every guile 
Disclosed ; who knows the merits of the pack ; 
Who saw the villain seized, and dying hard. 
Without complaint, though by a hundred mouths 
Relentless torn : O glorious he, beyond 
His daring peers ! when the retreating horn 
Call them to ghostly halls of gray renown, 
With woodland honours graced ; the fox^s fur 
Depending decent from the roof: and spread 
Round the drear walls, with antic figures fierce, 
The stag's large front : he then is loudest heard, 
When the night staggers with severer toils, 
With feats Thessalian Centaurs never knew, 
And their repeated wonders shake the dome. 

But first the fuel'd chimney blazes wide; 
The tankards foam ; and the strong table groans 
Beneath the smoking sirloin, stretch'd immense 
From side to side; in which, with desperate knife, 
They deep incision make, and talk the while 
Of England's glory, ne'er to be defaced 
While hence they borrow vigour: or amain 
Into the pasty plunged, at intervals. 
If stomach keen can intervals allow, 
Relating all the glories of the chase. 
Then sated Hxmger bids his brother Thirst 
Produce the mighty bowl; the mighty bowl, 
SweU'dhigh with fiery juice, steams liberal round 
A potent gale, delicious, as the breath 
Of Maia to the love-sick shepherdess, 
On violets diffused, while soft she hears 
Her panting shepherd stealing to her arms. 



34 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn, 
Mature and perfect, from his dark retreat 
Of thirty years ; and now his honest front 
Flames in the Hght refulgent, not afraid 
E'en with the vineyard's best produce to vie. 
To cheat the thirsty moments, whist awhile 
Walks liis dull round beneath a cloud of smoke, 
Wreath'd, fragrant, from the pipe ; or the quick 

dice, 
In thunder leaping from the box, awake 
The sounding gammon : wliile romp-loving rniss 
Is haul'd about, in gallantry robust. 

At last these puling idlenesses laid 
Aside, frequent and full, the dry divan 
Close in firm circle ; and set, ardent, in 
For serious drinking. Nor evasion sly, 
Nor sober shift, is to the puking wretch 
Indulged apart ; but earnest, brimming bowls 
Lave every sou], the table floating round. 
And pavement, faitiiless to the fuddled, foot. 
Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk. 
Vociferous at once from twenty tongues, 
Reels fast from theme to theme; from horses, 

hounds. 
To church oi mistress, politics or ghost, 
In endless mazes, intricate, perplex'd. 
Meantime, with sudden interruption, loud, 
The impatient catch bursts from the joyous heart; 
That moment touch'd is every kindred soul; 
And, opening in a fuU-mouth'd cry of joy, 
The laugh, the slap, thejocund curse go round; 
While, from their slumbers shook, the kennel'd 

hounds 
Mix in the music of the day again. 
As when the tempest, that has vex'd the deep 
The dark night long, wdth fainter murmurs falls; 
So gradual sinks their mirth. Their feeble 

tongues. 
Unable to take up the cumbrous word, 
Lie quite dissolved. Before their maudlin eyes, 
Seen dim and blue, the double tapers dance. 
Like the sun wading through the misty sky. 
Then, shding soft, they drop. Confused above, 
Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers. 
As if the table e'en itself was drunk. 
Lie a wet broken scene ; and wide, below, 
Is heap'd the social slaughter : where astride 
The lubber Power in filthy triumph sits. 
Slumbrous, inclining still from side to side, 
And steeps them drench'd in potent sleep till 

morn. 
Perhaps some doctor, of tremendous paunch. 
Awful and deep, a black abyss of drink, 
Outlives them all ; and from his buried flock 
Retiring, full of rumination sad, 
Laments the weakness of these latter times. 
But if the rougher sex by this fierce sport 
Is hurried wild, let not such horrid joy 
E'er stain the bosom of the British Fair. 



Far be the spirit of the chase from them.! 

Uncomely courage, unbeseeming skill ; 

To spring the fence, to rein the prancing steed ; 

The cap, the whip, the masculine attire ; 

In which they roughen to the sense, and all 

The winnuig softness of their sex is lost. 

In them 'tis graceful to dissolve at wo ; 

With every motion, every word, to wave 

Gluick o'er the kindling cheek the ready blush j 

And from the smallest violence to shrink 

Unequal, then the loveliest in their fears ; 

And by this silent adulation, soft. 

To their protection more engaging Mart. 

O may their eyes no miserable sight, 

Save weeping lovers, se.e ! a nobler game, 

Through low's enchanting wiles pursued, yet fled, 

In chase ambiguous. May their tender limbs 

Float in the loose simplicity of dress ! 

And, fashion'd all to harmony, alone 

Know they to seize the captivated soul 

In rapture warbled from love-breathing lips ; 

To teach the lute to languish ; with smooth step, 

Disclosing motion in its every charm. 

To swim along, and swell the mazy dance ; . 

To train the foliage o'er the snovpy lawn ; 

To guide the pencil, turn the tuneful page • 

To lend new flavour to the fruitful year. 

And heighten Nature's dainties : in their race 

To rear their graces into second life ; 

To give society its highest taste ; 

Well order'd home man's best delight to make; 

And by submissive wisdom, modest skill," . 

With every gentle care-eluding art. 

To raise the virtues, animate the bliss, 

And sweeten all the toils of human life : 

This be the female dignity, and praise. 

Ye swams, now hasten to the hazel bank ; 
Where, down yon dale, the widely winding brook 
Falls lioarse from steep to steep. In close array, 
Fit for the thickets and the tahgUng shrub, 
Ye virgins, come. For you their latest song 
The woodlands raise ; the clustering nuts for you 
The lover finds amid the secret shade; 
And, where they burnish on the topmost bough. 
With active vigour crushes down the tree; 
Or shakes them ripe from the resigning husk, 
A glossy shower, and of an ardent brown. 
As are the ringlets of Melinda's hair : 
Melinda ! form'd with every gi'ace complete ; 
Yet these neglecting,- above beauty wise. 
And far transcending such a vulgar praise. 

Hence from the busy joy-resoundmg fields, ' 
In cheerful error, let us tread the maze 
Of Autumn, unconfined ; and taste, revived. 
The breath of orchard big with bending fruit. 
Obedient to the breeze and beating ray. 
From the deep-loaded bo^ttt a mellow shower 
Incessant melts away. Wie juicy pear 
Lies, in a soft profusion, scatter'd round. 



AUTUMN. 



35 



A various sweetness swells the gentle race ; 
By Nature's all-refining hand prepared; 
Of temper'd sun, and water, eartJi, and air,- 
In ever changing composition mix'd. 
Such, falling frequent through the chiller night, 
The fragrant stores, the wide projected heaps 
Of apples, which the lustj^-handed Year, 
Innumerous, o'er the blushing orchard shakes. 
A various spirit, fresh, delicious, keen, 
Dwells in their gelid pores; and, active, points 
The piercing cyder for the thirsty tongue : 
Thy native theme, and boon inspirertoo, 
Philips, Pomona's bard, the second thou 
Who nobly durst, -in rhyme-unfetter'd verse, 
With British freedom sing the British song : 
How, from Silurian vats, high sparkling wines 
Foam in transparent floods ; some strong, to cheer 
The wintry revels of the labouring hind ; ' 
And tasteful some, to cool the summer hours. 

In this glad season, while his sweetest beams 
The sun sheds equal o'er the meeken'd day ; 
Oh lose me in the green deUghtful walks 
Of, Dodington, thy seat, serene and plain; 
Where simple Nature reigns; and every view, _ 
Diffusive, spreads the pure Dorsetian downs. 
In boundless prospect; yonder shagg'd with wood, 
Here rich with harvest, and there white with 

■ flocks 1 ■ 

Meantime the grandeur of thy lofty dome, • 
Far splendid, seizes on the ravish'd eye. 
New beauties rise with each revolving day; 
New columns swell; and still the fresh Spring 

finds 
New plants to quicken, and new groves to green. 
Full of thy genius all ! the Muses' seat: 
Where in the secret bower, arid winding walk. 
For virtuous Young and thee they twine' the bay. 
Here wandering oft, fired with the restless thirst 
Of thy applause, I sohtary court 
The inspiring breeze: and medita,te the book 
Of Nature ever open; aiming thence, 
Warm from the heart, to learn the moral song. 
Here, as I steal along the sunny wall, 
Where Autumn basks, with fruit empurpled deep, 
My pleasing theme continual prompts my thought: 
Presents the downy peach; the shining plum: 
The ruddy, fragrant nectarine ; and dark. 
Beneath his ample leaf, the luscious fig. 
The vine too here her curling tendrils shoots ; 
Hangs out her -clusters, glowing to the south; 
And scarcely wishes for a warmef sky. 

Turn we a moment Fancy's rapid flight 
To vigorous soils, and climes of fair extent ; 
Where, by the potent sun elated high. 
The vineyard swells refulgent on the day ; ' 
Spreads o'er the vale ; or up the mountain chmbs. 
Profuse ; and drinks amid the sunny rocks, 
From cliflT to chff increased, the heighten'd blaze. 



Low bend the weighty boughs. The clusters 

clear. 
Half through the foliage seen, or ardent flame, 
Or shine transparent ; while perfection breathes 
White o'er the turgcnt film the hving dew. 
As thus they brighten with exalted juice, 
Touch'd into flavour by the mingling ray; 
The rural youth and virgins o'er the field. 
Each fond for each to cull the autumnal prime. 
Exulting rove, and speak the vintage nigh. 
Then comes the crushing swain; the country 

floats. 
And foams unbounded with the marshy flood ; 
That by degrees fermented and refined, 
Round the raised nations pours the cup of joy : 
The claret smooth, red as the lip we press 
In sparkling fancy, while we drain the bowl ; 
The mellow-tasted burgundy ; and quick, 
As is the wit it gives, the gay champagne. • 

Now, by the cool declining year condensed, 
Descend the copious exhalations, check'd 
As up the middle sky unseen they stole, 
And roll the doubling fogs around the hill. 
No more the mountain, horrid, vast, sublime, 
Who pours a sweep of rivers from his sides. 
And high between contending kingdoms rears 
The rocky long division, fills the view 
With great variety ; but in a night 
Of gathering vapour, from the baffled sense 
Sinks dark and dreary. Thence expanding far, 
The huge dusk, gradual, swallows up the plain: 
Vanish the woods : the dim-seen river seems 
Sullen, and slow, to roll the .misty wave. 
E'en in the height of noon oppress'd, the sun 
Sheds weak,, and blunt, his wide-refracted ray ; 
Whence glaring oft, with many a broaden'd orb, 
He frights the nations. Indistinct on earth. 
Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life 
Objects appear; and, wilder'd, o'er the waste 
The shepherd stalks gigantic. Till at last 
Wreath'd dun around, in deeper circles still 
Successive closing, sits the general fog- 
Unbounded o'er the world; and, mingling thick, 
A formless gray confusion covers all. 
As when of old (so sung the Hebrew Bard) 
Light, uncollected, through the chaos urged 
Its infant way; nor Order yet had drawn 
His lovely train from out the dubious gloom. 

These roving mists, that constant now begin 
To smoke along the hilly Country, these, 
With weightier rains, and melted Alpine snows. 
The mountain cisterns fill, those ample stores 
Of water, scoop'd among the hollow rocks; 
Whence gush the streams, the ceaseless fountains 

play, 
And their unfailing wealth the rivers draw. 
Some sages say, that, where the niunerous wave 
For ever lashes the resounding shore. 



36 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Drill'd through the sandy stratum, every way, 
The waters with the sandy stratum rise; 
Amid whose angles infinitely strain'd, 
They joyful leave their jaggy salts behind. 
And clear and sweeten as they soak along. 
Nor stops the restless fluid, mounting still. 
Though oil amidst the irriguous vale it springs ; 
But to the mountain courted by the sand, 
That leads it darkling on in faithful maze, 
Far from the parent-main, it boils again 
Fresh uito day ; and aJl the glittering hill 
Is bright vrith spouting rills. But hence this vain 
Amusive dream ! why should the waters love 
To take so far a journey to the liills. 
When the sweet valleys offer to their toil. 
Inviting quiet, and a nearer bed 1 
Or if by blind ambition led astray, '. 
They must aspire; why should they sudden stop 
Among the broken mountain's rushy dells^ 
And, ere they gain its highest peak, desert 
The attractive sand that charm'd their course so 

long"? 
Besides, the hard agglomerating salts. 
The spoil of ages, would impervious choke 
Their secret channels; or, by slow degrees. 
High as the hills protrude the swelling vales : 
Old Ocean too, suck'd through the porous globe. 
Had long ere now forsook his horrid bed, 
And brought Deucalion's vyatery times again. 

Say then, where lurk the vast eternal springs, 
That, like creating nature, lie conceal'd 
From mortal eye, yet with their lavish. stores 
Refresh the globe, and all its joyous tribes! 
O thou pervading Genius, given to man. 
To trace the secrets of the dark abyss, 
O lay the mountains bare ! and wide display 
Their hidden structure to the astonish'd view ! 
Strip from the branching Alps their piny load; 
The huge incumtoance of horrific woods 
From Asian Taurus, from Imaus stretch'd 
Athwart the roving Tartar'ssullen bounds; 
Give opening Hemus to my searching eye. 
And high Olympus pouring many a stream! 
O from the sounding summits of the north, 
The Dofrine hills, through Scandinavia roU'd 
To farthest Lapland and the frozen main ; 
From lofty Caucasus, far seen by those 
Who in the Caspian and black Euxine toil ; 
From cold Riphcan rocks, which the wild Russ 
Believes the stony girdle* of the world: 
And all the dreadful mountains, wrapp'd in storm', 
Whence wide Siberia draws her lonely floods; 
O sweep the eternal snows ! hung o'er the deep, 
That ever works beneath his sounding base, 
Bid Atlas, propping heaven, as poets feign, 



* The Moscovitcs call tlie Uipliean Mountains Weliki Co- 
menypoys, that w, t!te great stony Girdle; because they sup- 
pose them to encompass the whole earth. 



His subterranean wonders spread! unveil 
The miny caverns, blazing on the day, 
Of Abyssinia's cloud compelling cliffs, 
And of the bending Mountains* of the Moon ! 
O'ertopping all these giant sons of earth. 
Let the dire Andes, from the radiant line 
Stretch'd to the stormy seas tliat thunder romid 
The southern pole, their hideous deeps unfold ! 

Amazmg scene ! Behold! the glooms disclose; 
I see the rivers in tlieir infant beds ! 
Deep, deep I hear them labouring to get free; 
I see the leaning strata, artful ranged; 
The gaping fissures to receive the rains, 
The melting snows, and ever-dripping fogs, 
Strow'd bibulous above I see the sands. 
The pebbly graVel next, the layers then . 
Of mingled moulds, of more retentive earths 
The gutter'd rocks and mazy-running clefts; 
That, while the stealing moisture they transmit, 
Retard its motion, and forbid its waste. 
Beneath the incessant weeping of these drains, 
I see the rocky siphons stretch'd immense. 
The mighty reservoirs of harden'd chalk. 
Or stiff compacted clay, capacious form'd : 
O'erflowing thence, the congregated stores. 
The crj'stal treasures of the liquid world. 
Through the stirr'd sands a bubbhng passage burst; 
And weUing out, around the middle steep, 
•Or from the bottoms of the bosom'd liills. 
In pure effusion, flow. United, thus. 
The exhaling sun, the vapour-burden'd air. 
The gelid mountains, that to ram condensed 
These vapours in continual current draw. 
And send them o'er the fair-divided earth, 
In bounteous rivers to the deep again, 
A social commerce hold, and firm support 
The full-adjusted harmony of things. 

■ When Autunm scatters his departing gleams, 
Warn'd of approaching Winter, gather'd, play 
The swallow-people; and toss'd wide, around, 
O'er the calm sky, in convolution swift;. 
The feather'd eddy floats: rejoicing once, 
Ere to their wintry slumbei-s they retire; 
In clusters clung, beneatli the mouldering bank. 
And where, unpierced by frost, the cavern sweats, 
Or rather into warmer climes convey'd, 
With other kindred birds of season, there 
They tvyitter cheerful, till the vernal months 
Invite them welcome back: for, thronging, now 
Innumerous vnngs are in commotion all. 

Where the Rhine loses his majestic force 
In Belgian plains, won from the raging deep 
By diligence amazing, and the strong 
Unconquerable hand of Liberty, 
The stork-assembly meets; for many a day. 
Consulting deep, and various, ere they take 



• A range of mountains in Africa diat surround all Mono- 
motapa. 



AUTUMN. 



37 



Their arduous voyage through the liquid sky: 
And now their route design'd, their leaders chose, 
Their tribes adjusted, clcan'd their vigorous 

wings; 
And many a circle, many a short essay, 
Wheel'd round and round, in congregation full 
The figured flight ascends; and, riding high 
The aerial billows, mixes with the clouds. 

Or where the Northern ocean, in vast whirls. 
Boils round the naked melancholy isles 
Of farthest Thule, and the Atlantic surge 
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides ; 
Who can recount what transmigrations there 
Are annual madel what nations come and go? 
And how the living clouds on clouds 'arise 7 
Infinite wings ! till all the plume-dark air. 
And rude resounding shore are one wild cry. 

Here the plain harmless native his small flock, 
And herd diminutive of many hues. 
Tends on the httle island's verdant swell. 
The shepherd's sea-girt reign ; or, to the rocks 
Dire-clinging, gathers his ovarious food; 
Or sweeps the fishy shore ! or treasures up 
The plumage, rising full, to form the bed 
Of luxury. And here awhile th? Muse, 
High hovering o'er the broad cerulean scene, 
Sees Caledonia, in romantic view : 
Her airy mountains, from the waving main. 
Invested with a keen diffusive sky, 
Breathing the soul acute : her forests huge, 
Incult, robust, and tall, by Nature's hand 
Planted of old ; her azure lakes between, 
Pour'd out extensive, and of watery wealth 
Full; winding deep, and green, her ftrtile vales ; 
With many a cool translucent briimning flood 
Wash'd lovely, from the Tweed (pui"e parent 

stream, 
Whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed. 
With, sylvan Jed, thy tributary brook) 
To where the north-inflated tempest foams 
O'er Orca'sor Betubiam's highest peak: 
Nurse of a people, in Misfortune's school 
Train'd up to hardy deeds ; soon visited 
By Learning, when before the gothic rage 
She took her western flight. A manly race. 
Of unsubmitting spirit, wise, and brave ; 
Who still through bleediVig ages struggled hard, 
(As well unhappy Wallace can attest. 
Great patriot hero ! ill requited chief !) 
To hold a generous,, undiminish'd state; 
Too much in vain ! Hence of unequal bounds 
Impatient, and by tempting glory borne 
O'er every land, for every land their life 
Has flow'd profuse, their piercing genius plann'd. 
Arid swell'd the pomp of peace their faithfill toil. 
As from their own clear north, in radiant streams. 
Bright over Europe bursts the boreal morn. 

Oh ! is there not some patriot, in whose power 
That best, that godlike luxury is placed, 



Of blessing thousands, thousands yet unborn. 

Through late posterity! some, large of soul. 

To cheer dejected industry"? to give 

A double harvest t(*the pining swain"? 

And teach the laljouring hand the sweets of toil 1 

How, by the finest art, the native robe 

To weave; how white as hyperborean snow. 

To form the lucid lawn ; with venturous oar 

How to dash wide the billow ; nor look on. 

Shamefully passive wliile Batavian fleets 

Defraud us of the glittering finny swarms. 

That heave our friths, and crowd upon our shores; 

How all enlivening trade to rouse, and wing 

The prosperous sail, from every growing port, 

Uninjm'ed, round the sea-encircled globe ; 

And thus, in soul united as in name, 

Bid Britain reign the mistress of the deep 1 

Yes, there are such. And full on thee, Argyle, 
Her hope, her stay, her darling, and her boast, 
From her first patriots and her heroes sprung, 
Thy fond imploring country turns her eye ; 
In thee with all a mother's triumph, sees 
Her every virtue, every grace, combined. 
Her genius, wisdom, her engaging turn, 
Her pride of honour, and her courage tried, 
Calm and. intrepid, in the very throat 
Of sulphurous war, on Tenier's dreadful field. 
Nor less the palm of peace, inwreathes thy brow: 
For, powerful as thy sword, from thy rich tongue 
Persuasion flows,- and wins the high debate ; 
While mix'd in thee combine the charm of 3routh, 
The force of manhood, and the depth of age. 
Thee, Forbes, too, whom every worth attends, 
As truth sincere^ as weeping friendship kind, 
Thee, truly generous, and in silence great, 
Thy country feels through her reviving arts, 
Plann'd by thy wisdom, by thy soul inform'd ; 
And seldom has she known a friend like thee. 

But see the fading many-colour'd woods. 
Shade deepening over shade, the country round 
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk, and dun, 
Of every hue, from wan declining green 
To sooty dark. These now the lonesome Muse, 
Low whispering, lead into their leafrstrown walks^ 
And give the Season in its latest view. 

Meantime, light shadowing all, a sober calm 
Fleeces unbounded ether: whose least wave 
Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn 
The gentle current; while illumined wide. 
The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun, 
And through their lucid veil his sofl«n'd force 
Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time. 
For those whom Wisdom and whom Nature 

charm. 

To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd. 
And soar above this little scene of things: 
To tread low-thoughted Vice beneath their feet; 
To sooth the tiirobbing passions into peace; 
And woo lone Cluiet in her silent walks 



38 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



The sympathies of love, and friendship dear; I 

With all the social offspring of the heart; ' 

Oh! bear me then to vast embowrering shades, 
To twilight groves, and -Nisionary vales; 
To weeping grottos, and prophetic glooms ; 
Where angel forms athwart the solemn dusk, 
Tremendous sweep, or seem to sweep along ; 
And voices moi-e than human, through the void 
Deep soundingj seize the enthusiastic ear ! 

Or is this gloom too much"? Then lead, ye 
powers, 
That o'er the garden and the rural seat 
Preside,which sliining through the cheerful hand 
In countless numbers blest Britannia sees ; 
O lead me to the wide extended walks, 
The fair majestic paradise of Stov?e!* 
Not Persian Cyrus on Ionia's shore 
E'er saw such sylvan scenes; such various art 
By-genius fired, such ardent- genius tamed 
By cool judicious art ; that, in the strife, 
All beauteous Nature fears to be outdone. 
And there, O Pitt, thy country's early boast. 
There let me sit beneath the shelter'd slopes. 
Or in that Templet where, in future times. 
Thou well shalt merit a distinguish'd name; 
And, vfith thy converse blest, catch the last smiles 
Of Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods. 
While there with thee the enchanted round I 

walk. 
The regulated wild, gay Fancy then 
Will tread in thought the groves of attic land, 
Will from thy standard taste refine her own. 
Correct her pencil to the purest truth 
Of Nature, or, the unimpassion'd shades 
Forsaking, raise it to the human mind. 
Or if hereafter ^he, wdth juster hand. 
Shall draw the tragic scene, instruct her thou. 
To mark the varied movements of the heart. 
What every decent character requires. 
And every passion speaks; O through her strain 
Breathe thy pathetic eloquence! that moulds 
The attentive senate, charms, persuades, exalts, 
Of honest Zeal the indignant lightning throws, 
And shakes Corruption on her venal throne. 
While thus we talk, and through Elysian vales 
Delighted rove, perhaps a sigh escapes: 
What pity, Cobham, thou thy verdant files 
Of order'd trees shouldst here inglorious range. 
Instead of squadrons flaming o'er the field, 
And long embattled hosts ! when tlie proud foe, . 
The faithless vain disturber of mankind. 
Insulting Gaul, has roused the world to war; 
When keen, once more, within their bounds to press 
Those polish'd robbers, those ambitious slaves, 
The British youth would hail thy vnse command. 
Thy temper'd ardour, and thy veteran skill. 



Thus soUtary, and in pensive guise. 
Oft let IDC wander o'er the russet mead. 
And through the sadden'd grove, where scarce is 

heard • 

One dj-ing strain, to cheer the woodman's toil. 
Haply some widow'd songster pours his plaint. 
Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse: 
While congregated thrushes, Unnets, larks, 
And each wild thi'oat, whose artless strains so late 
Swell'd all the music of the swarming shades, 
Robb'd of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit 
On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock ; . 
With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes. 
And nought save chattering discord in their note. 
O let not, aim'd from some inhuman eye, 
The gun the music of the coming year 
Destroy; and harmless, unsuspecting harm. 
Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey. 
In mingled murder, fluttering on the ground ! 

The pale-descending year, yet pleasing still, 
A gentler mood inspires ; for now the leaf 
Incessant rustles from th« mournful grove ; 
Oft startling such as, studious, walk below. 
And slowly circles through the waving air. 
But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs 
Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams ; 
Till choked, and matted with the dreary shower. 
The forest walks, at every rising gale. 
Roll wide the wither'd waste, and whistle bleak. 
Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields ; 
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race 
Their sunny robes resign. E'en what remain'd 
Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree; 
And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around 
The desolated prospect thrills the soul. 

He conies ! he comes ! in every breeze the Power 
Of Philosophic Melancholy comes ! 
His near approach the sudden starting tear. 
The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air, 
The soften'd feature, and the beating heart, 
Pierced deep with many a virtuous pang, declare. 
O'er all the soul his sacred influence' breathes! 
Inflames imagination; through the breast 
Infuses every tenderness; and far 
Beyond dim earth exalts the swelling thought. 
Ten thousand thousand fleet ideas, such 
As never mingled with the vulgar dream. 
Crowd fast into the mind's creative eye. 
As fast the correspondent passions rise, 
As varied, and as liigh: Devotion raised 
To rapture, and divine astonishment ; 
The love of Nature unconfined, and, chief, 
Of human race ; the large ambitious wish. 
To make them blest; the sigh for suffering worth 
Lost in obscurity ; the noble scorn 
Of tyrant pride ; the fearless great resolvo; 
The wonder which the dying patriot draws. 
Inspiring glory through remotest time; 
The awaken'd throb for virtue, and for fame ; 



' The seat of Lord Cobham. 

t The Temple of Virtue in Stowc Gardens. 



AUTUMN. 



39 



The western sun wjithdraws the shorten'd day; 
And humid Evening, gliding o'er the sky, 
In her chill progress, to the ground condensed 
The vapours throws. "Where creeping waters ooze, 
Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind 
Cluster the rolhng fogs, and swim along 
The dusky-mantled lawn. Meanwhile the Moon 
FuU-orb'd, and breaking through the scatter'd 

clouds, 
Shows her broad visage in the crimson'd east. 
Turn'd to the sun direct, her'spotted disk. 
Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend, 
Andf caverns deep, as optic tube descries, 
A smaller earth, gives us his blaze again, 
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day. 
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop, 
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime. 
Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild 
O'er the sky'd mountain to the shadowy vale, 
While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam, 
The whole air whitens with a boundless tide 
Of silver radiance trembling round the world. 

But when half blotted from the sky her hght, 
Fainting, permits the starry fires to burn 
With keener lustre through the depth of heaven; 
Or near extinct her deaden'd orb appears, 
And scarce appears, of sickly beamless white; 
Oft in this season, silent from the north 
A blaze of meteors shoots; ensweeping first 
The lower skies, they all at once converge 
High to the crown of heaven, and all at once 
■Relapsing quick, as quickly reascend, 
And mix, and thwart, extinguish, and renew, 
All ether coursing in a maze of light. 

From look to look, contagious through the crowd, 
The panic runs, and into wondrous shapes 
The appearance throws : armies in meet array, 
Throng'd with aerial spears, and steeds of fire; 
Till the long lines of full extended war 
In bleeding :fight commix'd, the sanguine flood 
Rolls a broad slaughter o'er the plains of heaven. 
As thus they scan the visionary scene,- 
On all sides swells the superstitious din. 
Incontinent; and busy frenzy talks 
Of blood and battle ; cities overturn'd, 
And late at night in swallovraig earthquake sunk, 
Or hideous wrapt in fierce ascending flame; 
Of sallow famine, inundation, storm; 
Of pestilence, and every great distress ; 
Empires subversed, when ruling fate has struck 
The unalterable homr: e'en Nature's self 
Is deem'd to totter on the brink of time. 
Not so the man of philosophic eye, 
And inspect sage; the waving brightness he 
Curious surveys, inquisitive to know 
The causes, and materials, yet unfix'd. 
Of this appearance beautiful and new. 

Now black, and deep, the night begins to fall, 
A shade immeirse ! Sunk in the quenching gloom, 



Magnificent and. vast, are heaven and earth. 
Order confounded lies; all beauty void; 
Distinction lost ; and gay variety 
One universal blot; such the fair power 
Of light, to kindle and create the whole. . 
Drear is the state of the benighted wretch. 
Who then, bewilder'd, wanders through the dark, 
Full of pale fancies, and chimeras huge; 
Nor visited by one directive ray, 
From, cottage streaming, or from airy hall. 
Perhaps impatient as he stumbles on, 
Struck from the root of sUniy rushes, blue, 
The wildfire scatters round, or gather'd trails 
A length of flame deceitful o'er the moss : 
Whither decoy'd by the fantastic blaze, 
Now lost and now renevv'd, he sinks absorb'd, 
Rider and horse, amid the miry gulf: 
While still, from day to day, his pining wife 
And plaintive children his return await. 
In vsdld conjecture lost. At other times, 
Sent by the better Genius of the night, 
Innoxious, gleaming on the horse's mane. 
The meteor sits ; and shows the narrow path, 
That winding leads through pits of death, or else 
Instructs him how to take the dangerous ford. 

T he lengthen'd night elapsed,the Morning shines 
Serene, in all her dev?y beauty bright, 
Unfolding fair the last autumnal day. 
And now? the mounting sun dispels the fog; 
The rigid hoar frost melts before his beam; 
And hung on every spray, on every blade 
Of grass, the myriad dew-drops twinkle round. 

Ah, see where, robb'd and murder'd, in that pit 
Lies the still heaving hive ! at evening snatch'd, 
Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night. 
And fix'd o'er sulphur: vvhile, not dreaming ill, 
The happy people, in their waxen cells. 
Sat tending public cares, and planning schemes 
Of temperance, for Winter poor; rejoiced 
To mark, full flowing round, their copious stores. 
Sudden the dark oppressive steam ascends; 
And, used to milder scents, the tender race. 
By thousands, tumble from their honey'd domes, 
Convolved, and agonizing in the dust. 
And was it then for this you roam'd the Spring, 
Intent from flower to flower? for this you toil'd " 
Ceaseless the bxurning Summer heats away? 
For this in Autumn search'd the blooming waste, 
Nor lost one sunny gleam 1 for this sad fate % ■ 
O Man! tyrannic lord! how long, how long 
Shall prostrate Nature groan beneath your rage, 
Awaiting renovation? when obliged, 
Must you destroy 1 of their ambrosial food 
Can you not borrow; and, in just return, 
AflTord them shelter from the wintry winds ; 
Or, as the sharp year pinches, with their own 
Again regale them on some smiling day? 
See where the stony bottom of their town 
Looks desolate, and. wild; with here and there 



40 



THOMSON'S WORKS, 



A helpless number, who the ruin'd state 
Survive, lamenting weak, cast out to death. 
Thus a proud city, populous and rich. 
Full of the works of peace, and liigh in joy, 
At theatre or feast, or sunk in sleep, 
(As late, Palermo, was thy fate) is seized 
By some dread earthquake, and convulsive hurl'd 
Sheer from the black foundation, stench'-mvolved, 
. Into a gulf of blue sulphureous flame. 

Hence every harsher sight ! for now the day, 
O'er heaven and earth diffused, grows warm, and 

liigh; 
Infinite splendour ! vvdde investing all. 
How still the breeze ! save what the filmy thread 
Of dew evaporate brushes from the plain. 
How clear the cloudless sky 1 how deeply tinged 
With a peculiar blue ! the ethereal arch 
How swell'd immense! amid whosp azure throned 
The radiant sun how gay ! how calm below 
The gilded earth ! the harvest-treasures all 
Now gather'd in, beyond the rage of storms, 
Sure to the swain; the circling fence shut up; 
And instant Winter's utmost rage defied. 
While, loose to festive joj'^, the country round 
Laughs with the loud sincerity of mirth. 
Shook to the wind their cares. The toil-strung youth 
By the quick sense of music taught alone. 
Leaps wildly graceful in the lively dance. 
Her every chann abroad, the \illage-toast. 
Young, buxom, warm, in native beauty rich, 
Darts not unmeaning looks; and, where her eye 
Points an approving smile, with double force. 
The cudgel rattles, and the wrestler twines. 
Age too shines out ; and, garrulous, Tecounts 
The feats of youth. Thus they rejoice ; nor thinly 
That, with to-morrow's sun, their annual toil 
Begins again the never ceasing round. 

Oh, knew be but his happiness, of men 
The happiest he ! who far from public rage, 
Deep in the vale, with a choice few retired. 
Drinks the pure pleasures of the Rural Life. 
What though the dome be. wanting, whose proud 

gate. 
Each morning, vomits out the sneaking crowd 
Of flatterers false, and in their turn abused % 
Vile intercourse ! what though the glittering robe 
Of every hue reflected light can give. 
Or floating loose, or stiff" with mazy gold. 
The pride and gaze of fools ! oppress him not? 
What though, from utmost land and sea purvey'd. 
For him each rarer tributary life 
Bleeds not, and his insatiate table heaps 
With, luxury, and death 1 What tliough his bowl 
Flames not wdth costly juice; nor sunk in beds, 
Oft of gay care, he tosses out the night, 
Or melts the thoughtless hours in idle state 1 
What though he knows not those fantastic joys 
That still amuse the wanton, still deceive ! 
A face of pleasure, but a heart of pain; 



Their hollow moments undelighted alii 

Sure peace is his ; a solid life, estranged ■ 

To disappointment, and fallacious hope: 

Rich in content, in Nature's bounty rich, 

In herbs and fruits whatever greens the Spring, 

When heaven descends in showers or bends the 

bough, 
When Summer reddens, and when Autumn 

beams; 
Or in the wdntry glebe whatever lies 
Oonceal'd, and fattens with the richest sap: 
These are not wairting ; nor the milky drove, 
Luxuriant, spread o'er all the lowing vale ; . 
Nor bleating mountains; nor the chide of streams^ 
And hum of bees, inviting sleep sincere 
Into the guiltless breast, beneath the shade,. 
Or thrown at large amid the fragrant hay ; 
Nor aught besides of prospect, grove, or song. 
Dim grottos, gleaming lakes, and fountain clear. 
Here too dwells simple Trath ; plain Innocence 
Unsullied Beauty; sound.unbroken, Youth, 
Patient of labour, with a httle pleased; 
Truth ever blooming; unambitious Toil; 
Calm Contemplation, and poetic Ease. 

Let others brave the flood in quest of gain, 
And beat, for jo3dess months, the gloomy wave. 
Let such as deem it glory to destroy 
Rush into blood, the sack of cities seek ; 
Unpierced, exulting in the widow's wail, 
The virgin's shriek, and infant's trembhng cry. 
Let some, far distant from their native sod, 
Urged or by want or harden'd avarice. 
Find other lands beneath another sun. 
Let this through cities work his eager way 
By legal outrage and establish'd guile, ' 
The social sense extinct ; and that ferment 
Mad into tumult the seditious herd, 
Or melt them down to slavery. Let these 
Insnare the wi-etched in the toils of law, 
Fomenting discord, and perplexing right 
An iron race ! and those of fairer front, 
But equal inhumanity, in courts. 
Delusive pomp and dark cabals, delight ; 
Wreathe the deep bow, diffuse the lying smile, 
And tread the weary labyrinth of state. 
WhUe he, from all the stormy passions free 
That restless men involve, hears, and but hears, 
At distance safe, the human tempest roar, 
Wrapp'd close in conscious peace. The fall of kings, 
The rage of nations, and the crush of states. 
Move not the man, who, from the world escaped, 
In still retreats and flowery solitudes. 
To Nature's voice attends, from month to month. 
And day to day, through the revolving year ; 
Admiring, sees her in her every shape ; 
Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart ; 
Takes what she liberal gives, nor thinks of hiore. 
He, when young Spring protrudes the bursting 
germs. 



AUTUMN. 



41 



Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale 
Into his freshen'd soul ; her genial hours 
He full enjoys ; and not a beauty blows, 
And not an opening blossom breathes in vain. 
In Summer he, beneath the living shade, 
Such as o'er frigid Tempe. wont to wave. 
Or Hemus cool, reads what the Muse, of these. 
Perhaps, has in immortal numbers sung; 
Or what she dictates writes : and, oft an eye 
Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year. 

When Autumn's yelk)W lustre gilds the world. 
And tempts the sickled swaln into the field. 
Seized by the general joy, his heart distends 
With gentle throes ; and, through the tepid gleams 
Deep musing, then he best exerts his song. 
E'en Winter wild to him is full of bliss. 
The mighty tempest, and the hoary waste. 
Abrupt and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth. 
Awake to solemn thought. At night the skies. 
Disclosed, and kindled, by refining frost. 
Pour every lustre on the exalted eye. 
A friend, a book, the stealing hours secure, 
And mark them down for wisdom. With swift wing 
O'er land and sea. imagination roams ; 
Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind, 
Elates his being, and unfolds his .powers ; 
Or in his breast heroic virtue burns. 
The touch of kindred too and love he ftels ; 
The modest eye, whose beams on his alone 
Ecstatic shine ; the Uttle strong embrace 
Of prattling children, twined around his neck. 



And emulous to please him, calling forth 

The fond parental soul. Nor purpose gay. 

Amusement, dance, or song, he sternly scorns ; 

For happiness and true philosophy 

Arc of the social, still, and smiling kind. 

This is the life which, those who fret in guilt, 

And guilty cities, never knew ; the life. 

Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt, 

When Angels dwelt, and God himself, with Man • 

Oh Nature ! all-suflicient ! over all ! 
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works ! 
Snatch me to Heaven ; thy rolling wonders there, 
World beyond world, in infinite oxtent, ■ 
Profusely scatter'd o'er the blue immense, 
Show me ; their motions, periods, and their laws 
Give me to scan; through the disclosing deep 
Light my blind way : the mineral strata there ; 
Thrust, blooming, tlaence the vegetable world ; 
O'er that the rising system, more complex. 
Of animals ; and higher still, the mind. 
The varied scene of quick-compounded thought, 
And where the mixing passions endless shift ; . 
These ever open to my ravish'd eye ; 
A search, the flight of time can ne'er exhaust 1 
But if to that unequal ; if the blood. 
In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid 
That best ambition ; under closing shades, 
Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook. 
And whisper to my dreams. From Thee begin, 
Dwell all on Thee, with Thee conclude my song j 
And let me never, never stray from Thee ! 



SlFintrt* 



Horrida cano 
Bruma gelu. 



ARGUMENT. 

Tlie subject proposed. Address to the Earl of Wilmington. First approach of Winter, According to the natural course 
of the Season, various Storms described. Rain. Wind. Snow. The driving of the Snows : a Man perishing among 
them ; whence reflections on the Wants and Miseries of Human Life. The Wolves descending from the Alps and Appe- 
nines. A Winter Evening described ; as. spent by Philosophers ; by the Countiy People ; in the City. Frost. A view of 
Winter within the Polar Circle. A Thaw. The whole concluding with moral reflections on a Future State. 



TO THE RIGHT HONODHABLE 

SIR SPENCER COMPTON. 



Sir, 

The Author of the following Poem begs leave 
to inscribe this, his first performance, to your name 
and patronage : unknown himself, and only intro- 
duced by the Muse, he yet ventures to approach 
you, with a modest cheerfulness ; for, whoever 
attempts to excel in any generous art, though he 



comes alone, and unregarded by the world, may 
hope for your notice and esteem. Happy if I can, 
in any degree, merit this good fortune : as every 
ornament and grace of polite learning is yours, 
your single approbation will be my fame. 

I dare not indulge my heart b^ dwelling on your 
public character ; on that exalted honour and in- 
tegrity which distinguish you in that august as- 
sembly where you preside, that unshaken loytdty 
to your sovereign, that disinterested concern for 
his people which shine out, united, in all your be- 



42 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



haviour, and finish the patriot. I am conscious 
of my want of strength and skill for so delicate an 
undertaking ; and yet, as the shepherd in his cot- 
tage may feel and acknowledge the influence of 
„the sun with as lively a gratitude as the great man 
in his palace, even I may be allowed to publish my 
sense of those blessings which, from so many pow- 
erful virtues, are derived to the nation they adorn. 
I conclude with saying that your fine discern- 
ment and humanity, in your private capacity, are 
so conspicuous that, if this address is not received 
with some indulgence, it will be a severe convic- 
tion that what I have written has not the least 
share of merit. 

I am,. 
With the profoundest respect, 
Sir, 
Your most devoted and most faithful 
humble Servant, 

James Thomson. 



WINTER. 

See, Winter comes, to rule the varied year, 
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train; 
Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my 

theme. 
These! that exalt the soul to solemn thought. 
And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms, 
Congenial horrors, hail! with frequent foot. 
Pleased have I, in my cheerful morn of Ufe, 
When nursed by careless Solitude I lived, 
And sung of Nature with unceasing joy. 
Pleased have I wander'd through your rough do- 
main ; 
Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure ; 
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst; 
Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brew'd, 
In the grim evening sky. Thus pass'd the time. 
Till through the lucid chambers of the south 
Look'd out the joyous Spring, look'd out, and 
smiled. 
To thee, the patron of her first essay. 
The Muse, O Wilmington ! renews her song. 
Since has she rounded the revolving year: 
Skimm'dthe gay Spring; on eagle-pinions borne, 
Attempted through the Summer-blaze to rise ; 
Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale ; 
And now among the wintry clouds again, 
Roll'd in the doubling, storm she tries to soar; 
To swell her note with all the rushing winds ; 
To suit her sounding cadence to the floods ; 
As is her theme, her numbers wildly great : 
Thrice happy could she fill thy judging ear 
With bold description, and with manly thought. 
Nor art thou skill'd in awful schemes alone. 
And how to make a mighty people thrive ; 
But equal goodness, sound integrity, 



A firm, unshaken, uncorrupted soul, 
Amid a sliding age, and burning strong. 
Not vainly blazing for thy country's weal, 
A steady spirit regularly free; 
These, each exalting each, the statesman light 
Into the patriot ; these, the public hope 
And eye to thee converting, bid the Muse 
Record what envy dares not flattery call. 

Now when the cheerless empire of the sky 
To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields 
And fierce Aquarius stains the inverted year; 
Hung o'er the farthest verge of Heaven, the sun 
Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day. 
Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot 
His strugghng rays, in horizontal lines, 
Through the thick air ; as clothed in cloudy storm, 
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky ; 
And, soon-descending, to the long dark night, 
Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns. 
Nor is the night unwish'd ; while vital heat, 
Light, life, and joy, the dubious day forsake. 
Meantime, in sable cincture, shadows vast, 
Deep-tinged and damp, and congregated clouds, 
And all the vapoury turbulence of Heaven, 
Involve the face of things. Thus Winter falls, 
A heavy gloom 'oppressive o'er the world. 
Through Nature shedding influence malign, 
And rouses up the seeds of dark disease. 
The soul of man dies in him, loathing life. 
And black with more than melancholy views. 
The cattle droop ; and o'er the furrow'd land, 
Fresh from the plough, tlie dun discolour'd flocks, 
Untended spreading, crop the wholesome root. 
Alongthe woods, along the moorish fens. 
Sighs the sad Genius of the coming storm ; 
And up among the loose disjointed cliiTs, 
And fractured mountains wild, the brawling brook 
And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan. 
Resounding long in listenign Fancy's ear. 

Then comes the father of the tempest forth, 
Wrapt inblack glooms. First joyless rains obscure, 
Drive through the mingling skies with vapour foul, 
Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods, 
That grumbhng wave below. The unsightly plain 
Lies a brown deluge ; as the low-beirt clouds 
Pour flood on flood, yet unexhausted still 
Combine, and deepening into night, shut up 
The day's fair face. The wanderers of Heaven, 
Each to his home, retire ; save those that love 
To take their pastime in the troubled air. 
Or skimming flutter round the dimply pool. 
The cattle from the untasted fields return, 
And ask, with meaning low, their wonted stalls, 
Or ruminate in the contiguous shade. 
Thither the household feathery people crowd, 
The crested cock, with all his female train, 
Pensive, and dripping ; while the cottage-hind 
Hangs o'er the enlivening blaze, and taleful there 
Recounts liis simple frolic : much he talks, 



WINTER. 



43 



And much he laughs, nor recks the storm that blows 
Without, and rattles on his humble roof. 

Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swell'd, 
And the mix'd ruin of its banks o'crsprcad, 
At last the roused-up river pours along : 
Resistless, roaring, dreadful, down it comes. 
From the rude mountain, and the mossy wild, 
Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far; 
Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads, 
Calm, sluggish, silent ; till again, constrain'd 
Between two meeting hills, it bursts away, 
Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream; 
There gathering triple force, rapid, and deep, 
It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders 
through. 

Nature '. great parent ! whose unceasing hand 
Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year, 
How mighty, how majestic, are thy works ! 
With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul ! 
That sees astonish'd ! and astonish'd sings ! 
Ye too, ye winds ! that now begin to blow 
With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you. 
Where are your stores, ye powerful beings ! say, 
Where your aerial magazines reserved. 
To swell the brooding terrors of the storm 1 
In what far distant region of the sky, 
Hush'd in deep silence, sleep ye when 'tis calm 1 

When from the palhd sky the sun descends, 
With many a spot, that o'er his glaring orb 
Uncertain wanders, stain'd ; red fiery streaks 
Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds 
Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet 
Which master to obey : while rising slow, 
Blank, in the leaden-colour'd east, the moon 
Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns. 
Seen through the tm'bid fluctuating air, 
The stars obtuse emit a shiver'd ray ; 
Or frequent seem to shoot athwart the gloom. 
And long behind them trail the wliitening blaze. 
Snatch'd in short eddies, plays the wither'd leaf; 
And on the flood the dancing feather floats. 
With broaden'd nostrils to the sky upturn'd, 
The conscious heifer snuffs the stormy gale. 
E'en asthe matron, at her nightly task, 
With pensive labour draws the flaxen thread, 
The wasted taper and the crackling flame 
Foretell the blast. But chief the plmny race, 
The tenants of the sky, its changes speak. 
Retiring from the downs, where all day long 
They pick'd their scanty fare, a blackening train, 
Of clamorous rooks thick urge their weary flight 
And seek the closing shelter of the grove ; 
Assiduous, in his bower, the wailing owl 
PUes his sad song. The cormorant on high 
Wheels from the deep, and screams along the land. 
Loud shrieks the soaring hern ; and with wild wing 
The circhng seafowl cleave the flaky clouds. 
Ocean, unequal press'd, with broken tide 
And blind commotion heaves 5 while from the shore. 



Eat into caverns by the restless wave. 

And Ibrcst-rustling mountain, comes a voice, 

That solemn sounding bids the world prepare. 

Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst, 

And hurls the whole precipitated air 

Down in a torrent. On the passive main 

Descends the ethereal force, and with strong gust 

Turns from its bottom the discolour'd deep. 

Through the black night that sits immense around, 

Lash'd into foam, the fierce conflicting brine 

Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn: 

Meantime the mountain-billows, to the clouds 

In dreadful tumult swell'd, surge above surge, 

Burst into chaos with tremendous roar, 

And anchor'd navies from their stations drive, 

Wild as the winds across the howling waste 

Of mighty waters : now the inflated wave 

Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot 

Into the secret chambers of the deep. 

The wintry Baltic thundering o'er their head. 

Emerging thence again, before the breath 

Of full exerted Heaven they wing their course, 

And dart on distant coasts; if some sharp rock. 

Or shoal insidious break not their career. 

And in loose fragments fling them floating round. 

Nor less at hand the loosen'd tempest reigns. 
The mountain thunders ; and its sturdy sons 
Stoop to the bottom of the rocks they shade. 
Lone on the midnight steep, and all aghast. 
The dark wayfaring stranger breathless toils, 
And, often falling, climbs against the blast. 
Low waves the rooted forest, vex'd, and sheds 
What of its tarnish'd honours yet remain ; 
Dash'd down, and scatter'd, by the tearing wind's 
Assiduous fury, its gigantic limbs; 
Thus struggling through the dissipated grove. 
The whirling tempest raves along-the plain; 
And on the cottage thatch'd, or lordly roof, 
Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base. 
Sleep frighted flies ; and round the rocking dome. 
For entrance eager, howls the savage blast. 
Then too, they say, through all the burden'd air, 
Long groans are heard, shrill sounds, and. distant 

sighs. 
That, utter'd by the Demon of the night. 
Warn the devoted wretch of wo and death. 

Huge uproar lords it wide; The clouds com- 
. mix'd 
With stars swift gliding sweep along the sky. 
All Nature reels. Till Nature's King, who oft 
Amid tempestuous darkness dwell.<5 alone, 
And on the wings of the careering wind 
Walks dreadfully serene, commands a cahn; 
Then straight, air, sea, and earth are hush'd at 
once. 

As yet 'tis midnight deep. The weary clouds, 
Slow meeting, mingle into solid gloom. 
Now, while the drowsy world hes lost in sleep, 
Let me associate with the serious Night, 



44 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



And Contemplation her sedate compeer; 
Let me shake oil' the intrusive cares of day, 
And lay the meddling senses all aside. 

Where now, ye lying vanities of hfe ! 
Ye ever tempting ever cheating train! 
Where are you nowl and what is your amount 7 
Vexation, disappointment, and remorse : 
Sad, sickening thought ! and yet deluded man. 
A scehe of crude disjointed visions past. 
And broken slumbers, rises still resolved, 
With new-flush'd hopes, to run the giddy round. 

Father of light and life ! thou Good Supreme ! 
O teaxih me what is good ! teach me Thyself ! 
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice. 
From every low pursuit ! and feed my soul 
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue 

pure ; 
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bUss ! . 

The keener tempests rise : and fuming dim 
From all the livid east, or piercing north. 
Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb 
A vapoury deluge' lies, to snow congeal'd. 
Heavy they roll their fleecy world along; 
And the sky saddens with the gather'd storm. 
Through the hush'd air the wliitening shower de- 
scends. 
At first tliin wavering ; till at last the flakes 
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day, 
With a continual flow. The chcrish'd fields 
Put on their winter-robe of purest white. 
'Tis brightness all; save where the new snow 

melts 
Along the mazy current. Low the woods 
Bow their hoar head ; and ere the languid sun 
Faint from the west emits his evening ray, 
Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill, 
Is one wild dazzhng waste, that buries wide 
The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-ox 
Stands cover'd o'er with snow, and then demands 
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of Heaven, 
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around 
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon 
Which Providence assigns them. One alone, 
The redbreast; sacred to the household gods, 
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky. 
In joyless fields and thorny tliickets, leaves 
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man 
His annual visit. Half afraid, he first 
Against the window beats ; then, brisk, alights 
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor, 
Eyes all the smiling family askance, 
And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is; 
Till more familiar grown, the table-crumbs 
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds 
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare, 
Though timorous of heart, and hard beset 
By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs, 
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks, 
Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind 



Eye the bleak Heaven, and next the glistening 

earth, 
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed, 
Dig for the wither'd herb through heaps of snow. 
Now, shepherds, to your helpless charge be 
kind, 
Baflfie the raging year, and fill their pens 
With food at will; lodge them below the storm, 
And watch them strict: for from the bellowing 

east. 
In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing 
Sweeps up the burden of whole wintry plains 
At one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks, 
Hid in the hollow of two neighbouring hiUs, 
The billovs^y tempest whelms; tUl, upward urged, 
The valley to a shining mountain swells, 
Tipp'd with a wreath high-curling in the sky. 

As thus the snows arise ; and foUl, and fierce, 
All Winter drives along the darken'd air: 
In his own loose revolving fields, the swain 
Disaster'd stands ; sees other hills ascend, 
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes, 
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain: 
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid 
Beneath the formless wild ; but wanders on 
From hdl to dale, still more and more astray; 
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, 
Stung with the thoughts of home ; the thoughts 

of home 
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth 
In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul ! 
What black despair, what horror fills his heart! 
When for the dusky spot, which fancy feign'd 
His tufted cottage rising through the snow, 
He meets the roughness of the middle waste. 
Far from the track and bless'd abode of man; 
While round him night resistless closes fast, 
And every tempest, howling o'er his head, 
Renders the savage wilderness more wild. 
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind, 
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep, 
A dire descent I beyond the power of frost; 
Of faithless bogs ; of precipices huge, 
Smooth'd up with snow; and, what is land, un- 
known, 
What water, of the still unfrozen spring, 
In the loose marsh or soUtary lake. 
Where the fresh rpountain from the bottom boils. 
These check his fearful steps ; and down he sinks, 
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, 
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death; 
Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots 
Through the wrung bosom of the dying man. 
His wife, his children, and his friends imseen- 
In vain for him the officious wife prepares 
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;. 
In vain his little children, peeping out 
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire^ 
With tears of artless innocence. Alas ! 



WINTER. 



45 



Nor wife, nor children more shall he behold, 
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve 
The deadly Winter seizes; shuts up sense; 
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, 
Lays him along the snows, a stifFen'd corse, 
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast. 

Ah! little think the gay licentious proud. 
Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround ; 
They who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, 
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste; 
Ah ! little think they, while they dance along, 
How many feel, this very moment, death, 
And all the sad variety of pain. 
How many sink in the devouring flood. 
Or more devouring flame. How many bleed. 
By shameful variance betwixt man and man. 
How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms ; 
Shut from the common air, and common use 
_0f their own limbs. How many drink the cup 
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread 
Of misery. Sore pierced by wintry winds, 
How many shrink into the sordid hut 
Of cheerless poverty. How many shake 
With all the fiercer tortures of the mind, 
Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse ; 
Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life. 
They furnish matter for the tragic Muse. 
E'en in the vale, where Wisdom loves to dwell, 
With friendship, peace, and contemplation join'd. 
How many, rack'd with honest passions, droop 
In deep retired distress. How many stand 
Around the deathbed of their dearest friends. 
And point the parting anguish. Thought fond 

Man 
Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills. 
That one incessant struggle render life, 
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate. 
Vice in his high career would stand appall'd, 
Aiad heedless rambling Impulse learn to think ; 
The conscious heart of Charity would warm, 
And her wide wish Benevolence dilate; 
The social tear would rise, the social sigh; 
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss. 
Refining still, the social passions work. 

And here can I forget the generous band,* 
Who, touch'd with human wo, redressive search'd 
Into the horrors of the gloomy jaUl 
Unpitied, and unheard, where misery moans ; 
Where sickness puies; where thirst and hunger 

burn, 
And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice. 
While in the land of Liberty, the land 
Whose every street and public meeting glow 
With open freedom, little tyrants raged; 
Snatch'd the lean morsel from the starving mouth ; 
Tore from cold wintry limbs the tatter'd weed; 
E'en robb'd them of the last of comforts, sleep; 



* The jail Committee In the year 1729. 



The free-born Briton to the dungeon chain'd; 
Or, as the lust of cruelty prevail'd. 
At pleasure mark'd him with inglorious stripes; 
And crush'd out lives, by secret barbarous ways. 
That for their country would have toil'd or bled, 
O great design ! if executed well, 
With patient care, and wisdom-temper'd zeal. 
Ye sons of Mercy ! yet resume the search; 
Drag forth the legal monsters into light. 
Wrench from their hands oppression's iron rod, 
And bid the cruel feel the pains they give. 
Much still untouch'd remains ; in this rank age, 
Much is the patriot's weeding hand required 
The toils of law (what dark insicUous men 
Have cumbrous added to perplex the truth. 
And lengthen simple justice into trade) 
How glorious were the day ! that saw these broke. 
And every man within the reach of right. 

By wintry famine roused, from all the tract 
Of horrid mountains where the shining Alps, 
And wavy Appenine, and Pyrenees, 
Branch out stupendous into distant lands ; 
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave ! 
Burning for blood ! bony, and gaunt, and grim ! 
Assembling wolves in raging troops descend ; 
And, pouring o'er the country, bear along. 
Keen as the north-wind sweeps the glossy snow. . 
All is their prize. They fasten on the steed, 
Press him to earth, and pierce his mighty heart. 
Nor can the bull his awful front defend. 
Or shake the murdering savages away 
Rapacious, at the toother's throat they fly, 
And tear the screaming infant from her breast. 
The godlike face of man avails him nought. 
E'en beauty, force divine ! at whose bright glanee 
The generous lion stands in soften'd gaze, 
Here bleeds, a hapless undistinguish'd prey. 
But if, apprized of the severe attack, 
The country be shut up, lured by the scent, 
On churchyards drear (inhuman to relate !) 
The disappomted prowlers fall, and dig 
The shrouded body from the grave; o'er which, 
Mix'd with foul shades, and frighted ghosts, they 
howl. 

Among those hilly regions, where embraced 
In peaceful vales the happy Grisons dwell; 
Oft, rushing sudden from the loaded clifl!s, 
Mountains of snow their gathering terrors roll. 
From steep to steep, loud-thundering down they 

come, 
A wintry waste in dire commotion all; 
And herds-, and flocks, and travellers, and swains. 
And somethnes whole brigades of marching troops, 
Or hamlets sleeping in the dead of night. 
Are deep beneath the smothering ruin whelm'd. 

Now, all amid the rigours of the year, 
In the wild depth of Winter, while without 
The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat, 
Between the groaning forest and the shore 



46 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Beat by the boundless multitude of waves, 
A rural, sheltered, solitary, scene; 
Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join, 
To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit, 
And hold high converse with the mighty Dead; 
Safes of ancient time, as gods revered. 
As cods beneficent, who bless'd mankind 
With arts, with arms, and humanized a world. 
Roused at the inspiring thought, I throw aside 
The long-lived volume; and, deep-musing, hail 
The sacred shades, that slowly rising pass 
Before my wondering eyes. First Socrates, ' 
Who, firmly good in a corrupted state. 
Against the rage of tyrants single stood, 
Invincible ! calm Reason's holy law, 
That Voice of God within the attentive mind, 
Obeying, fearless, or in life, or death: 
Great moral teacher ! Wisest of mankind! 
Solon the next, who built his common-weal 
On equity's wide base; by tender laws 
A lively people curbing, yet undamp'd: 
Preserving still that quick peculiar fire, 
Whence in the laurel'd field of finer arts 
And of bold freedom, they unequal'd shone. 
The pride of smiling Greece, and human-kind. 
Lycurgus then, who bow'd beneath the force 
Of strictest discipline, severely wise. 
All human passions. Following him, I see, 
As at Thermopylse he glorious fell, 
The firm devoted chief,* who proved by deeds 
The hardest lesson which the other taught. 
Then Aristides lifts his honest front ; 
Spotless of heart, to whom the unflattering voice 
Of freedom gave the noblest name of Just; 
In pm-e majestic poverty revered ; 
Who, e'en his glory to his country's weal 
Submitting, swell'd a haughty Rival'st fame. 
Rear'd by his care, of softer ray appears 
Cimon sweet-soul'd ; whose genius, rising strong. 
Shook off the load of young debauch ; abroad 
The scourge of Persian pride, at home the friend 
Of every worth and every splendid art ; 
Modest, and simple, in the pomp of wealth. 
Then the last worthies of declining Greece, 
Late call'd to glory, in unequal times, 
Pensive appear. The fair Corinthian boast, 
Timoleon, happy temper ! mild, and firm, 
Who wept the brother while the tyrant bled. 
And, equal to the best, the Theban Pair,t 
Whose virtues, in heroic concord join'd. 
Their country raised to freedom, empire, fame. 
He too, with whom Athenian honour sunk. 
And left a mass of sordid lees behind, 
Phocion the Good ; in public life severe, 
To virtue still inexorably firm ; 
But when, beneath his low illustrious roof, 

* Leonidas. t Thcmistoclcs. 

t Pelopidas and Epaminondas. 



Sweet peace and happy wisdom smooth'd his brow, 
Not friendship softer was, nor love more kind. 
And he, the last of old Lycurgus' sons, 
The generous victim to that vain attempt, 
To save a rotten state, Agis, who saw 
E'en Sparta's self to servile avarice sunk, 
The two Achaian heroes close the train : 
Aratus, who awhile relumed the soul 
Of fondly lingering liberty in Greece; 
And he her darling as her latest hope, 
The gallant Philopoemen; who to arms 
Turn'd the luxurious pomp he could not cure ; 
Or toiling in his farm, a simple swain ; 
Or, bold and skilful, thundering in the field. 

Of rougher front, a mighty people come ! 
A race of heroes ! in those virtuous times 
Which knew no stain, save that with partial flame 
Their dearest country they too fondly loved: 
Her better Founder first, the light of Rome 
Numa, who soften'd her rapacious sons : 
Servius the king, who laid the solid base 
On which o'er earth the vast republic spread. 
Then the great consuls venerable rise. 
The pubKc Father* who the private quell'd, 
As on the dread tribunal sternly sad. 
He, whom his thankless country could not lose, 
Camillus, only vengeful to her foes. 
Fabricius, scorner of all-conquering gold ; 
And Cincinnatus, awful from the plough. 
Thy willing victim,t Carthage, bursting loose 
From all that pleading Nature could oppose, 
From a whole city's tears, by rigid faith 
Imperious call'd, and honour's dire command. 
Scipio, the gentle chief, humanely brave. 
Who soon the race of spotless glory ran. 
And, warm in youth, to the poetic shade 
With Friendship and Philosophy retired. 
Tully, whose powerful eloquence a while 
Restrain'd the rapid fate of rushing Rome. 
Unconquer'd Cato, virtuous in extreme : 
And thou, unhappy Brutus, kind of heart, 
Whose steady arm, by awful virtue urged, 
Lifted the Roman steel against thy friend. 
Thousands besides the tribute of a verse 
Demand ; but who can count the stars of Heaven? . 
Who sing their influence on this lower world! 

Behold, who yonder comes ! in sober state, 
Fair, mild, and strong, as is a vernal sun: 
'Tis Phoebus' self, or else the Mantuan Swain 
Great Homer too appears, of daring wing. 
Parent of song I and equal by his side. 
The British Muse: join'd hand in hand they 

walk. 
Darkling, full up the middle steep to fame. 
Nor absent are those shades, whose skilful touch 
Pathetic drew the impassion'd heart, and charm'd 



* Marcus Junius Brutus. 



tRegulus. 



.ir^ 



WINTER. 



47 



Transported Athens with the moral scene ; 
•Nor those who, tuneful, waked the , enchanting 
lyre. 

First of your kind ! society divine ! 
Still visit thus my nights, for you reserved, 
And mount my soaring soul to thoughts like 

ypurs. 
Silence, thou lonely power ! the door be thine ; 
See on the hallow'd hour that. none intrude, 
Save a few chosen friends, wlio sometimes deign 
To bless my humble roof, with sense refined. 
Learning digested well, exalted faitli, ' 
Unstudied wit, and humour ever gay. 
Or from the Muses' hill will Pope descend, 
To raise the sacred hour, to bid it smile, 
And witli the social spirit warm the heart 1 
For though not sweeter his own Homer sings. 
Yet is his life the more endearing i^ong. 

Where art.thou^ Hammond 1 thou, the darling 
pride, 
The friend and lover of the tuneful throng ! 
Ah wliy, dear youth, in all the blooming prime 
Of vernal genius, where disclosing fast. 
Each active worth, each manly virtue lay, 
Why wert thou ravish'd from our hope so- soon 1 
What now avails that noble thirst of fame, 
Which stung thy fervent breast 1 that treasured 

store 
Of knowledge early gain'd 1 that eager zeal 
To serve thy country, glowing in the band" 
Of youthful patriots, who sustain her name ; 
What now, alas ! that life-diffusing' charm 
Of sprightly witl that rapture for the Muse, 
That heart of friendship, and that soul of joy, 
Which bade .with softest light thy virtue^ smOe 1 
Ah ! only show'd, to check our fond pursuits. 
And teach oiu" humbled hopes that hfe is vain ! 

Thus in some deep retirement would I pass 
The winter-glooms, with friends of pliant soul, 
Or blithe, or solemn, as the theme inspired : 
With them would search, if Nature's boundless 

frame 
Was call'd, late-rising from the void of night, 
Or sprung eternal from the Eternal Mind; 
Its life, its laws, its progress, and its end.- 
Hence larger prospects of the beauteous whole 
Would, gradual, open on our opening minds; 
And each diffusive harmony imite 
In full perfection, to the astonish'd eye. 
Then would we try to scan the moral world, 
Which, though to us it seems embroil'd, moves on 
In higher order ; fitted and impell'd 
By Wisdom's finest hand, and issuing all 
In general good. The sage historic Muse 
Should next conduct us through the deeps of 

time : 
Show us how empire grew, declined, and M\, 
In scatter'd states; what makes the nations smUe, 
Improves their soil, and gives them double suiis ; 
•'33 



And why they pine beneath the brightest skies, 

In Nature's richest lap. As thus we talk'd. 

Our hearts would burn within us, would inhale 

That portion of divinity, that ray 

Of purest Heaven, which lights the public soul 

Of patriots and of heroes. But if doom'd 

In powcrk'ss humble fortune, to repress ' 

These ardent risings of the kindling soul ; 

Then, even superior to ambition, we 

Would learn the private virtues ; howjto glide 

Through shades and plains, along the smoothest 

stream 
Of rural life : or snatch'd away by hope. 
Through the dim spaces of futurity. 
With earnest eye anticipate those scenes 
Of happiness and wonder; where the mind 
In endless growth and infinite ascent. 
Rises from state to state, and world to world. 
But when with -these the serious though is foil'd, 
We, shifting for relief, would play the shapes 
Of frolic fancy; and incessant form 
Those rapid pictures, that assembled train 
Of fleet ideas, never join'd before. 
Whence hvely wit excites to gay surprise ; 
Or folly painting humour, grave himself, 
Galls laughter forth, deep-shaking every nerve. 

Meantime the village rouses up the fire ; 
While well attested, and as well believed, 
Heard solemn, goes the goblin story round; 
Till surperstitious horror creeps o'er all. 
Or, frequent in the sounding hall, they wake 
The rural gambol. Rustic mirth goes round : 
The simple joke that takes the shepherd's heart 
Easily pleased; the long loud laugh, surcere; 
The kiss, snatch'd hasty from the side-long maid, 
On purpose guardless, or pretending sleep : 
The leap, the slap, the haul; and, shook to notes 
Of native music,' the respondent dance. 
Thus jocund -fleets with them the winter night. 

The city swarms intense. The public haunt. 
Full of each theme and warm with mix'd dis- 
course. 
Hums indistinct. The sons of riot flow 
Down the loose stream of false enchanted joy, 
To swift destruction. On the rankled soul 
The gaming fury falls; and in one gulf 
Of total ruin, honour, virtue, peace. 
Friends, families, and fortune, headlong sink. 
Upsprings the dance along the lighted dome, 
Mix'd and evolved, a thousand sprightly ways. 
The glittering court effuses every pomp; 
-The circle deepens : beam'd from gaudy robes, 
Tapers, and sparkling gems, and radiant eyes 
A soft effulgence o'er the palace waves : 
While, a gay insect in his summer-shine. 
The fop, light fluttering, spreads his mealy wings. 

Dread o'er the scene, the ghost of Hamlet 
staUcs ; 
Othello rages; poor Monimia mourns; ;^ 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



And Belvidcra pours her soul in love. 
Terror alarms the breast; the comely tear 
Steals o'er the cheek: or else the Comic Muse 
Holds to the world a picture of itself, 
And raises sly the fair impartial laugh. 
Sometimes she Uftsher strain, and paints the scenes 
Of beauteous life; whate'er can deck mankind, 
Or charm the lieart, in generous Bevil* show'd. 

O thou, whose wisdom, sohd yet refined, 
Whose patriot-virtues, and consummate skill 
To touch the finer springs that move the world, 
Join'd to whate'er the Graces can bestow, 
And all Apollo's animating fire, 
Give thee, with pleasing dignity, to shine 
At once the guardian, ornament, and joy, 
Of polish'd life ; permit the rural Muse, 
O Chesterfield, to grace with thee her song! 
Ere to the shades again she humbly flies. 
Indulge her fond ambition, in thy train, 
(For every Muse has in thy train a place) 
To mark thy various, fuU-accompUsh'd mind : 
To mark that spirit, which, with British scoirn, 
Rejects the allurements of corrupted power; 
That elegant politeness, which excelsj 
E'en in the judgment of presumptuous France, 
The boasted manners of her shining court ; ' 
That with the vivid energy of sense. 
The truth of Nature, which with Attic point 
And kind well teinper'd satire, smoothly keen, 
Steals through the soul, and without pain corrects. 
Or rising thence with yet a brighter flame, 
O let me hail thee on some glorious day, 
When to the listening senate, ardent, crowd 
Britannia's sons to hear her pleaded cause. 
Then dress'd by thee, more amiably fair, 
Truth the soft robe of mild persuasion wears : 
Thou to assenting reason givest again 
Her own enlighten'd thoughts; call'd from the 

heart, 
The obedient passions on thy voice attend ; 
And e'en reluctant party feels a while 
Thy gracious power : as through the varied maze 
Of eloquence, now smooth, now quick, now strong. 
Profound and clear, you roll the copious flood. 

To thy loved haunt return, my happy Muse : 
For now, behold, the joyous winter days, 
Frosty, succeed ; and through the blue serene, 
For sight too fine, the ethereal nitre flies ; 
Killing infectious damps, and the spent air 
Storing afresh with elemental life. 
Close crowds the sliining atmosphere; and binds 
Our strengthen'd bodies in its cold embrace. 
Constringent; feeds, and animates our blood; 
Refines our spirits, through the new-strung nerves. 
In swifter sallies darting to the brain; 
Where sits the soul, intense, coUected, cool, 
Bright as the skies, and as the season keen. 



* A character in the Conscious Lovers, by Sir R. Sceele. 



All Nature feels the renovating force 
Of Winter, only to the thoughtless eye 
In ruin seen. The frost-concocted glebe 
Draws in abundant vegetable soul. 
And gathers vigour for the coming year, 
A stronger glow sits on the lively cheek 
Of ruddy fire: and lucvdent along 
The purer rivers flow; their sullen deeps. 
Transparent, open to the shepherd's gaze. 
And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost. 
What art thou, frost? and whence are thy keen 
stores " 
Derived, thou secret all-invading power, 
Whom e'en the illusive fluid can not fly 1 
Is not thy potent energy, unseen. 
Myriads of little salts, or hook'd, or shaped 
Like double wedges, and diflused immense 
Through water, earth, and ether? hence at eve, 
Steam'd eager from the red horizon round. 
With the fierce rage of Winter deep suffused. 
An icy gale, oft shifting, o'er the pool 
Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career 
Arrests the bickering stream. The loosen'd ice, 
Let down the flood, and half dissolved by day, 
Rustles no more ; but to the sedgy bank 
Fast grows, or gathers round the pointed stone, 
A crystal pavement, by the breath of Heaven 
Cemented firm ; till, seized from shore to shore 
The whole imprison'd river growls below. 
Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects 
A double noise ; while, at hia evening watch, 
The village dog deters the nightly thief; 
The heifer lows; the distant water-fall 
Swells in the breeze; and, with the hasty tread 
Of traveller, the hollow-sounding plain 
Shakes from afar. The full ethereal round, 
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view, 
Shines out intensely keen ; and, all one cope 
Of starry glitter, glows from pole to pole. 
From pole to pole the rigid influence falls, 
Through the still night, incessant, heavy, strong, 
And seizes Nature fast. It freezes on ; 
Till Morn, late rising o'er the drooping world. 
Lifts her pale eye unjoyous. Then appears 
The various labour of the silent night: 
Prone from the dripping eave, and dumb. cascade. 
Whose idle torrents only seem to roar. 
The pendent icicle: the frost-work fair. 
Where transient hues, and fancied figures rise; 
Wide-spouted o'er the hill, the frozen brook, 
A livid tract, cold-gleaming on the morn; 
The forest bent beneath the plumy wave ; 
And by the frost refined the whiter snow, 
Incrusted hard, and sounding to the tread 
Of early shepherd, as he pensive seeks 
His pining flock, or from the mountain top, 
Pleased with the slippery surface, swift descends. 
On blithsorne frolics bent, the youthful swains, 
While every work of man is laid at rest, 



WINTER. 



49 



Fond o'er the river crowd, in various sport 
And revelry dissolved; where mixing glad, 
Happiest of all the train, the raptured boy- 
Lashes the whirling top. Or, where the Rhine 
Branch'd out in many a long canal extends. 
From every province swarming, void of care, 
Batavia rushes forth; and as they sweep. 
On sounding skates, a thousand different ways. 
In circling poise, swift as the winds, along. 
The then gay land is maddon'd all to joy. 
Nor less the northern courts, wide o'er the snow. 
Pour a new pomp. Eager, on rapid sleds. 
Their vigorous youth in bold contention wheel 
The long-resounding course. Meantime to raise 
The manly strife,' with highly blooming charms, 
Flush'd by the season, Scandinavia's dames, 
Or Russia's buxom daughters, glow around. 

Pure, quick, and sportful, is the-wholesome day; 
But soon elapsed. The horizontal sun. 
Broad o'er the south, hangs at his utmost noon: 
And, ineffectual, strikes the gelid cliff: 
His azure gloss the mountain still maintains, 
Nor feels the feeble touch. Perhaps the vale 
Relents awhile to the reflected ray.: 
Or from the forest falls the clustered snow, 
Myriads of gems, that in the waving gleam 
Gay-twinkle as they scatter. Thick around 
Thunders the sport of those who with the gun, 
And dog impatient bounding at the shot. 
Worse than the Season, desolate the fields; 
And, adding to the ruins of the year, 
Distress the footed or the feathered game. 

Buf what is this'? our infant Winter sinks, 
Divested of his grandeur, should our eye 
Astonish'd shoot into the frigid zone; 
Where, for relentless months, continual Night 
Holds o'er the glittering waste her starry reign. 
There, through the prison of unbounded wUds, 
Barr'd by the hand of Nature from escape. 
Wide roams the Russian exOe. Nought around 
Strikes his sad eye; but deserts lost in snowj 
And heavy-loaded groves; and solid floods, 
That stretch athwart the solitary waste, 
Their icy horrors to the frozen main , 
And cheerless towns far distant, never blessed. 
Save when its annual course the caravan 
Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay,* 
With news of human-kind. Yet there life glows; 
Yet cherish'd there beneath the shining waste, 
The furry nations harbour: tipp'd vrith jet, 
Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press ; 
Sables of glossy black; and dark-embrown'd. 
Or beauteous freak'd with many a mingled hue, 
Thousands besides, the costly pride of courts. 
There, warm together press'd, the trooping deer 
Sleep on the new-fallen snows; and scarce his 
head 



* The old name for China. 



Raised o'er the heapy wreath, the brandling elk 
Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss. 
The ruthless hunter wants nor dogs nor toils, 
Nor with the dread of sounding bows he drives 
The fearful flying race; with ponderous clubs. 
As weak against the mountain-heaps they push 
Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray, 
He lays them quivering on the ensanguined snows, 
And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home. 
There through the piny forest half-absorp'd. 
Rough tenant of these shades, the shapeless bear, 
With dangling ice all horrid, stalks forlorn ; 
Slow-paced, and sourer as the storms increase, 
He makes his bed beneath the inclement drift, 
And, with stern patience,, scorning weak com- 
plaint. 
Hardens his heart against assailing want. 

Wide o'er the spacious regions of the north, 
That see Bootes urge his tardy wain, 
A boisterous race, by frosty Caurus* pierced, 
Who little pleasure know and fear no pain, 
Prolific swarm. They once relumed the flame 
Of lost mankind in polish'd slavery sunk ; 
Drove martial horde on horde,t with fearful 

sweep 
Resistless rushing o'er the enfeebled south. 
And gave the vanquished world another form. 
Not such the sons of Lapland: wisely they 
Despise the insensate barbarous trade of war; 
They ask no more than simple Nature gives, 
They love their mountains, and enjoy their stoims, 
No false desires, no pride-created wants. 
Disturb the peaceful current of their time; 
And through the restless ever tortured maze 
Of pleasure, or ambition, bid it rage. 
Their reindeer form their riches. These their 

tents, 
Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth 
Supply, their wholesome fare and cheerfvd cups. 
Obsequious at their call, the docile tribe 
Yield to the sled their necks, and whirl them swifl 
O'er hill and dale, heap'd into one expanse 
Of marbled snow, as far as eye can sweep 
With a blue crust of ice unbounded glazed. 
By dancing meteors then, that ceaseless shake 
A waving blaze refracted o'er the heavens. 
And vivid moons, and stars that keener play 
With doubled lustre from the glossy waste, 
E'en in the depth of polar night, they find 
A wondrous day : enough to light the chase. 
Or guide their daring steps to Finland fairs. 
Wish'd Spring returns; and from the hazy south, 
While dim Aurora slowly moves before. 
The welcome sun, just verging up at first. 
By small degrees extends the swelling curve ! 
Till seen at last for gay rejoicing months, 
Still round and round, his spiral course he winds, 



' North-west wind. t The wandering Scythian clana 



50 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



And as he nearly dips his flaming orb, 
Wheels up again, and reascends the sky. 
In that glad season from the lakes and floods, 
Where pure Niemi's* fairy mountains rise. 
And fringed with roses Tengliot rolls his stream, 
They draw the copious fry. With these, at eve, 
They cheerful loaded to their tents repair ; 
Where, all day long in useful cares employ'd. 
Their kind unblemish'd wives the fire prepare. 
Thrice happy race ! by poverty secured 
From legal plunder and rapacious power : 
In whom fell interest never yet has sovm 
The seeds of vice : whose spotless swains ne'er 

knew 
Injurious deed, nor, blasted by the breath 
Of faithless love, their blooming daughters wo. 

Still pressing on, beyond Tornea's lake. 
And Hecla flaming through a waste of snow, 
And farthest Greenland, to the pole itself. 
Where, faihng gradual, life at length goes out, 
The Muse expands her solitary flight ; 
And, hovering o'er the wild stupendous scene,- 
Beholds new seas beneath another sky.t 
Throned in his palace of cerulean ice. 
Here Winter holds his unrejoicing court; 
And through the airy hall the loud misrule 
Of driving tempest is for ever heard ; 
Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath; 
Here arms his winds with all subduing frost; 
Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his 

snows. 
With which he now oppresses half the globe. 

Thence winding eastward to the Tartar's coast. 
She sweeps the howling margin of the main ; 
Where undissolving, from the first of time, 
Snows swell on snows, amazing to the sky ; 
And icy mountains high on mountains piled. 
Seem to the sliivering sailor from afar. 
Shapeless and wiiite, an atmosphere of clouds. 
Projected huge, and horrid o'er the surge, 
Alps frown on Alps; or rushing hideous down, 
As if old Chaos was again return'd, 
Wide-rend the deep, and shake the solid pole; 
Ocean itself no longer can resist 
The binding fury : but, in all its rage 
Of tempest taken by the boimdless frost. 
Is many a fathom to the bottom chain'd, 



' M. de Maupeitius, in his book on the Figure of ihe Eanh, 
after having described tlie beautiful lake and moinitain of 
Niemi, in Lapland, eays, "From- this height we had opportu- 
nity several times to see those vapours rise from the lake, 
which the people of the country call Ilaltios, and which they 
deem to be the guardian spirits of the mountains. We had 
been frighted with stories of bears that haunted this place, but 
saw none. It seemed rather a place of resort for fairies and 
genii, than bears." 

t The same author observes, '.' I was surprised to see upon 
the banks of iliis river (the Tenglio) roses of as lively a red as 
any that arc in our gardens. 

t Tlie other hemisphere. 



And bid to roar no more : a blealt expanse, 
Shagg'd o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless, and void 
Of every life, that from the dreary months 
FUes conscious southward. Miserable they! 
Who, here entangled in the gathering ice. 
Take their last look of the descending sun ; 
While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost, 
The long long night, inciunbent o'er their heads, 
Falls horrible. Such was the Briton's* fate. 
As with first prow, (what have not Britons dared!) 
He for the passage sought, attempted since 
So much in vain, and seeming to be shut 
By jealous Nature with eternal bars. 
In these- fell regions, in Arzina caught, 
And to the stony deep his idle ship 
Immediate seal'd, he with his hapless crew 
Each full exerted at his several task, 
Froze into statues; to the cordage glued 
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm. 

Hard by these shores, where scarce his freezing 
stream 
Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of men; 
And half enliven'd by the distant sun. 
That rears and ripens man, as well as plants, 
Here human nature wears its rudest form. 
Deep from the piercing season sunk in caves. 
Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer. 
They waste the tedious gloom. Immersed in furs, 
Doze the gross race. Nor sprightly jest nor song, 
Nor tenderness they know; nor aught of life, 
Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without, 
Till mon^ at length, her roses drooping all. 
Shed a long twilight brightening o'er their fifilds, 
And calls the quiver'd savage to the chase. 

What can not active government perform, 
New-moulding manl Wide-stretching from these 

shores, 
A people savage from remote^ time, 
A huge neglected empire, one vast mind, 
By Heaven inspired, from gothic darkness cali'd. 
Immortal Peter ! first of monarchs ! he 
His stubborn country tamed, her rocks, her fens, 
Her floods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons; 
And while the fierce barbarian he subdued, 
To more exalted soul he raised the man. 
Ye shades of ancient heroes, ye who toil'd 
Through long successive ages to build up 
A labouring plan of state, behold at once 
The wonder done ! behold the matchless prince ! 
Who left; his native throne, where reign'd till then 
A mighty shadow of unreal power ; 
Who greatly spurn'd the slothful pomp of courts; 
And roaming every land, in every port 
His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand 
Unwearied plying the mechanic tool, 
Gather'd the seeds of trade, of useful arts, 



' Sir Hugh Willoughby, sent by (iueen Elizabeth to dis- 
cover the north-east passage. 



WINTER. 



31 



Of civil wisdom, and of material skill. 
Charged with the stores of Europe homo he goes ! 
Then cities rise amid the illumined waste ; 
O'er joyless deserts smiles the rural reign ; 
Far distant flood to flood is social join'd; 
The astonish'd Euxine hears the Baltic roar; 
Proud navies ride on seas that never foam'd 
With daring keel before ; and armies stretch 
Each way their dazzling files, repressing here 
The frantic Alexander of the north. 
And awing there stern Othman's shrinking sons. 
Sloth flies the land, and Ignorance, and Vice, 
Of old dishonour proud: it glows around. 
Taught by the Royal Hand that routed the whole. 
One scene of arts, of arms, of rising trade : 
For what his wisdom plann'd, and power enforced. 
More potent still, his great example show'd 

Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point, 
Blow hollow blustering from the south. Subdued 
The frost resolves into a trickling thaw. 
Spotted the mountains shine ; loose sleet decends 
And floods the country round. The rivers swell 
Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills, 
O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts, 
A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once ; 
And, where they rush, the wide resounding plain 
Is left one slimy waste. Those sullen seas. 
That wash'd the ungenial pole, will rest no more 
Beneath the shackles of the mighty north ; 
But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave. 
And hark ! the lengthening roar continuous runs 
Athwart the rifted deep : at once it bursts, 
And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds. 
Ill fares the bark with trembling wretches charged. 
That, toss'd amid the floating fragments, moors 
Beneath the shelter of an icy isle. 
While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror looks 
More horrible. Can human force endure 
The assembled mischiefs that besiege them round'? 
Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness, 
The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice, 
Now ceasing, now renew'dwith louder rage. 
And in dire echoes bellowing round the main. 
More to embroil the deep, leviathan 
And his unwieldy train, in dreadful sport, 
Tempest the loosen'd brine, while through the 

gloom. 
Far from the bleak inhospitable shore, / 

Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl 
Of famish'd monsters, there awaiting wrecks, 
Yet Providence, that ever waking eye, 
Looks down with pity on the feeble toil 
Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe, 
Through all tins dreary labyrinth of fate. 
'Tis done ! dread Winter spreads his latest glooms. 
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd Year. 
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies ! 
How dumb the tuneful! horror wide extends 
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man ! 



Sec here thy pictured life; pass some few years. 
Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent 

strength. 
Thy sober Autuam fading into age. 
And pale concluding Winter comes at last. 
And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled 
Those dreams of greatness '? those unsolid hopes 
Of happiness 1 those longings after fame"? 
Those restless cares? those busy bustling days'? 
Those gay-spent, festive nights'? those veering 

thoughts, < 

Lost between good and ill, that shared thy life'? 
All now are vanish'd I Virtue sole survives, 
Immortal never-faiUng friend of man. 
His guide to happiness on high. And see ! 
'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth 
Of heaven and earth ! awakening Nature hears 
The new creating word, and starts to life. 
In every heighten'd form, from pain and death 
For ever free. The great eternal scheme, 
Involving all, and in a perfect whole 
Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads 
To reason's eye refined clear up apace. 
Ye vainly wise!.. ye blind presumptuous I now, 
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power 
And Wisdom oft arraign'd : see now the cause, 
Why unassuming worth in secret lived, 
And died, neglected: why the good man's share 
In life was gaul and bitterness of soul : 
Why the lone widow and her orphans pined 
In starving sohtude ; while luxury. 
In palaces, lay straining her low though 
To form unreal wants : why heaven-born truth, 
And moderation fair, wore the red marks 
Of superstition's scourge: why licensed pain, 
That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe, 
Embitter'd all our bhss. Ye good distress'd! 
Ye noble few ! who here unbending stand 
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up a while, 
And what your bounded view, which only saw 
A little f)art, deem'd evil is no more: 
The storms of Wintry Time wOl quickly pass, 
And one unbounded Spring encu'cle all. 



HYMN. 



<<. 



These, as they change, Ahnighty Father, these 
Are but the varied God. The rolling year 
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring 
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. 
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm- 
Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; 
And every sense and every heart is joy. 
Then comes thy glory in the Summer-months, 
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun 
Shoots full perfection through the rolling year: 
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks: 
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falUng eve, 



52 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales 
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined, 
And spreads a common feast for all that lives. 
In Winter awful Thou ! with clouds and storms 
Around Thee tlirown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd 
Majestic darkness ! on the whirlwind's wing, 
Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore, 
And humblest Nature with thy northern blast. 

Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine, 
Deep felt, in these appear ! a simple train. 
Yet so deUghtful mix'd, with such kind art, 
Such beauty and beneficence combined ; 
Shade, unperceived, so. softening into shade; 
And all so forming an harmonious whole; 
That as they still succeed, they ravish still. 
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze, 
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand 
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres; 
Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence 
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring: 
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day; 
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth; 
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, 
With transport touches all the springs of life. 

Nature attend ! join, every living soul, 
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, 
In adoration join; and, ardent, raise 
One general song ! To Him, ye vocal gales. 
Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness 

breathes : 
Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms ! 
Where, o'er the rock the scarcely waving pine 
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe. 
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar. 
Who shake the astonish'd world, hft high to heaven 
The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. 
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembUng rills; 
And let me catch it as I muse along. 
Ye headlong torrents, rapid, and profound ; 
Ye softer floods, that lead the human maze 
Along the vale;. and thou, majestic main, 
A secret world of wonders in thyself, 
Sound His stupendous praise ; whose greater voice 
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. 
Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers. 
In mingled clouds to Him; whose sun exalts. 
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil 

paints. 
Ye forests bend, ye harvests, wave, to Him; 
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart, 
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. 
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep 
Unconscious lies, efluse your mildest beams, 
Ye constellations, wliile your angels strike, 
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre. 



Great source of day ! best image here, below 
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide, 
From world to world, the vital ocean round, 
On Nature write with every beam his praise. 
The thunder rolls: be hush'd the prostrate world : 
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn. 
Bleat out afresh, ye hills, ye mossy rocks 
Retain the sound: the broad responsive low, 
Ye valleys raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns; 
And his unsuifering kingdom yet will come. 
Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song 
Burst from the groves ! and when the restless day, 
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, 
Sweetest of birds ! sweet Philomela, charm 
The Ustening shades, and teach the night His 

•praise. 
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles, 
A1 once the head, the heart, and tongue of all, 
Crown the great hymn ; in swarming cities vast, 
Assembled men, to the deep organ join 
The long resounding voice, oft breaking clear, 
At solemn pauses, through the swelling base; 
And, as each mingling flame increases each, 
In one united ardour rise to heaven. 
Or if you rather choose the rural shade, 
And find a fane in every sacred grove; 
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin'a lay, 
The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre, 
Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll ! 
For me, when I forget the darling theme. 
Whether the blossom blows, the summer-ray 
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams; 
Or Winter rises in the blackening east ; 
Be my tongue mute, may fancy paint no more, 
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat! 

' Should fate command me to the farthest verge 

Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, 

Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun 

Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam 

Flames on the Atlantic isles ; 'tis nought to me : 

Since God is ever present, ever felt. 

In the void waste as in the city full; 

And where He vital breathes there must be joy. 

When even at last the solemn hour shall come, 

And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, 

I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers, 

Will rising wonders sing : I can not go 

Where Universal Love not smiles around, 

Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their sons; 

From seeming Evil still educing Good, 

And better thence again, and better still. 

In infinite progression. But I lose . 

Myself in Him, in Light ineffable ! 

Come then, expressive Silence, muse his praise. 



THE CASTLE OP INDOLENCE. 



53 



SPECIMEN OF THE ALTERATIONS 

Made by Thomson in the early editions of the 
Seasons. 

'Tis done ! — dread Winter has subdued the Year, 
And reigns, tremendous, o'er the desart plains ! 
How dead the Vegetable Kingdom lies ! 
How dumb the tuneful ! Horror wide extends 
His solitary empire — now, fond Man ! 
Behold thy pictur'd life : 'Pass some few Years, 
Thy flowering Spring, thy short-liv'd Summer's 

strength, 
Thy sober Autumn, fading into age, 
And pale, concluding Winter shuts thy scene, 
And shrouds Thee in the Grave. Where now are 

fled 
Those Dreams of Greatness 1 those unsolid Hopes 
Of Happiness 7 those longings after Fame 1 
Those restless Cares 7 those busy, bustling Days 1 
Those -Nights of secret guilt? those veering 

thoughts, 
Fluttering 'twixt Good, and 111 ,that shar'd thy Lifel 
AH, now, are vanish'd ! Virtue, sole, survives 
Immortal, Mankind's never-failing Friend, 
His Guide to Happiness on high — and see ! 
'Tis come, the Glorious Morn ! the second Birth 
Of Heaven and Earth !— awakening Nature hears 
Th' Almighty Trumpet's Voice, and starts to Life, 
Renew' d, unfading. Now, th' Eternal Scheme, 



That Dark Perplexity, that Mystic maze, 
illiich Sight cou'd never trace, nor Heart conceive. 
To Reason's Eye, rcfin'd, clears up apace.- 
Angela, and Men,- astonish' d pause — and dread 
To travel thro' the Depths of Providence, 
Uniry'd, unbounded. Ye vain learned ! see, . 
And, prostrate in the Dust, adore that Power, 
And Goodness, oft arraign'd. See now the cause, 
Why conscious worth, oppress'd, in secret, long, 
Mourn' d, unregarded : why the good Man's share 
In Life, was Gall, and Bitterness of Soul : 
Why the lone Widow, and her Orphans, pin'd, 
In starving Solitude ; while Luxury, 
In Palaces, la.j prompting her low thought 
To form unreal Wants: Why Heaven-born Faith, 
And Charity, prime Grace, wore the red marks 
Of Persecution's Scourge : Why licens'd Pain 
That cruel Spoiler, that embosom'd Foe, 
Imbitter'd all our Bliss. Ye Good Distrest ! 
Ye noble Few ! that here, unbending, stand 
Beneath Life's Pressures — yet a little while, 
And all your woes are past. Timie swiftly feets, 
And wish'd Eternity, approaching, brings 
Life undecaying. Love without Allay, 
Pure flowing Joy, and Happiness sincere. 

The concluding hues of Winter, taken from the 
2nd Edit. 1726, — those words printed in italic show 
how much has been altered by the author. 



Kfxt Cat^tle of KntJolcnce* 



[This poem being writ in the manner of Spenser, the obsolete words, and a simplicity of diction in some of the linea, 
which borders on the ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation more perfect. And the style of that admirable poot, as 
well as the measure in which he wrote, are, as it were, appropriated by custom to all allegorical Poems writ in our language ; 
jnst as in French, the style of Marot, who lived under Francis the First, has been used in tales, and familiar epistles, by Che 
Twlitest writers of the age of Louis the Fourteenth.] 



CANTO I. 

The castle hight of Indolence, 
And its false luxury; 

Where for a little time, alas ! 
We lived right jollily. 



O MORTAL man, who livest here by toil, 

Do not complain of this thy hard estate ; 

That like an emmet thou must ever moil, 

Is a sad sentence of an ancient date ; 

And, certes, there is for it reason great ; 

For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and 
wail, 

And curse thy star, and early drudge and late ; 
. Withouten that would come a heavier bale. 
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale. 



In lowly dale, fast by a river's side, 

With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round, 

A most enchanting wizard did abide, 

Than whom a fiend more fell is no where found. 

It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground; 

And there a season atween June and May, 

Half prankt with spring, with summer half im- 

browa'd, 
A listless climate made, where sooth to say, 
No living wight could work, ne cared even for play. 



Was nought around but images of rest : 
Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between, 
And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kest, 
From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant 
green, 



54 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Where never yet was creeping creature seen. 
Meantime unnumbcr'd glittering streamlets 

flay'd, 
And hurled every where their waters sheen ; 
That, as they bicker'd through the sunny glade, 
Though restless still themselves, a lulluig murmur 
made. 



Joiri'd to the prattle of the purling rills 
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale, 
And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills. 
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale ; 
And, now and then, sweet Philomel would wail, 
Or stock-doves plain ajnid the forest deep, . 
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale; 
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep ; 
Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep. 



Full in the passage of the vale above, 

A sable, silent, solemn forest stood ; 

Where nought but shadowy forms were seen to 

move. 
As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood : 
And up the hills, on either side, a wood 
Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro. 
Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood; 
And where this valley vpinded out, below, 
The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely 

heard to flow. 



A pleasing land of drowsy head it was. 
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye ; 
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, 
For ever flushing round a summer sky: 
There eke the soft delights, that witcliingly 
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast. 
And the calm pleasures always hover'd nigh; 
But whate'er smack'd of noyance, or unrest. 
Was far, far off expell'd from this delicious 
nest. 



The landscape such, inspiring perfect ease, 
Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight) 
Close-hid his castle mid embowering trees. 
That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright. 
And made a kind of checker'd day and night; 
Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate, 
Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight 
Was placed ; and to his lute, of cruel fate 
And labour harsh, complained, lamenting man's 
estate. 



Thither continual pilgrims crowded still. 
From all the roads of earth that pass there by : 



For, as they chaunced to breathe on neighbour- 
ing hill. 

The freshness of this valley smote their eycy 

And drew them ever and anon more nigh; 

Till clustering round the enchanter- false they 
hong, 

Ymoltcn with his syren melody ; 

While o'er the enfeebling lute his -^and he 
flung, 
And to the trembling chbrds these tempting verses 
sung: 



" Behold! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold! 
See all but man, with unearn'd pleasure gay: 
See her bright robes the butterfly imfold, 
Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May! 
What youthful bride can equal her array 1 
Who can with her for easy pleasure vie"? 
From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray. 
From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly, 
Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky. 



" Behold the merry minstrels of the morn, 
The swarming songsters of the careless grove, 
Ten thousand throats I that from the flowering 

thorn. 
Hymn their good God, and carol sweet of love, 
Such grateful kindly raptures them emove : 
They neither plough nor sow : ne, fit for flail, 
E'er to the barn the nodden sheaves they drove; 
Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale. 
Whatever crowns the hill, or smiles along the 

vale. 



" Outcast of nature, man ! the wretched thrall 
Of bitter dropping sweat, of svveltry pain, 
Of cares that eat away the heart with gall, 
And of the vices, an inhuman train. 
That all proceed from savage thirst of gain : 
For when hard-hearted interest first began 
To poison earth, Astra^a left the plain ; . 
Guile, violence, and murder seized on man, 
And, for soft milky streams, with blood the rivers 
ran. 



" Come, ye, who still the cumbrous load of life 
Push hard up hill ; but as the furthest steep 
You trust to gain, and put an end to strife, ■ 
Down thunders back the stone with miglity 

sweep. 
And hurls your labours to' the valley, deep, 
For ever vain: come, and without fee, 
I in oblivion will your sorrows steep. 
Your cares, ypur toils; will steep you in a sea 
Of full delight : O come, ye weary wights, to me ! 



THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE, 



55 



" With me, you need not rise at early dawn, 
To pass the joyless day in various stounds; 
Or, loutinglow, on upstart fortune fawn, 
And sell fair honour for some paltry pounds ; 
Or through the city take your dirty rounds. 
To cheat, and dun, and lie, and visit pay. 
Now flattering base, now giving secret wounds; 
Or prowl in courts of law for human prey, 
In venal senate thieve, or rob on broad highway. 



" No cocks, with me, to rustic labour call. 
From village on to village somrding clear; 
To tardy swain no shrill- voiced matrons squall; 
No dogs, no babes, no wives, to stun your ear; 
No hammers thump ; no horrid blacksmith sear, 
Ne noisy tradesman your sweet slumbers start, 
With sounds that are a misery to hear : 
But all is calm, as would delight the heart 
Of Sybarite of old, all nature and all art. 



"Here nought but candour reigns, indulgent 

ease, 
Good-natured lounging, sauntering up and down, 
They who are pleased themselves must always 

please ; 
On others' ways they never squint a frown. 
Nor heed what haps in hamlet or in town : 
Thus, from the source of tender Indolence, 
With milky blood the heart is overflown. 
Is sooth'd and sweeten'd by the social sense ; 
Tor interest, envy, pride, and strife are banish'd 

hence. 



" What, what is virtue but repose of mind, 
A pure ethereal calm, that knows no storm ; 
Above the reach of mid ambition's wind. 
Above those passions that this world deform. 
And torture man, a proud malignant worm 1 
But here, instead, soft gales of passion play, 
Atid gently stir the heart, thereby to form 
A. quicker sense of joy ; as breezes stray 
Across the enliven'd skies, and make them still 
more gay. 



■ ' The best of men have ever loved repose: 
They hate to mingle in the filthy fray ; 
Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour 

grows, , 
Imbitter'd more from peevish day to day. 
E'en those whom fame has lent her fairest ray. 
The most renown'd of worthy wights of yore. 
From a base world at last have Stolen away : 
So Scipio, to the soft Cumaean shore 
Retiring, tasted joy he never knew before. 



' But if a little exercise you choose. 
Some zest for case, 'tis not forbidden here: 
Ainid the groves you may indulge the Muse, 
Or tend the blooms, and deck the vernal year; 
Or softly stealing, with your watery gear. 
Along the brooks, the crimson-spotted fry 
You may delude : the whilst, amused, you hear 
Now the hoarse stream, and now the zephyr's 
sigh. 
Attuned to the birds, and, woodland melody. . 



' O grievous folly I to heap up estate, 
Losing the days you see beneath the sun; 
When, sudden, comes blind unrelenting fate^ 
And gives the untasted portion you have won 
With ruthless toil, and many a wretch undone, 
To those who mock you, gone to Pluto's reign, 
There with sad ghosts to pine, and shadows dun : 
But sure it is of vanities most vain. 
To toil for what you here untoiling may obtain.' 



He ceased. But still their trembling ears re- 

tain'd 
The deep vibrations of his witching song; 
That, by a kind of magic power, constrain'd 
To enter in, pell-mell, the listening throng. 
Heaps pour'd on heaps, and yet they slipt along, 
In silent ease ; as when beneath the beam 
Of summer-moons, the distant woods among, 
Or by some flood all silver'd with the gleam. 
The soft-embodied fays through airy portal stream : 



By the smooth demon so it order'd was, 
And here his baneful bounty first began : 
Though some there were who would not further 

pass. 
And his alluring baits suspected haji. 
The wise distrust the too fair-spoken man. 
Yet through the gate they cast a wishful eye: 
Not to move on, perdie, is all they can: «k 

For do their very best they can not fly, • 
But often each way look, and often sorely sigh. 



When this the watchful wicked wizard saw, 
With sudden spring he leap'd upon them 

straight; 
And soon as touch'd by his unhallow'd paw. 
They found themselves within the cursed gate ; 
Full hard to be repass'd, like that of fate. 
Not stronger were of old the giant crew. 
Who sought to pull high Jove from regal state; 
Though feeble wretch he seem'd, of sallow hue : 
Certes, who bides his grasp, will that encounter 

rue. 



66 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



XXIII. 

For whomsoeer the villain takes in hand, 
•Their joints unknit, their sinews melt apace; 
As lithe they grow as any willow-wand, 
And of their vanish'd force remains no trace: 
So when a maiden fair, of modest grace. 
In all her buxom blooming May of charms, 
Is seized in some losel's hot embrace. 
She waxeth very weakly as she warms, 
Then sighing yields her up to love's deUcious harms. 



Waked by the crowd, slow from his bench arose 
A comely, full-spread porter, swoln with sleep: 
His calm, broad, thoughtless aspect breathed re- 
pose; 
And in sweet torpor he was plunged deep, 
Ne could himself from ceaseless yawning keep ; 
While o'er his eyes the drowsy Uquor ran, 
Through which his half-waked soul would faint- 
ly peep: 
Then taking his black staff, he call'd his man, 
And roused himself as much as rouse himself he can. 



The lad leap'd lightly at his master's call: 
He was, to weet, a httle roguish page, 
Save sleep and play who minded noVight at all, 
Like most the untaught striplings of his age. 
This boy he kept each band to disengage, 
Garters and buckles, task for him unfit. 
But ill becoming his grave personage. 
And which his portly paunch would not permit; 
So this same limber page to all performed it. 



Meantime, the master-porter wide display'd 
Great store of caps, of slippers, and of gowns ; 
Wherewith he those who enter'd in array'd 
Loose, as the breeze that plays along the downs, 
And waves the summer-woods when evening 

frowns: 
O fair undress, best dress ! it checks no vein, 
But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns, 
And heightens ease with grace. This done, 

right fain. 
Sir porter sat him down, and tum'd to sleep again. 



Thus easy robed, they to the fountain sped 
That in the middle of the court up-threw 
A stream, high spouting from its Uquid bed, 
And falling back again in drizzly dew; 
There each deep draughts, as deep he thirsted, 

drew; 
It was a fovmtain of nepenthe rare; 
Whence, as Dan Homer sings, huge pleasance 
grew, 



And sweet oblivion of vile earthly care; 
Fair gladsome waking thoughts, and joyous dream-s 
more fair. 



This right perform'd, all inly pleased and still, 
Withouten tromp, was proclamation made : 
' Ye sons of Indolence, do what you will; 
And wander where you list, through hall or 

glade ; 
Be no man's pleasure for another staid; 
•Let each as likes him best his hours employ, 
And cursed be he who minds his neighbour's 

trade ! 
Here dwells kind ease and unreproving joy: 
He httle merits bliss who others can annoy.' 



Straight of these endless riumbers, swarming 

round. 
As thick as idle motes in sunny ray, 
Not one eftsoons in view was to be found. 
But every man stroll'd off his own glad way, 
Wide o'er this ample court's blank area, 
With all the lodges that thereto pertain'd, 
No living creature could be seen to stray; 
While solitude, and perfect silence reign'd; 
So that to think you dreamt you almost was con- 
strain 'd. 



As when a shepherd of the Hcbrid-Isles,* 
Placed far amid the melancholy main, 
(Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles ; 
Or that aerial beings sometimes deign 
To stand, embodied, to our senses plain) 
Sees on the naked hill, or valley low, 
The wliilst in ocean Phoebus dips his wain, 
A vast assembly moving to and fro : 
Then all at once in air dissolves the wondrous show. 



Ye gods of quiet, and of sleep profound ! 
Whose soft dominion o'er this castle sways, 
And all the widely sUent places round. 
Forgive me, if my trembling pen displays 
What never yet was sung in mortal lays. 
But how shall I attempt such arduous string 7 
I who have spent my nights, and nightly days 
In this soul-deadening place loose-loitering : 
Ah ! how shall I for this uprear my moulted wing? 

XXXII. 

Come on, my muse, nor stoop to low despair, 
Thou imp of Jove, touch'd by celestial fire ! 



* Those isles on the west coast of Scotland, called the He- 
bridea. 



THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE. 



57 



Thou yet shall sing of war, and actions fair, 
Which the bold sons of Britain will inspire ; 
Of ancient bards thou yet shall sweep the lyre ; 
Thou yet shall tread in tragic pall the stage. 
Paint love's enchanting woes, the hero's ire, 
The sage's calm, the patriots noble rage, 
Dashing corruption down through every worthless 
age. 



The doors, that knew no shrill alarming bell ; 
Ne cursed knocker plied by villain's hand, 
Self-open'd into halls, where, who can tell 
What elegance and grandeur wide expand; 
The pride of Turkey and of Persia land "? 
Soft quilts on quilts, on carpets carpets spread, 
. And couches stretch'd around in seemly band ; 
And endless pillows rise to prop the head; 
So that each spacious room was one full-swelling 
bed; 



And every where huge cover'd tables stood, 
With wines high-flavour'd and rich viands 

crowji'd; 
Whatever sprightly juice or tasteful food 
On the green bosom of this earth are found, 
And all old ocean 'genders in his round : 
Some hand unseen these silently display'd, 
Even xmdemanded by a sign or sound ; 
You need but wish, and instantly obey'd. 
Fair ranged the dishes rose, and thick the glasses 

play'd. • 



Here freedom reign'd, without the least alloy ; 
Nor gossip's tale, nor ancient maiden's gall, 
Nor saintly spleen durst murmur at our joy, 
And with envenom'd tongue our pleasures pall. 
For whyl there was but one great rule for all; 
To wit, that each should work his own desire, 
And eat, drink, study, sleep, as it may fall. 
Or melt the time in love, or wake the lyre. 
And carol what, unbid, the muses might inspire. 



The rooms >j?ith costly tapestry were hung, 
Where was inwoven many a gentle tale; 
Such as of old the rural poets sung, 
Or of Arcadian or Sicilian vale : 
Reclining lovers, in the lonely dale, 
Pour'd forth at large the sweetly tortured heart ; 
Or, sighing tender passion, swell'd the gale. 
And taught charm'd echo to resound their smart ; 
While flocks, woods, streams around, repose and 
peace impart. 



XXXVII, 

Those pleased the most, where, by a cunning 

hand, 
Dcpainted was the patriarchal age ; 
What time Dan Abraham left the Chaldce land, 
And pastured on from verdant stage to stage, 
Where fields and fountains fresh could best en- 

_ gage. 
Toil was not then : of nothing took they heed, 
But with wild beasts the silvan war to wage, 
And o'er vast plains their herds and flocks to 
feed: 
Bless'd sons of nature they ! true golden age in- 
deed! 



Sometimes the pencil, in cool airy halls, 
Bade the gay bloom of vernal landscapes rise, 
Or Autumn's varied shades imbrovvTr the walls: 
Now the black tempest strikes the astonish'd 

eyes; 
Now down the steep the flashing torrent flies ; 
The trembling sun now plays o'er ocean blue, 
And now rude mountains frown amid the skies ; 
Whate'er Lorraine light-touch'd with softening 

hue, 
Or savage Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew. 



Each sound too here to languishment inclined, 
LuU'd the weak bosom, and induced ease ; 
Aerial music in the warbling wind. 
At distance rising oft, by small degrees, 
Nearer and nearer came, till o'er the trees 
It hung, and breathed such soul-dissolving airs, 
As did, alas! with soft perdition please: 
Entangled deep in its enchanting snares. 
The listening heart forgot all duties and all cares. 



A certain music, never known before 
Here lull'd the pensive, melancholy mind ; 
Full easily obtain'd. Behoves no more. 
But sidelong, to the gently waving wind, 
To lay the well. tuned instrument reclined; 
From which, with airy flying fingers light, 
Beyond each mortal touch the most refined. 
The god of winds drew sounds of deep delight; 
Whence, with just cause, the harp of .Eolus it 
hight.* , 



Ah me ! what hand can touch the string so fine 1 
Who up the lofty diapasan roll 



' The .aSolian harp, here designated, has been greatly im- 
proved in its structure by a Idndred poet, the author of ' The 
Farmer's Boy.' 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine, 
Then let them down. again into the soul: 
Now rising love they fann'd ; now pleasing dole 
They breathed, in tender musings, thro' the 

heart ; 
And naw a graver sacred strain they stole, 
As when seraphic hands a hymn impart : 
Wild warbling nature all, above the reach of art ! 



Such the gay splendour, the luxurious state, 
Of CaUphs old, who on the Tygris' shore, 
In mighty Bagdat, populous and great, 
Held their bright court, where was of ladies 

store; 
And verse, love, music, still the garland wore 
When sleep was coy, the bard,* in waiting 

there, 
Cheer'd the lone midnight with the muse's .lore ; 
Composing music bade his dreams be fair. 
And music lent new gladness to the morning air. 



Near the pavUions where we slept, still ran 
Soft trinkling streams, and dashing waters fell. 
And sobbing breezes sigh'd, and oft began 
(So work'd the wizard) wintry storms to swell, 
As heaven and earth they would together mcU : 
At doors and windows, threatening, seem'd to 

call 
The demons of the tempest, growling fell. 
Yet the least entrance found they none at all; 
Whence sweeter grew our sleep, secure in massy 

hall. 



And hither Morpheus sent his kindest dreams. 
Raising a world of gayer tinct arid grace ; 
O'er which were shadowy cast elysian gleams, 
That play'd, in waving lights, from place to 

place. 
And shed a roseate smile on nature's face. 
Not Titian's pencil e'er could so array. 
So fleece with clouds the pure ethereal space; 
Ne could it e'er such melting forms display, 
As loose on flowery beds all languisliingly lay. 



No, fair illusions ! artful phantoms, no ! 
My Muse will not attempt your fairy land: 
She has no colours that like you can glovp : 
To catch your vivid scenes too gross her hand. 
But sure it is, was ne'er a subtler band 
T han these same g uilcful angel-sceming aprights, 
Who thus in dreams voluptuous, soft, and bland. 



• The Arabian Caliphs had poets among the officers of 
their court, whose office it was to do what is hcva described. 



Pour'd all the Arabian heaven upon our nights, 
And bless'd them oft besides with more refined 
delights. 



They were, in sooth, a most enchanting train. 
Even feigning virtue ; skilful to unite 
With evil good, and strew vrith pleasure pain. 
But for those fiends, whom blood and broils de- 
light; • 
Who hurl the wretch, as if to hell outright, 
Down down black gulfs, where sullen waters 

sleep. 
Or hold him clambering all the fearful night 
On beetling clifls, or pent in ruins deep ; 
They, till due time should serve, were bid far hence 
to keep. 



Ye guarchan spirits, to whom man is dear, 
From these foul demons shield the midnight 

gloom : 
Angels of fancy and of love, be near, 
And o'er the blank of sleep difl!use a bloom : 
Evoke the sacred shades of Greece and Rome, 
And let them virtue with a look impart:- 
But chief, a while, O ! lend us from the tomb 
Those long lost friends for whom in love we 

smart, • 
And fill with pious awe and joy-rmx'd wo the 

heart. 



Or are you sportive Bid the morn of youth 

Rise to new light, and beam afresh the, dajs 
Of innocence, simplicity, and truth ; 
To cares estrangfed, and manhood's thorny ways. 
What transport, to retrace our boyish plays, 
Our easy bliss, when each thing joy suppUed ; 
The woods, the_ mountains, and the warbling 

maze 
Of the wild brooks! — but, fondly wandering 

wide, 
My Muse; resume the task that yet doth thee 

abide. 



One great amusement of our household was, 
In a huge crystal magic globe to spy, 
Still as you turn'd it, all things that do pass 
Upon this ant-hill earth ; where constantly 
Of idly busy men the restless fry 
Runs bustling to and fro with foolish Ihaste, 
In search of pleasures vain that from them fly, 
Or which, obtain'd, the caitiffs dare not taste: — 
When nothing is enjoy'd, can there be greater 
waste 1 



THE CASTLE OP INDOLENCE. 



59 



' Of vamty the mirror,' this was call'd: 
Here, you a muckworm of the town might see, 
At his dull desk, amid his ledgers stall'd, 
Eat up with carking care and penury ; 
Most like to carcase parch'd on gallow-tree. 
' A penny saved is a penny got:' 
Firm to this scoundrel maxim keepcth he, 
■ Ne of its rigour will he bate a jot, 
Till it has quench'd his fire, and banished his pot. 



Straight from the filth of this low grub, behold ! 
Comes fluttering forth a gaudy spendthrift heir. 
All glossy gay, enamel'd all with gold, 
The silly tenant of the summer air. 
In folly lost, of nothing takes he care ; 
Pimps, lawyers, stewards, harlots, flatterers vile. 
And thieving tradesmen hmi among them share: 
His father's ghost from limbo lake, the while. 
Sees this, which more damnation doth upon him 
pile. 



This globe pourtray'd the race of learned men, 
Still at their books, and turning o'er the page, 
Backwards and forwards : oft they snatch the 

pen, 
As if inspired, and in a Thespian rage; 
Then write, and blot, .as would your ruth en- 
gage: 
Why, authors, all this scrawl and scribbling 

sorel 
To lose the present, gain the future age, 
Praised to be when you can hear no more, 
And much enrich'd with fame, when useless world- 
ly store. 



Then would a splendid city rise to view. 
With carts, and cars, and coaches roaring all : 
Wide-pour'd abroad behold the giddy crew : 
See how they dash along from wall to wall ! 
At every door, hark how they thundering call ! 
Good lord ! what can this giddy rout excite 1 
Why, on each other with fell tooth to fall ; 
A neighbour's fortune, fame, or peace, to blight, 
And make new tiresome parties for the coming night. 



The puzzluig sons of party next appear'd, 

In dark cabals and nightly juntos met ; 

And now they whisper'd close, now shrugging 

rear'd 
The important shoulder ; then, as if to get 
New light, their twinkling e3^es were inward set. 
No sooner Lucifer* recalls aifairs, 

* The Morning star. 



Than forth they various rush in mighty fret ; 
When lo ! push'd up to power, and crown'd their 
cares. 
In comes another set, and kicketh them down stairs. 



But what most show'd the vanity of life 
Was to behold the nations all on fire. 
In cruel broils engaged, and deadly strife: 
Most christian kings, inflamed by black desire, . 

■ With honourable ruffians in their hire, 
Cause war to rage, and blood around to pour; 
Of this sad work when each begins to tire, 
Then sit them down just where they were before, 

Till for new scenes of wo peace shall their force 
restore. 



To number up the thousands dwelling here, 
A useless were, and eke an endless task ; 
From kings, and those who at the helm appear, 
To gipsies brown in summer-glades who bask. 
Yea many a man, perdie, I could unmask. 
Whose desk and table make a solemn show. 
With tape-tied trash, and suits of fools that ask 
For place or pension laid in decent row ; 
But these I passen by, with nameless niunbers moe. 



Of all the gentle tenants of the place, 
There was a man of special grave remark ; 
A certain tender gloom o'erspread his face, 
Pensive, not sad ; in thought involved, not dark ; 
As soot this man could sing as morning lark, 
And teach the noblest morals of the heart : 
But these his talents were 5'buried stark ; 
Of the fine stores he nothing would impart, 
Which or boon nature gave, or nature-painting art. 



To noontide shades incontinent he ran. 
Where purls the brook with sleep-inviting sound ; 
Or when Dan Sol to slope his wheels began, 
Amid the broom he bask'd him on the ground, 
Where the wild thyme and camomile are found : 
There would he linger, till the latest ray 
Of light sat trembling on the welkin's bound ; 
Then homeward through the twilight shadows 

stray. 
Sauntering and slow. So had he passed many a 

day. 



Yet not in thoughtless slumber were they past: 
For oft the heavenly fire, that lay cbnceal'd 
Beneath the sleeping embers, mounted fast. 
And all its native light anew reveal 'd : 
Oft as he traversed the cerulean field, 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



And mark'd the clouds that drove before the wind, 
Ten thousand glorious systems would he build, 
Ten thousand great ideas fill'd his mind ; 
But with the clouds they fled, and left no trace be- 
hind. 



With him was sometimes join'd, in silent walk, 
(Profoundly silent, for they never spoke) 
One* shyer still, who quite detested talk : 
Oft, stung by spleen, at once away he broke, 
To groves of pine, and broad o'ershadowing oak ; 
There, inly thrill'd, he wander'd all alone, 
And on himself his pensive fury wroke, 
Ne ever uttcr'd word, save when first shone 
The glittering star of eve — ' Thank heaven ! the 
day is done.' 



Here lurk'd a wretch, who had not crept abroad 
For forty years, ne face of mortal seen ; 
In chamber brooding like a loathly toad : 
And sure his linen was not very clean. 
Through secret loop holes, that had practised been 
Near to his bed, his dinner vile he took ; 
Unkempt, and rough, of squalid face and mien, 
Our Castle's shame ! whence, fromhis filthy nook. 
We drove the villain out for fitter lair to look. 



One day there chanced into these halls to rove 
A joyous youth, who took you at first sight ; 
Him the wild wave of pleasure hither drove, 
Before the sprightly tempest tossing light : 
Certes, he was a most engaging wight, 
Of social glee, and wit humane though keen, 
Turning the night to day and d^y to night : 
For him the merry bells had rung, I ween, 
If in this nook of quiet bells had ever been. 



But not e'en pleasure to excess is good : 
What most elates; then sinks the soul as low : 
When springtide joy pours in with copious flood, 
The higher still the exulting billows flow. 
The ftirther back again they flagging go. 
And leave us groveling on the dreary shore : 
Taught by this son of joy, we found it so ; 
Who, whilst he staid, he kept in gay uproar 
Our madden'd castle all, the abode of sleep no more. 



As when in prime of June a burnish'd fly. 
Sprung from the meads, o'er which he sweeps 

along, 
Cheer'd by the breathing bloom and vital sky, 
Tunes up amid these airy halls his song, 



* Conjecture has applied tlxis to Dr. Armstrong, the poet. 



Soothing at first the gay reposing throiig: 
And oft he sips their bowl ; or nearly drown'd, 
He, thence recovering, drives their beds among, 
And scares their tender sleep, with trump pro- 
found; 
Then out again he flies, to wing his mazy round. 

LXV. 

Another guest* there was, of sense refined, 
Who felt each worth, for every worth he had; 
Serene yet warm, humane yet firm his mind, 
As little touch'd as any man's with bad: 
Him through their inmost walks the Muses hid, 
To him the sacred love of nature lent. 
And sometimes would he make our valley glad; 
When as we found he would not here be pent, 
To him the better sort this friendly message sent: 



'■ Come, dwell with us ! true son of virtue, come! 
But if, alas ! we can not thee persuade 
To lie content beneath our peaceful dome, 
Ne ever more to quit our quiet glade; 
Yet when at last thy toils but ill apaid 
Shall dead thy fire, and damp its heavenly spark, 
Thou wilt be glad to seek the rural shade. 
There to indulge the muse, and nature mark: 
We then a lodge for thee will rear in Hagley 
Park." 



Here whilom ligg'd the Esopust of the age : 
But -call'd by fame, in soul ypricked deep, 
A noble pride restored him to the stage, 
And roused him like a giant from his sleep. 
Even from his slumbers we advantage reap : 
With double force the enliven'd scene he wakes, 
Yet quits not nature's bounds. He knows to 

keep 
Each due decorum : now the heart he shakes, 
And now with well earn'd sense the enlighten'd 
judgment takes. 

Lxvin. 
A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems: 
Wlio,t void of envy, guile, and lust of gain, 
On virtue still, and nature's pleasing themes, 
Pour'd forth his unpremeditated strain: 
The world forsaking with a calm disdain, 
Here laugh'd he careless in his easy seat; 
Here quaff 'd, encircled with the joyous train, 
Oft moralizing sage : his ditty sweet 
He loathed much to wrrite, ne cared to repeat. 



* George, Lord Lyttelton. 

t Mr. Quin. 

t The following lines of this stanza were writ by a friend 
oftlie author (since understood to have been Lord Lyttelton), 
and were designed to portray the chaiucter of Tliomsoa 



THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE. 



61 



LXIX. 

Fxill oft by holy feet. our ground was trod, 
Of clerks good plenty here you mote espy. 
A little, round, fat, oily man* of God, 
Was one I chiefly mark'd among the fry: 
He had a roguish twinkle in his eye. 
And shone all glittering with ungodly deWj 
If a tight damsel chanced to trippen by ; 
Which when observed, he shrunk into his mew, 
And straight would recollect his piety anew. 



Nor be forgot a tribe, who minded nought 
(Old inmates of the place) but state-affairs : 
They look'd, perdie, as if they deeply thought; 
And on their brow set every nation's cares ; 
The world by them isparcel'd out in shares. 
When in the Hall of Smoke they congress hold. 
And the sage be'rry, sun-burnt Mocha bears, 
Has clear'd their inward eye: then, smoke-en- 
roll'd, 
Their oracles break forth mysterious as of old. 



Here languid Beauty, kept her pale-faced court: 
Bevies of dainty dames, of high degree. 
From every quarter hither made resort ; 
Where, from gross mortal care and business 

free, 
They lay, pour'd out in ease and luxury. 
Or should they a vain show of work assume, 
Alas! and well-a-day! what can it be 1 
To knot, to twist, to range the vernal bloom; 
But far is cast the distaff, spinning-wheel, and loom. 



Their only labour was to kill the time ; 
(And labour dire it is, and weary wo) 
They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme; 
Then, rising sudden, to the glass they go. 
Or saunter forth, with tottering step and slow: 
This soon too rude an exercise they find; 
Straight on the couch their limbs again they 

throw, 
Where hours on hours they sighing lie reclined. 
And court the vapoury god, soft breathing in the 

wind.t 



• The Rev. Mr. Murdoch, Thomson's friend and bio- 
grapher. 

t After this stanza, the followins one was introduced, in 
the edition of 1746 : 

One nymph there was, methought, in bloom of May, 
On whom the idle Fiend glanced many a look, 
In hopes to lead her down the slippery way 
To taste of Pleasure's deep deceitful brook : 
No virtues yet her gentle mind forsook : 
No idle whims, no vapours fiU'd her brain, 
But Prudence for her youthful guide she took, 
And Goodness, which no earthly vice could stain, 
Dwelt in,her mind ; she was ne proud I ween or vain. 
G 



LXXIII. 

Now must I mark the villany we found, 
But ah ! too late, as shall eftsoons be shown. 
A place here was, deep, dreary, under ground ; 
Where still our inmates, when unpleasing 

grown. 
Diseased, and loathsome, privily were throvra: 
Far from the light of heaven, they languish'd 

there: 
Unpitied uttering many a bitter groan; 
For of these wretches taken was no care: 
Fierce fiends, and hags of hell, their only nurses 

were. 

LXXIV. 

Alas! the change! from scenes of joy and rest, 
To this dark den, where sickness toss'd alway. 
Here Lethargy, with deadly sleep oppress'd, 
Stretch'd on his back, a mighty lubbard, lay. 
Heaving his sides, and snored night and day; 
To stir him from his traunce it was not eath. 
And his half-open'd eyne he shut straightway ; 
He led, I wot, the softest way to death, 
And taught withouten pain and strife to yield the 
breath. 



Of limbs enormous, but vsdthal unsound, 
Soft-swoln ^d pale, here lay the Hydropsy; 
Unwieldy man ; with belly monstrous round, 
For ever fed with watery supply ; 
For still he drank, and yet he still was dry. • 
And moping here did Hypochondria sit, 
Mother of spleen, in robes of various dye, 
Who vexed was full oft with ugly fit; 
And some her frantic deem'd, and some her deem'd 
a wit. 



A lady proud she was, of ancient blood. 
Yet oft her fear her pride made crouchen low: 
She felt, or fancied in her fluttering mood. 
All the diseases which the spittles know, 
And sought all physics which the shops bestow, 
And still new leaches and new drugs would 

' try. 
Her humour ever wavering to and fro: 
For sometimes she would laugh, and sometimes 
cry, 
Then sudden waxed wroth, and all she knew not 
why. 



Fast by her side a listless maiden pined, 
With aching head, and squeamish heart7bum- 

ings; 
Pale, bloated, cold, she seem'd to hate mankind, 
Yet loved in secret all forbidden things. 
And here the Tertian shakes liis chilling wings; 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



The sleepless Gout here counts the crowing 

cocks, 
A wolf now gnaws him, now a serpent stings ; 
■ "Whilst Apoplexy cramm'd Intemperance knocks 
Down to the ground at once, as butcher fclleth ex.* 



CANTO II. 



The knight of arts and industry, 
And his achievements fair ; 

That, by this Castle's overthrow, 
Secured, and crowned were. 



Escaped the castle of the sire of sin. 
Ah! where shall I so sweet a dwelling find'? 
For all around, without, and all within. 
Nothing save what deUghtful was and kind. 
Of goodness savouring and a tender mind, 
E'er rose to view. But now another strain. 
Of doleful note, alas ! remains behind ; 
I now must sing of pleasure turn'd to pain. 
And of the false enchanter Indolence complain. 



Is there no patron to protect the Muse, 
And fence for her Parnassus' barren soil 
To every labour its reward accrues. 
And they are sure of bread wlio s# ink and moil ; 
But a fell tribe the Aonian hive despoil, 
As ruthless wasps oft rob the painful bee : 
Thus while the laws not guard that noblest toil, 
Ne for the Muses other meed decree. 
They praised are alone, and starve riglit merrily. 



I care not, Fortune, what thou me deny : 
You can not rob me of free Nature's grace; 
You can not shut the windows of the sky, 
Through which Aurora shows her brightening 

face ; 
You can not bar my constant feet to trace 
The woods and lawns, by living stream at eve: 
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace. 
And I their toys to the great children leave : 
Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave. 



Come then, my Muse, and raise a bolder song; 
Come, lig no more upon the bed of sloth. 
Dragging the lazy languid line along, 
Fond to begin, but still to finish loath. 
Thy half- writ scrolls all eaten by the moth: 
Arise, and sing that generous imp of fame, 
Who with tlic sons of softness nobly wroth. 
To sweep away this human lumber came, 
Or in a chosen few to rouse the slumbering flame. 

* The four concliidia? sl.nnzas were claimed by Doctor 
Armstrong, and inserted in his IVlisccUanie.<i. 



In Fairy Land there lived a knight- of old, 
Of feature stern, Selvaggio well yclep'd, 
A rough unpolish'd man, robust and bold, 
But wondrous poor: he neither sow'd notreap'd, 
Ne stores in summer for cold winter heap'd ; 
In hunting all his days away lie wore ; 
Now scorch 'd by June, now in November 

eteop'd. 
Now pinch'd by biting January sore, 
He still in woods pursued-the libbard and the boar. 



As ho one morning, loilg before the' dawn. 
Prick 'd through the forsst to dislodge his prey, 
Deep in ilie winding bosom of a lawn. 
With wood wild fringed, he mark'd a taper's ray, 
That from the beating rain, E^nd wintry fray 
Did to a lonely cot his stepis decoy ; 
There, up to earn the needments of the day, 
He found dame Poverty, nor fair nor coy : 
Her he compress'd, and fiU'd her with a lusty boy. 



Amid the greenwood shade tliis boy was bred. 
And grew at laslaldiight of muchel fame, ■ 
Of active mind and vigorous lustyhed. 
The Knight of Arts and Industry by natne : 
Earth was his bed, the boughs his roof did frame : 
He knew no beverage, but the flowing stream; 
His tasteful well earn'd food the sylvan game, 
Or the brown fruit with wliich the woodlands 

teem : 
The same to him glad summer, or the winter 

breme. 



So pass'd his youthful morning, void of care, 
Wild as the colts that through the commons run : 
For him no tender parents troubled were. 
He of the forest seem'd to be the son. 
And, certes, had been utterly undone; 
But that Minerva pity of him took, 
With all the gods that love the rural wonne. 
That teach to tame the soil and rule the crook ; 
He did the sacred Nine disdain a gentle look. 



Of fertile genius him they nurtured well, , 
In every science, and in every art. 
By which mankind the thoughtless brutes excel, 
That can or use, or joy, or grace impart, 
Disclosing all the powers of head and heart: 
Ne were the goodly exercises spared. 
That brace the nerves, or make the limbs alert. 
And mix elastic force with firmness hard : 
Was never knight on ground mote be with him 
compared. 



THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE. 



63 



Sometimes, with early morn, he mounted gay 
The hunter steed, exulting o'er the dale, 
And drew the roseate breath of orient day ; 
Sometimes, retiring to the secret vale, 
Yclad in steel, and bright with burnish'd mail, 
He strain'd the bow, or toss'd the sounding spear, 
Or darting on the goal, outstripp'd the gale, 
Or wheel'd the chariot in its mid career, 
Or strenuous wrestled hard with many a tough 
compeer. 



At other times he pried through nature's store, 
Whate'er she in the ethereal round contains, 
Whate'er she hides beneath her verdant floor, 
The vegetable and the mineral reigns: 
Or else he scann'd the globe, those small do- 
mains, 
Where restless mortals such a turmoil keep. 
Its seas, its floods, its mountairis, and its plains ; 
But more he search'd the mind, and roused from 
sleep, 
Those moral seeds whence we heroic actions reap. 

XII. 

Nor would he scorn to stoop from high pursuits 
Of heavenly truth, and practice what she taught : 
Vain is the tree of knowledge without fruits ! 
Sometimes in hand the spade or plough he 

caught, 
Forth calling all with which boon earth is 

fraught ; 

Sometimes he plied the strong mechanic tool. 

Or rear'd the fabric from the finest draught ; 

And oft he put himself to Neptune's school. 

Fighting with winds and waves on the vex'd ocean 

pool. 



To solace then these rougher toils, he tried 
To touch the kindhng canvass into life; 
With nature his creating pencil vied. 
With nature joyous at the mimic strife : 
Or, to such shapes as graced Pygmalion's wife 
He hew'd the marble ; or, with varied fire. 
He roused the trumpet, and the martial fife. 
Or bad the lute sweet tenderness inspire. 
Or verses framed that well might wake Apollo's 
lyre. 



Accomplish'd thus, he from the woods issued, 
Full of great aims, and bent on bold emprise ; 
The work, which long he in his breast had' 

brew'd. 
Now to perform he ardent did devise ; 
To wit, a barbarous world to civilize. 
33 



Earth was till then a boundless forest wild ; 
Nought to be seen but savage wood, and skies ; 
No cities nourish'd arts, no culture smiled, 
No government, no laws, no gentle manners mild. 



A rugged wight, the worst of brutes, was man ; 
On his own wretched kind he, ruthless, prey'd: 
The strongest still the weakest overran ; 
In every country mighty robbers sway'd, 
And guile and ruffian force were all their trade. 
Life was a scene of rapine, want, and wo; 
Which this brave knight, in noble anger, made 
To swear he would the rascal rput o'erthrow, 
For, by the powers divine, it should no more be so ! 



It would exceed the purport of my song 
To say how this best sun, from orient climes, 
Came beaming life and beauty all along, 
Before him chasing indolence and crimes. 
Still as he pass'd, the nations he sublimes, 
And calls forth arts and virtues with his ray : 
Then Egypt, Greece, and Rome their golden 

times. 
Successive, had; but now in ruins gray 
They he, to slavish sloth and tyranny a prey. 



To crown his toils. Sir Industry then spread 
The swelling sail, and made for Britain's coast. 
A silvan life till then the natives led, 
In the brown shades and green- wood forest lost. 
All careless rambling where it liked them most: 
Their wealth the wild deer bouncing through 

the glade; 
They lodged at large, and Uved at nature's cost; 
Save spear and bow, withouten other aid; 
Yet not the Roman steel their naked breast dis- 
may'd. 



He liked the soil, he liked the clement skies. 
He liked the verdant hills and flowery plains: 
' Be this my great, my chosen isle, (he cries) 
This, whilst my labours Liberty sustains. 
This queen of ocean all assault disdains.' 
Nor liked he less the genius of the land, 
To freedom apt and persevering pains, 
Mild to obey, and generous to command, 
Temper'd by forming Heaven with kindest firmest 
hand. 



Here, by degrees, his master-work arose. 
Whatever arts and industry can frame: 
Whatever finish'd agriculture knows. 
Fair queen of arts ! from heaven itself who came, 
When Eden flourish'd in unspotted fame; 



64 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



And still with her sweet innocence we find, 
And tender peace, and -joys without a name. 
That, wliile they ravish, tranquillize the mind: 
Nature and art at once, delight and use com- 
bin'd. 



Then towns he quicken'd by mechanic arts. 
And bade the fervent city glow with toil; 
Bade social commerce raise renowned marts. 
Join land to land, and marry soil to soil; 
Unite the poles, and without bloody spoil 
Bring home of either Ind the gorgeous stores ; 
Or, should despotic rage the world embroil. 
Bade tyrants tremble on remotest shores. 
While o'er the encircling deep Britannia's thunder 
roars. 



The drooping muses then he westward call'd, 
From the famed city* by Propontic sea, 
What tune the Turk the enfeebled Grecian 

thrall'd; 
Thence from their cloister'd walks he set them 

free. 
And brought them to another Gastalie, 
Where Isis many a famous nursling breeds; 
Or where old Cam soft-paces o'er the lea 
In pensive mood, and tunes his doric reeds. 
The whilst his flocks at large the lonely shepherd 

feeds. 



Yet the fine arts were what he finished least. 
For whyl They are the quintessence of all. 
The growth labouring time, and slow increas 

ed; 
Unless, as seldom chances, it should fall 
That mighty patrons of the coy sisters call 
Up to the sunshine of uncumber'd ease, 
Where no rude care the mounting thouglit may 

thrall. 
And where they nothing have to do but please: 
Ah! gracious God! thou know'st they ask no 

other fees. 



But now, alas ! we live too late in time : 
Our patrons now e'en grudge that little claim. 
Except to such as sleek the soothing rhyme ; 
And yet, forsooth, they wear Maecenas' name. 
Poor sons of pufl-up vanity, not fame. 
Unbroken spirits, cheer ! still, still remains 
The eternal. patron. Liberty; whose flame. 
While she protects, inspires the noblest strains : 
The best and sweetest far, are toil-created gains. 



■' Constantinople. 



XXIV. 

When as the knight had framed, in Britain- 
land, 
A matchless form of glorious government. 
In which the sovereign laws alone command. 
Laws stablish'd by the public free consent, 
Whose majesty is to the sceptre lent; 
When this great plan, with each dependent art, 
Was settled firm, and to his heart's content, 
Then sought he from the toilsome scene to part, 
And let Ufe's vacant eve breathe quiet through the 
heart. 



For this he chose a farm in Deva's vale. 
Where his long alleys peep'd upon the main: 
In this calm seat he drew the healthful gale^ 
Here mix'd the chief, the patriot, and the swain. 
The happy monarch of his silvan train, 
Here, sided by the guardians of the fold, 
He walk'd his rounds, and cheer'd his blest do- 
main: , ' 
His days, the days of unstain'd nature, roll'd 
Replete with peace and joy, like patriarchs of 
old. 



Witness, ye lowing herds, who gave him millc ; 
Witness, ye flocks, whose woolly vestments far 
Exceed soft India's cotton, or her silk; 
Witness, with Autumn charged the nodding car, 
That Homeward came beneath sweet evening's 

star, 
Or of September-moons the radiance mild. 
O hide thy head, abominable war! 
Of crimes and ruffian idleness the child ! 
From Heaven this life ysprung, from hell thy glo- 
ries viled ! 



Nor from his deep retirement bairish'd was 
The amusing care of rural industry. 
Still, as with grateful change the seasons pass, 
New scenes arise, new landscapes strike the 

' eye. 
And all the enlivened country beautify: 
Gay plains extend where marshes slept before ; 
O'er recent meads the exulting streamlets fly; 
Dark frowning heaths grow bright with Ceres' 

store, 
And woods imbroWn the steep, or wave along the 

shore. 



As nearer to his farm you made approach, 
He poUsh'd Nature with a finer hand : 
Yet on her beauties durst not art encroach ; 
'Tis Art's alone the^e beauties to expand. 



THE CASTLE OP INDOLENCE. 



65 



In graceful dance immingled, o'er the land, 
Pan, Pales, Flora, and Pomona play'd: 
Here, too, brisk gales the rude wild common 

fann'd, 
A happy place ; where free, and unafraid, 
Amid the flowering brakes each coyer creature 

stray'd. 



But in prime vigour what can last for aye"? 
That soul enfeebling wizard Indolence, 
I whilom sung, wrought in his works decay: 
Spread far and wide was his cursed influence; 
Of public virtue much he duU'd the sense. 
E'en much of private ; eat our spirit out, 
And fed our rank luxurious Ndces : whence 
The land was overlaid with many a lout; 
Not, as old fame reports, wise, generous, bold, and 
stout. 



A rage of pleasiu^e madden'd every breast, 
Down to- the lowest lees the ferment ran: 
To his licentious wish each must be bless'd, 
With joy be fever'd ; snatch it as he can. 
Thus Vice the standard rear'd; her arrier-ban 
Corruption call'd, and loud she gave the word, 
'Mind, mind yourselves! why should the vul- 
gar man. 
The lacquey be more virtuous than his- lord 1 
Enjoy this span of Hfe ! 'tis all the gods afford.' 



The tidings reach'xl to where, in quiet hall. 
The good old knight enjoy'd well earn'd repose: 
' Come, come. Sir Knight ! thy children on thee 

call; 
Come, save us yet, ere ruin round us close ! 
The demon Indolence thy toils o'erthrows.' 
On this the noble colour stain 'd his cheeks. 
Indignant, glowing through the whitening 

snows 
Of venerable eld; his eye full speaks 
His ardent soul, and from his couch at once he 

breaks. 



' I will, (he cried) so help me, God ! destroy 
That villain Archimagc' — His page then 

straight 
He to him call'd ; a fiery-footed boy, 
Benempt Dispatch: — ' My steed be at the gate ; 
My bard attend; quick, bring the net of fate.' 
This net was twisted by the sisters three ; 
Which, when once cast o'er harden'd wretch, 

too late ^ 

Repentance comes : replevy, can not be 
From the strong iron grasp of vengeful destiny. 



XXXIII. 

He came, the bard, a little druid wight. 
Of wither'd aspect ; but his eye was keen. 
With sweetness mix'd. Inrusset brown bedight, 
As is his sister* of the copses green. 
He kept along, unpromising of mien. 
Gross he who judges so. His soul was fair, 
Bright as the children of yon azure sheen ! 
True comeliness, which nothing can impair, 
Dwells in the mind : all else is vanity and glare. 



' Come, (quoth the knight) a voice has reach'd 

mine ear; 
The demon Indolence threats overflow 
To all that to mankind is good and dear : 
Come, Philomelus ; let us instant go, 
O'ertinrn his bowers, and lay his castle low. 
Those men, those wretched men ! who will be 

slaves, 
Must drink a bitter wrathful cup of wo: 
But some there be, thy song, as from their graves 
Shall raise.' Thrice happy he ! who vrithout rigour 

saves. 

XXXV. 

Issuing forth, the knight bestrode his steed. 
Of ardent bay, and on whose froiit a star 
Shone blazing bright : sprung from the generous 

breed, 
That whirl of active day the rapid car. 
He pranced along, disdaining gate or bar. 
Meantime, the bard on milk-wliite palfrey rode; 
An honest sober beast, that did not mar 
His meditations, but full softly trode: 
And much they moralized as thus yfere they yode. 



They talk'd of virtue, and of human bliss, 
What else so fit for man to settle well *? 
And still their long researches met in this, 
This Truth of Truths, which nothing can refel; 
' From virtue's fount the purest joys outwell, 
Sweet rills of thought that cheer the conscious 

soul; 
While vice pours forth the troubled streams of 

hell. 
The which, howe'er disguised, at last with dole 
Will- through the tortured breast the fiery torrent 

roU.'. 



At length it dawn'd, that fatal valley gay, 
O'er which high wood-crown'd hills their sum- 
mits rear : 
On the cold height awhile our palmers stay, 
And spite even of themselves their senses cheer; 



The Nightingale. 



66 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Then to the vizard's wonne their steps they steer. 
Like a green isle, it broad beneath them spread, 
With gardens round, and wandering currents 

clear, 
And tufted groves to shade the meadow-bed, 
Sweet airs and song; and without hurry all seem'd 

glad. 



' As God shall judge me knight ! we must forgive 
(The half-enraptured Philomelus cried) 
The frail good man deluded here to live, 
And in these groves his musing fancy hide. 
Ah 1 nought is pure. It can not be denied, 
That virtue still some tincture has of vice. 
And vice of virtue. What should then betide, 
But that our charity be not too nice 1 
Come, let us those we can, to real bliss entice.' 



'Ay, sicker, (quoth the knigh't) all flesh is frail, 
To pleasant sin and joyous dalUance bent; 
But let not brutish vice of this avail. 
And think to 'scape deserved punishment. 
Justice were cruel weakly to relent ; 
From Mercy's self she got her secret glaive: 
Grace be to those who can, and will tepent ; 
But penance long, and dreary, to tht slave, 
Who must in floods of fire his gross foul spirit lave.' 



Thus, holding high discourse, they came to 

where 
The cursed carle was at his wonted trade ; 
Still tempting heedless men into his snare. 
In witching wise, as I before have said. • 
But when he saw, in goodly geer array'd. 
The grave majestic knight approaching nigh, 
And by his side the bard so sage and staid, 
His countenance fell; yet oft his anxious eye 
Mark'd them, hke wily fox who roosted cock doth 

• spy. 



Natldess, with feign'd respect, he bade give back 
The rabble rout, and welcomed them full kind ; 
Struck with the noble twain, they were not slack 
His orders to obey, and fall behind. 
Then he resmucd his song; and unconfined, 
Pour'd all his music, ran through all his strings; 
With magic dust their eyne he tries to bUnd, 
And virtue's tender airs o'er weakness flings. 
What pity base his song who so divinely sings ! 



Elate in thought, he counted them his own, 
They listen'd so intent with fix'd delight : 
But they instead, as if transmew'd to stone, 
Marvel'd he could with such sweet art unite 



The lights and shades of manners, wrong and 

right. 
Meantime, the silly crowd the charm devour, 
Wide pressing to the gate. Swifi; on the knight 
He darted fierce to drag him to his bower. 
Who backening shunned his touch, for well he knew 

its power. 



As in throng'd amphitheatre of old, 
The wary Retiarius* trapp'd his foe ; 
E'en so the knight, returning on him bold, 
At once involved him in a Net of Wo, 
Whereof I mention made not long ago. 
Inraged at first, he scom'd so weak a jail, 
And leap'd, and flew, and flounced to and fro; 
But when he found that nothing could avail, ' 
He sat him felly dowm, and gnaw'd his bitter nail. 

XLI.T. 

Alarm'd, the inferior demons of the place 
Raised rueful shrieks and hideous yells around ; 
Black stormy clouds defqrm'd the welkin's face, 
And from beneath was heard a waiUng sound, 
As of infernal sprights in cavern bound ; 
A solemn sadness every creature strook, 
And lightnings flash'd, and horror rock' d the 

gromid: 
• Huge crowds on crowds outpour'd, with ble- 

mish'd look. 
As if on Time's last verge this framcof things had 

shook. 



Soon as the short-lived tempest was yspent, 
Steam'd from the jaws of vex'd Avernus' hole, 
And hush'd the hubbub of the rabblement, 
Sir Industry the first calm moment stole : 
' There must (he- cried) amid so vast a shoal, 
Be some who are not tainted at the heart, 
Not poison'd quite by tiiis same villain's bowl: 
Come then, my bard, thy heavenly fire impart ; 
Touch soul with soul till forth the latent spirit 
start.' 



The bard obey'd; and taking from his side. 
Where it in seemly sort depending hung. 
His British harp, its speaking strings he tried, 
The which with skilful touch he deftly strung. 
Till tinkling in clear symphony they rung. 
Then, as he felt the Muses come along. 
Light o'er the chords his raptured hand he flung, 
And play'd a prelude to his rising song : 
The whilst, hke midnight mute, ten thousands 
round him throng. 



* A gladiator, who made use of a net, which he tlircw ovei 
his adversaiy. i 



THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE, 



67 



XLVII. 

Thus, ardentjburst his strain, — 'Ye hapless race, 
Dire labouring here to smother reason's ray, 
That lights our Maker's image in our face, 
And gives us wide o'er earth unquestion'd sway ; 
What is the adored Supreme Perfection, say 1 — 
"What, but eternal never resting soul, 
Almighty Power, and all-directing day; 
By whom each atom stirs, the planets roll; 
Who fills, surrounds, mforms, and agitates the 
whole. 



* Come, to the beaming God your hearts unfold ! 
Draw from its fountain Ufe! 'Tis thence alone, 
We can excel. Up from unfeeling mould, 
To seraphs burning round the Almighty's throne, 
Life rising still on life, in higher tone, 
Perfection forms, and with perfection bhss. 
In universal nature this clear shown, 
Not needeth proof: to prove it were, I wis. 
To prove the beauteous world excels the brute 



abyss. 



'Is not the field with lively culture green, 
A sight more joyous than the dead morass'? 
Do not the skies, with active ether clean, 
And fann'd by sprightly zephyrs, far surpass 
The foul November fogs, and slumbrous mass 
With which sad Nature veils her drooping face"? 
Does not the rnountaiji stream, as clear as glass, 
Gay-dancing on, the putrid pool disgrace? 
The -same in all holds true, but chief in human 
race. 



' It was not by vile loitering in ease. 
That Greece obtain'd the brighter palm of art ; 
That soft yet ardent Athens learn'd to please, 
To keen the vrit, and to sublime the heart, 
In all supreme ! complete in every part ! 
It was not thence majestic Rome arose, 
And o'er the nations shook her conquering dart: 
For sluggard's brow the laurel never grows ; 
Renown is not the child of indolent Repose. 



' Had unambitious mortals minded nought, 
But in loose joy their time to wear away; 
Had they alone the lap of dalliance sought. 
Pleased on her pillow their dull heads to lay. 
Rude nature's state had been our state to-day; 
No Cities e'er their towery fronts had jaised. 
No arts had made us opulent and gay; 
With brother brutes the human race had grazed ; 
None e'er had soar'd to fame, none honour'd been, 
none praised. 



' Great Homer's song had never fired the breast 
To thirst of glory, and heroic deeds; 
Sweet Maro's muse, sunk in inglorious rest, 
Had silent slept amid the Mincian reeds : 
The wits of modern time had told their beads, 
And monkish legends been their only strains; 
Our Milton's Eden had lain wrapt in weeds. 
Our Shakspeare stroU'd and laughed with War- 
wick swains, 
Ne had my master Spenser charm'd his Mulla's 
plains. 



' Dumb too had been the sage historic muse, 
And perish'd all the sons of ancient fame 
Those starry Ughts of virtue, that diffuse 
Through the dark depth of time their vivid flame, 
Had all been lost with such as have no name. 
Who then had scorn'd his ease for others' good"? 
Who then had toil'd rapacious men to tame 7 
Who in the public breach devoted stood, 
And for his country's cause been prodigal of blood? 



'But should to fame your hearts unfeeling be, 
If right I read, you pleasure all require: 
Then hear how best may be obtain'd this fee,. 
How best enjoy'd this nature's wide desire. 
Toil and be glad! let industry inspire 
Into your quicken'd limbs her buoyant breath ! 
Who does not act is dead; absorpt entire 
In miry sloth, no pride, no joy he hath : 
O leaden-hearted men, to be in love with death! 



' Aht what avail the largest gifts of Heaven, 
, When drooping health and spirits go amiss 1 
How tasteless then whatever can be given 1 
Health is the vital principle of bliss. 
And exercise of health. In proof of tliis. 
Behold the wretch who slugs his life away. 
Soon swallow'd in disease's sad abyss; 
While he whom toil has braced, or manly play, 
Has light as air each limb, each thought as clear 
ag day. 



' O who can speak the vigorous joys of health ! 
Unclogg'd the body, unobscured the mind: 
The morning rises gay, with pleasing stealth, 
The temperate evening falls serene and kind. 
In health the wiser brutes true gladness find. 
See ! how the younglings frisk along the meads, 
As May comes on, and wakes the balmy wind ; 
Rampant with life, their joy all joy exceeds: 
Yet what but high-strung health this dancing plea- 
saunce breeds'? 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



' But here, instead, is foster'd every ill, 
Which or distemper'd minds or bodies know. 
Come then, my kindred spirits ! do not spill 
Your talents here: this place is but a show. 
Whose charms delude you to the den of wo. 
.Come, follow me, I will direct you right, 
Where pleasure's roses, void of serpents, grow, 
Sincere as sweet ; come, follow tliis good knight. 
And you will bless the day that brought him to 
your sight. 



' Some he will lead to tourts, and some to camps ; 
To senates some, and pubhc sage debates, 
Where, by the solemn gleam of midnight lamps, 
The world is poised, and managed mighty states; 
To high discovery some, that new creates 
The face of earth; some to the thriving mart; 
Some to the rural reign, and softer fates; 
To the sweet muses some, who raise the heart: 
All glory shall be yours, all nature, and all art ! 



' There are, I see, who listen to my lay, 
Who wretched sigh for -virtue, but despair : 
" All may be done, (methinks I hear them. say) 
E'en death despised by generous actions fair ; 
All, but for those who to these bowers repair, 
Their every power dissolved in luxury, 
To quit of torpid sluggishness the lair. 
And from the powerful arms of sloth get free: 
'Tis rising from the dead — Alas ! — it can not be !" 



' Would you then learn to dissipate the band 
Of the huge threatening difficulties dire, 
That in the weak man's way like Uons stand, 
His soul appal, and damp his rising fire'? 
Resolve, resolve, and to be men aspire. 
Exert that noblest privilege, alone. 
Here to mankind indulged; control desire: 
Let god-Uke reason, from her sovereign throne. 
Speak the commanding word " I will!" and it is 
done. 



' Heavens ! can you then thus waste, in shamc'^ 

fol wise. 
Your few unportant days of trial here! 
Heirs of eternity ! yborn to raise 
Through endless states of being, still more near 
To bhss approaching, and perfection clear; 
Can you renounce a fortune so sublime. 
Such glorious hopes, your backward steps to steer, 
And roll, with \'ilest brutes, through mud and 

slime 1 • 

No! no! — Your heaven-touch'd hearts disdain the 

sordid crime!' 



' Enough ! enough !' they cried — straight, from 

the crowd. 
The better sort on wmgs of transport fly : 
As when amid the Ufeless sunmiits proud 
Of Alpine cUffs where to the gelid sky 
Snows piled on snows in wintry torpor lie. 
The rays divine of verlial Phoebus play; 
The awaken'd heaps, in streamlets from on 

high, 
Roused into action, lively leap away. 
Glad warbUng through the vales, in their new be- 
ing gay. 



Not less the life, the vivid joy serene. 
That lighted up these new created men. 
Than that which wings the exulting spirit 

clean, 
When, just dehver'd from this fleshly den, 
It soaring seeks its native sides agcn: • 
How light its essence ! how unclogg'd its powers, 
Beyond the blazon of my mortal pen ! 
E'en so we glad forsook these sinful bowers. 
E'en such enraptured life, such energy was ours. 



But far the greater part, with rage inflamed, 
Dire-miitter'd curses, and blasphemed high Jove: 
' Ye sons of hate ! (tliey bitterly exclaira'd) 
Wliat brought you to this scat of peace and love? 
While wdth kind nature, here amid the grove. 
We pass'd the harmless sabbath of our time. 
What to disturb it could, tell ^len, emovc 
Your barbarous hearts 1 Is happiness a crime 1 
Then do the fiends of hell tnle in yon Heaven 
sublime.' 



' Ye impious vnretches, (quoth the knight in 

wrath) 
YoUr happiness behold !' — Then straight a wand 
He waved, an anti-magic power that hath. 
Truth from illusive 'falsehood to command. 
Sudden the landscape sinks on every hand; 
The pUre quick streams are marshy puddles 

found ; 
On baleful heaths the grove all blacken'd stand; 
And o'er the weedy foul abhorred ground, 
Snakes, adders, toads, each loathsome creature 

crawls around. 



And here and there, on trees by lightning scath- 
ed, ' 
Unhappy wights who loathed life yhung ; 
Or, in fresh gore and recent murder bathed, 
They weltering lay; or' else, infuriate flung 
Into the gloomy flood, while ravens sung 



•THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE. 



ca 



The funeral dirge, tliey down the torrent roU'd : 
These, by distempcr'd blood to madness stung. 
Had doom'd themselves; whence oft, when night 

control'd 
The world, returning hither their sad spirits 

howl'd. 



Meantime a moving scene was open laid ; 
That lazar-house I whilom in my lay 
Depainted have, its horrors deep display'd,' 
And gave unnumber'd wretches to the day. 
Who tossing there in squalid misery lay. 
Soon as of sacred light the unwonted smile 
Pour'd on these living catacombs its ray. 
Through the drear caverns stretching many a 

mile. 
The sick upraised their heads, and dropp'd their 

woes awhile. 



' O Heaven ! (they cried) and do we once more 

see 
Yon blessed sun, and this green earth so fair 1 
Are we from noisome damps of pesthoUse free"? 
And drink our souls the sweet ethereal air 1 
O thou ! or Knight, or God "? who boldest there 
That fiend, oh keep him in eternal Bhains ! 
But what for us, the children of despair, 
Brought to the brink of hell, what hope re- 
mains 1 
Repentance does itself but aggravate our pains. 



The gentle Knight, who saw their rueful case, 
Let fall adown his silver beard some tears. 
" Certes (quoth he) it is not e'en in grace. 
To undo the past, and eke your broken years: 
Nathless, to nobler worlds repentance rears. 
With humble hope, her eye; to her is given 
A power the truly contrite heart that cheers; 
She quells the brand by which the rocks are 
riven : , . 

She more than merely softens, she rejoices Hea- 
ven. 



" Then patient bear the suiferings you have 

earn'd. 
And by these sufTe'rlngs purify the mind ; 
Let wisdom be by past misconduct learn'd: 
Or pious die, with .penitence resign'd ; 
And to a life more happy and refined, 
Doubt not,. you shall, new creatures, yet arise. 
Till then, you may expect in me to find 
One who will wipe your sorrow, from your 

eyes, 
One who will sooth your pangs, and wing you 

to the skies." 



They silent heard, and pour'd their thanks in 

tears: 
" For you (resumed the knight with sterner 

tone) 
Whose hard dry hearts the obdurate demon 

sears. 
That villain's gifts will cost you many a groan; 
In dolorous mansion long you must bemoan 
His fatal charms, and weep your stains away; 
Till, soft and pure as infant goodness grovra, 
You feel a perfect change : then, who can say 
What grace may yet shine forth in Heaven's 

eternal dayl" 



This said, his powerful wand he waved anew: 
Instant a glorious angel-train descends, 
The Charities, to wit, of rosy hue; 
Sweet Love their looks a gentle radiance lends, 
And with seraphic flame compassion blends. 
At once, delighted, to their charge they fly : 
When lo ! a goodly hospital ascends 
In which they bade each lenient aid be nigh. 
That could the sick-bed smooth of that sad com- 
pany. 



It was a worthy edifying sight. 
And gives to human kind peculiar grace. 
To see kind hands attending day and night. 
With tender ministry from place to place. 
Some prop the head; some, from the pallid face 
Wipe oflf the faint cold dews weak nature sheds; 
Some reach the heaUng draught: the whilst, to 

chase 
The fear supreme, around their soften'd beds, 
Some holy man by prayer all opening Heaven 

dispreds. 



Attended by a glad acclaiming train. 
Of those he rescued had from gaping hell. 
Then turn'd the Knight ; and, to his hall again 
Soft-pacing, sought of peace the mossy cell : 
Yet down his cheeks the gems of pity fell. 
To see the helpless wretches that remain'd, 
There left through delves and deserts dire to 

yell; 
Amazed, their looks with pale dismay were 
stain'd. 
And spreading wide their hands they meek re- 
pentance feigned. 



But ah! their scorned day of grace was past: 
For (horrible to tell !) a desert wild 
Before them stretch'd,bare, comfortlbss, and vast; 
With gibbets, bones, and carcasses defiled. 



70 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



There nor trim field, nor lively culture smiled : 
Nor waving shade was seen, nor fountain fair; 
But sands abrupt on sands lay loosely piled, 
Through which they floundering, toil'd with 
painful care, 
Whilst Phcebus smote them sore, and fired the 
cloudless air. 



Then, varying to a joyless land of bogs. 
The sadden'd country a gray waste appear'd; 
Where nought but putrid streams and noisome 

fogs 
For overhung on drizzly Auster's beard; 
Or else the ground, by piercing Caurus sear'd, 
Was jagg'd with frost, or heap'd with glazed 

snow; 
Through these extremes a ceaseless round they 

steer'd, 
By cruel fiends still hurried to and fro. 
Gaunt Beggary, and Scorn, with many hell-hounds 



The first was with base dunghill rags yclad, 
Tainting the gale, in which they flutter'd light; 
Of morbid hue his features, sunk and sad; 
His hollow eyne shook forth a sickly light; 
And o'er his lank jawbone, in piteous plight. 
His black rough beard was matted rank and 

vile; 
Direful to see ! a heart-appalhng sight ! 
. Meantime foul scurf and blotches him defile; 
And dogs, where'er he went, still barked all the 

while. 



The other was a fell despightful fiend; 
Hell holds none worse in baleful bower below: 
By pride, and wit, and rage, and rancour, keen'd; 
Of man alike, if good or bad, the foe : 
With nose upturn'd, he always made a show 
As if he smelt some nauseous scent ; his eye 
Was cold, and keen, like blast from boreal snow; 
And taunts he castcn forth most bitterly. 
Such were the twain that ofi^ drove this ungodly fry. 



E'en so through Brentford towm, a town of mud, 
A herd of bristly swine is prick'd along; 
The filthy beasts, that never chew the cud. 
Still grunt, and squeak, and sing their troublous 

song. 
And oft they plunge themselves the mire among: 
' But aye the ruthless driver goads them on, 
And aye of barking dogs the bitter throng 
Makes them renew their uhmelodious moan ; 
Ne ever find they rest from their unresting fone. 



GLOSSARY. 

Archimage, the chief, or greatest of magicians 

and enchanters. 
Apaid, paid. 
Appal, afl!right. 
Atween, between. 
Ay, always. 

Bale, sorrow, trouble, misfortune,. 
Benempt, named. 
Blazon, painting, displaying. 
Breme, coin, raw. 
Carol, to sing songs of joy. 
Caucus, the north-Bast wind. 
Certes, certainly. 
Dan, a word prefixed to names. 
Deftly, skilfully. 
Depainted, painted. 
Drowsy-head, Drowsiness. 
Eath, easy. ■ 

Eftsoons, immediately, often, afterwards. 
Eke, also. 
Fays, fairies. 

Gear or Geer, furniture, equipage, dress. 
Glaive, sword. (Fr.) 
Glee, joy, pleasure. 
Han, have. 
Hight, named, called; and sometimes it is used for 

is called. See stanza vii. 
Idless, idleness. 
Imp, child or offspring; from the Saxon impan, 

to graft or plant. 
Kest, for cast. 
Lad, for led. 

Lea, a piece of land, or meadow. 
Libbard, leopard. 
Lig, to lie. 

Losel, a loose idle fellow. . 
Louting, bowing, bending. 
Lithe, loose, lax. 
Mcll, mingle. 
Mae, more.- 
MoiZ, to labour. ' 
Mote, might. 

Muchel, or Mochel, much, great. 
Nathless, nevertheless. 
Ne, nor. 

Needments, necessaries. 
Noursling, a child tha,t is nursed. 
Noyance, harm. 

Prankt, coloured, adorned, gayly. 
Perdie, (Fr. par Dieu) an old oath. 
Pricked through the forest, rode through the forest. 
Scar, dry, burnt up. 
Sheen, bright, sliining. 
Sicker, surely. 
Soot, sweet, or sweetly. 
Sooth, true, or truth. 



BRITANNIA. 



71 



Stound, misfortune, pang. 

Sweltry, sultry, consuming with heat. 

Swink, to labour. 

Smackt, savoured. 

Thrall, slave. 

Trans7new'd, transformed. 

Vild, vile. 

Unkempt, (Lat. incomptus) unadorned. 

Ween, to think, be of opinion. 

Weet, to know, to weet, to wit. 

Whilom, ere-while, formerly. 

Wight, man. 

Wis, for Wist, to know, think, understand. 

Wonne, (a noun) dwelling; 



Wroke, wreakt. 

Yborn, born. 

Yblent, or blent, blended, mingled. 

Yclad, clad. 

Ydeped, called, named. 

Yfere, together. 

Yviolten, melted. 

Yode, (preter tense of yede) went. 

N. B. The letter Y is frequently placed in the 
beginning of a word, by Spenser, to lengthen it a 
syllable, and en at the end of a word, for the same 
reason, as withouten, casten, &c. 



ijtttjttxwta^. 



— — Et tantas audetis toUere moles 1 
Quos ego — sed motos prosstat conrponere fluctus. 
Post mihi non simili prena commissa luetis. 
Maturate fugam, regique ha?c dicite vestro : 
Non illi imperium pelagi, ssevuinque tridentem, 
Sed mihi sorte datum. Virgil. 



AS on the sea-beat shore Britannia sat,. 
Of her degenerate sons the faded fame. 
Deep in her anxious heart, revolving sad: 
Bare was her throbbing bosom to the gale. 
That, hoarse and hollow, from the bleak surge blew; 
Loose flowed her tresses; rent her azure robe. 
Hung o'er the deep from her majestic brow 
She tore the laurel, and she tore the bay. 
Nor ceased the copious grief to bathe her cheek ; 
Nor ceased her sobs to murmur to the main. 
Peace discontented nigh, departing, stretch'd 
Her dove-like wings: and War, tho' greatly roused, 
Yet mourns his fetter'd hands. While thus the 

queen 
Of nations spoke ; and what she said the muse 
Recorded, faithful, in unbidden verse. 

' E'en not yon saU, that from the sky-mixt wave. 
Dawns on the sight, and wafts the Royal Youth,* 
A freight of future glory to my shore ; 
E'en not the flattering view of golden days, 
And rising periods yet of bright renown. 
Beneath the parents, and their endless line 
Through late revolving time, can sooth my rage; 
While, unchastised, the insulting Spaniard dares 
Infest the trading flood, fiill of vain war 
' Despise my navies, and my merchants seize ; 
As, trusting to false peace, they fearless roam 
The world of waters wild ; made, by the toil, 
And hberal hlood of glorious ages, mine : 
Nor bursts my sleeping thunder on theii* head. 



' Frederick Prince of Wales, then lately arrived. 



Whence this unwonted patience'? this weak doubtl 
This tame beseeching of rejected peace 1 
This meek forbearance 1 this " unnative fearl • 
To generous Britons never known before? 
And sail'd my fleets for this; on Indian tides 
To float, inactive, with the veering winds'? 
The mockery 6f war ! while hot disease, 
And sloth distemper'd, swept off burning crowds 
For action ardent; and amid the deep. 
Inglorious, sunk them in a watery grave. 
There now they lie beneath the roUing flood 
Far fi-om their friends, and country, unavenged- 
And back the drooping war ship comes a^ain 
Dispirited and thin ; her sons ashamed 
Thus idly to review their native shore; 
With not one glory sparklmg in their eye, 
One trimnph on their tongue. A passenger, 
"The xdolated merchant comes along; 
That far sought wealth, for which the noxious gale 
He drew, and sweat beneath equator suns. 
By lawless force detain'd; a force that soon 
Would melt away, and every spoil resign, 
Were once the British lion heard to roar. 
Whence is it that the proud Iberian thus 
In their own well asserted element. 
Dares rouse to wrath the masters of the main 1 
Who told him, that the big incumbent war 
Would not, ere this, have roll'd liis trembling ports 
In smoky ruin 1 and his guilty stores, 
Won by the ravage of a butcher'd world, 
Yet unatoned, sunk in the swallowing deep, 
Or led the glittering prize into the Thames'? 



72 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



' There was a time (Oh let my languid sons 
Resume their spirit at the rousing thought !) 
When all the pride of Spain, in one dread fleet, 
Swell'd o'er the Jabouruig surge; like a whole 

heaven 
Of clouds, wide roU'd before the boundless breeze. 
Gaily the splendid armament along 
Exultant plough'd, reflecting a red gleam, 
As sunk the sun, o'er all the flaming Vast; 
Tall, gorgeous, and elate ; drunk with the dream 
Of easy conquest ; while their bloated war, 
Stretch'd out from sky to. sky, the gather'd force 
Of ages held in its capacious womb. 
But soon, regardless of the cumbrous pomp, 
My dauntless Britons came, a gloomy few, 
With tempests black, the goodly scene deform'd, , 
And laid their glory waste. The bolts of fate 
Resistless thunder'd through their yielding sides ; 
Fierce o'er their beauty blazed the lurid flame ; 
And seized in horrid grasp, or shatter'd wide, 
Amid the mighty waters, deep they sunk.. 
Then too fropi every promontory chill. 
Rank fen, and cavern where the wUd wave works, 
I swept confederate vrinds, and swell'd a storm. 
Rolmd the glad isle, snatch'd by the vengeful blast, 
The scatter'd remnants drove ;*on the blind shelve, 
And pointed rock, that marks the indented shore. 
Relentless dash'd, where loud thfe northern main 
Howls through the .fractured Caledonian isles. 

Such were the dawniugs of my watery reign; 
But since how vast it grew, how absolute. 
E'en in those troubled times, when dreadful Blake 
Awed angry nations with the British name. 
Let every humbled state] let Europ'e say, . 
Sustain'd, and balanced, by my naval arm. 
Ah, what must those immortal spirits thmk 
Of your poor shifts 7 Those, for their country's 

good. 
Who faced the blackest danger, knew no fear, 
No mean submission, but commanded peace. 
Ah, how with indignation must they burn"? 
(If aught, but joy, can touch ethereal breasts) 
With shame 1 with grief 1 to see their feeble sons 
Shrink from that empire o'er the conquer'd seas. 
For which their wisdom plann'd, their councils 

glow'd, 
And their veins bled through many a toiling age. 
' Oh, first of himmn blessings ! and supreme! 
Fair Peace ! )iow lovely, how delightful thou I 
By whose wide tie the kindred sons of men 
Like brothers live, in amity combined 
And unsuspicious faith ; wliilc honest toil 
Gives every joy, and to'thosc joys a right, 
Which idle, barbarous rapine but usntps. 
Pvire is thy reign ; when, unaccurscd by blood. 
Nought, save the sweetness of indulgent showers, 
TrickUng distils into the vcrnant glebe ; 
Instead of mangled carcasses, sad-seen^ 
When the blithe sheaves lie scatter'd o'er the field : 



When only shining shares, the crooked knife, 
And hoolcs imprint the vegetable wound ; 
When the land blushes with the rose alone, 
The falling fruitage and the bleeding vine. 
Oh, Peace ! thou source and soul of social life; 
Beneath whose calm inspiring influence, 
Science his Adews enlarges. Art refines. 
And swelling Commerce opens all her ports ; 
Bless'd be the man divine who gives us thee! 
Wlio bids the trumpet hush his horrid clang. 
Nor blow the giddy nations into rage; 
Who sheaths the murderous blade ; the deadly gun 
Into the well piled armory returns; 
And every vigour-, from the work of death, 
To grateful industry converting, makes 
The country flourish, and the city smile. 
Unviolated, him the virgin sings ; 
And him the smiling mother to her train. 
Ofhim the shepherd, in the peaceful dale, 
Chants ; and, the treasures of his labour sure, 
The husbandman of him, as at the plough, 
Or team, he toils. With him the sailor sooths. 
Beneath the trembling moon, the midnight wave; 
And the full city, warm, from street to street, 
And shop to shop, responsive, rings of him. 

Nor joys one land alone : liis praise extends 
Far as the sun rolls the diffusive day; 
Far as the breeze can bear the gifts of peace, 
Till all the happy nations catch the song. 

' What would not. Peace ! the patriot bear for 
theel 
What painful patience. What incessant care*? 
What mix'd anxiety 1. What sleepless toil "? 
E'en from the rash protected what reproach? 
For he thy value knows ; thy friendsliip he 
To hmnan nature : but the better thou. 
The richer of delight, sometimes the inore 
Inevitable war ; when ruflian force 
Awakes the fiiry of an injured state. 
E'en the good patient man, whom reason rules. 
Roused by bold insult, and injurious rage, 
With sharp and sudden check the astcnish'd. sons 
Of violence confounds; firm as his cause, 
His bolder heart ; in awful justice clad; 
His eyes effulging a peculiar fire : 
And, as he charges through the prostrate war, 
B[is keen ann teaches faithless men, no more 
To dare the sacred vengeance of the just. 

' And what, my thoughtless sons, should fire 
you more 
Than when yoiir well earn'd empire of the deep 
The least beginning injury receives! 
What better cause can call your lightning forth '? 
Your thunder wake 1 3rour dearest life demand? 
What better cause, thE^n when your country sees 
The sly destruction at her vitals aim'd? 
For oh ! it much imports you, 'tis your all. 
To keep your trade entire, entire the force 
And honour of your fleets; o'er that to watch, 



BRITANNIA. 



73 



E'en with a hand severe, and jealous eye. 
In intercourse be gentle, generous, just, 
By wisdom polished^ and of manners fair ; 
But on the sea be terrible, untamed, 
Unconquerable still : let none escape. 
Who shall but aim to touch your glory there. 
Is there the man into the lion's den 
Who dares intrude, to snatch his young away"? 
And is a Briton seized 1 and seized beneath 
The slumbering terrors of a British fleet 1 ' 
Then ardent rise ! Oh, great in vengeance rise ! 
O'erturn the proud, teach rapine to restore : 
And as you ride sublimely round the world. 
Make every vessel stoop, make every state 
At once their welfare and their duty know. 
This is your glory : this your wisdom ; this 
The native power for which you were design'd 
By fate, when fate designed the firmest state 
That e'er was seated on the subject sea; 
A state, alone, where Liberty should ILve,' 
In these late times, this evening of mankind. 
When Athens, Rome, and Carthage are no more, 
The world almost in slavish sloth dissolved. 
For this, these rocks around your coast were 

thrown ; 
For this, your oaks, peculiar harden'd, shoot 
Strong into sturdy growth; for this, your hearts 
Swell with a sullen courage, growing still 
As danger grows ; and strength, and toil, for this 
Are Uberal pour'd o'er all the fervent land. ■ 
Then cherish this, this unexpensive power, 
Undangerous to the pubUc, ever prompt. 
By lavish nature thrust into your hand : ■ 
And, imencumber'd with the bulk immense 
Of conquest, whence huge empires rose, and fell 
Self-crush'd, extend your reign from shore to shore, 
Where'er the wind your high behests can blow ; 
And fix it deep on this eternal base. 
For should the sliding fabric once give way. 
Soon slacken'd quite, and past recovery broke, 
It gathers ruin as it rolls along. 
Steep rushing down to that devouring gulf, 
Where many a mighty empire buried lies. 
And should the big redundant flood of trade, 
In which ten thousand thousand labours join 
Their several currents, till the boundless tide ■ 
Rolls in a radiant deluge o'er the land ; 
Should this bright stream, the least inflicted, point 
Its course another way, o'er other lands 
The various treasure would resistless pour. 
Ne'er to be won again ; its ancient tract 
Left a vile channel, desolate, and dead. 
With all around a miserable waste. 
Not Egypt, were her better heaven, the Nile, 
Tuni'd in the pride of flow; when o'er his rocks, 
And roaring cataracts, beyond the reach 
Of dizzy vision piled, in one wide flash 
An Ethiopian deluge foams amain ; 
(Whence wondering fable traced him from the sky) 



E'en not that prime of earth, where harvests crowd 
On untill'd harvests, aU the teeming year, 
If of the fat o'erflowing culture robb'd, 
Were then a more uncomfortable wild, 
StcrU, and void ; than of her trade deprived, 
Britons, your boasted isle : her princes sunk ; 
Her high built honour moulder'd to the dust; 
Unnerved her force ; her spirit vanish'd quite ; 
With rapid wing her riches fled away; 
Her unfrequented ports alone the sign 
Of what she was ; her merchants scatter'd wide; 
Her hollow shops ^shut up ; and in her streets, 
Her fields, woods, markets, villages, and roads. 
The cheerful voice of labour heard no more. 

' Oh, let not then waste luxury impair 
That manly soul of toil which strings your nerves, 
And your own proper happiness creates-! 
Oh, let not the soft, penetrating plague 
Creep on the freeborn mind! and working there, 
With the sharp tooth of many a new^'forin'd want, 
Endless, "and idle all, eat out the heart 
Of liberty ; the high conception blast; 
The noble sentiment, the impatient scorn 
Of base subjection, and the swelUng wish 
For general good, erasing from the mind : 
While nought save narrow selfis'hness succeeds, 
And low design, the sneaking passions all 
Let loose, and reigning in the rankled breast. 
Induced at last, by scarce perceived degrees. 
Sapping the very frame of government, 
And life, a total dissolution comes ; 
Sloth, ignorance, dejection, flattery, fear. 
Oppression raging o'er the waste he makes; 
The human being almost quite extinct; 
And the whole state in broad corruption sinks. 
Oh, shun that gulf: that gaping ruin shun! 
And countless ages roll it'far away 
From you, ye heaven-beloved! May liberty, 
The hght of life ! the sun of htimankind I 
Whence heroes, bards, and patViots botrow flame, 
E'en where the keen depressive north descends, 
Still spread, exalt, and actuate your powers ! 
While slavish southern climates beam in vain. 
And may a public spirit from- the throne. 
Where every virtue sits, go copious forth , 
Live o'er the land ! the -finer arts inspire; 
Make thoughtful Science raise his pensive head. 
Blow the fresh bay, bid Industry rejoice. 
And the rough sons of lowest labom- smile. 
As when, profuse of Spring, the loosen 'd West 
Lifts up the pining year, and balmy breathes 
Youth, life, and love, and beauty, o'er the*wprld. 

' But haste we from these melancholy shores, 
Nor to deaf winds, and waves, our fruitless plaint 
Pour wea,k; the country claims our active aid; 
That let us roam; and where we find a spark 
Of public virtue, blow it into flame. 
Lo! now, my sons, the sons of freedom! meet 



74 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



In awful senate; thither let us fly ; 
Burn in fhe patriot's thought, flow from his tongue 
In fearless truth; myself, transform'd, preside, 
And shed the spirit of Britannia round.' 



This said ; h^r fleeting form and airy train 
Sunk ill the gale ; and nought but ragged rocks 
Rush'd on the broken eye; and nought was heard 
But the rough cadence of the dashing wave. 



ILtticvts* 



TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS FREDERICK, 

FRINGE OF WALES. 

Sir — When I reflect upoii that ready condescen- 
sion, that preventing generosity, with which your 
Royal Highness received the following poem under 
your protection; I can alone ascribe it to the re- 
commendation and influence of the subject. In you 
the cause and concerns of Liberty have so zealous 
a patron, as entitles whatever may have the least 
tendency to promote them, to the distinction of 
your favour. And who can entertain this delight- 
ful reflection, without feeling a pleasure far supe- 
lior to that of the fondest -author ; and of wliich 
aU true lovers of their country must participate'? 
To behold the noblest dispositions of the prince, 
•and of the patriot, united : an overflowing benevo- 
lence, generosity, and candour of heart, joined to 
an enlightened zeal for Liberty, an intimate per- 
suasion that on it depends the happiness and glory 
both of king and people: to see these shining out 
in public virtues, as they have hitherto smiled in 
all the social lights' and private accomplishments 
of life, is a prospect that can not but inspire a ge- 
neral sentiment of satisfaction and gladness, more 
easy to be felt than expressed. . ' . 

If the following attempt to trace Liberty, from 
the first ages down to her excellent, establishment 
in Great Britain, can at all inerit your approba- 
tion, and prove an entertainment to your Royal 
Highness; if it can in any degree answer the dig- 
nity of the subject, and of the name under wliich 
I presume to shelter it; 1 have my best reward: 
particularly as it affords me an opportunity of de- 
claring that I am^ with the greatest zeal and re- 
spect, • , ;_ • Sir, 

Your Roya.1 Highness's 

most obedient 
and most devoted servant, 

James Thomson. 



LIBERTY. 

PART I. 
AKCIENT AND MODERN ITALY COMPARED. 



CONTENTS. 

The -following Poem is tlirown into the form of a Poetical 
Vision. Its 'scene, the ruins of ancient Rome. The Goddess 
of 'Liberty, who *is supposed to spealc througli the whole, 
appears, characterized as British Liberty. Gives a view of 
ancient Italy, and particularly of republican Rome, in all her 
magnificence and glory. This contrasted by modern Italy ; 
its valleys, mountains, culture, cities, people : the difference 
appearing strongest in the capital city Rome. The ruins of 
the great works of Liberty more magnificent than the bor- 
rowed pomp of Oppression ; and from them revived Sculp- 
ture, Painting, and Architecture. The old Romans apostro- 
phized, witli regard to the several melancholy changes in 
Italy : Horace, TuUy, and Virgil, with regard to then' Tibur, 
Tusculum, and Naples. That once finest, and most orna- 
mented part of Italy, all along the coast of Baiie,- how changed. 
This desolation of Italy applied to Britain. Address to the 
Goddess of Liberty, that she would deduce from the first ages, 
her chief establishments, the description of which constitute 
the subject of the following parts of this Poeiii. She assents, 
and commands what she says to be sung in Britain; wliose 
happiness, arising from freedom, and a limited monarchy, 
she marks. An immediate Vision attends, and paints her 
words. Invocation. 



O UY lamented Talbot! while \yith thee 
The Muse gay roved the glad Hesperian round, 
And drew the inspiring breath of ancient arts; 
Ah ! little thought slic her returning verse 
Should sing our darling subject to thy Shade. 
And does the mystic veil, from i;^jprtal beam. 
Involve those eyes where every virtue smiled. 
And all thy Father's candid spirit shone'? 
The light of reason, pure, without a cloud ; 
Full of the generous heart, the mild regard; 
Honour disdaining blemish, cordial, faith. 
And limpid truth, that looks the very soul. 
But to the death of mighty nations turn 
My strain ; be there absorpt the private tear. 

Musing, I lay ; warm from the sacred walks, 
Where at each step imagination burns: 
While scatter'd wide around, awful, and hoar, 
Lies, a vast monument, onqc glorious Rome 



LIBERTY. 



75 



The tomb of empire I Ruins ! that efface 
Whate'er, of finish'd, modern pomp can boast. 

Snatch'd by these wonders to that world where 
thought 
XJnfetter'd ranges, Fancy's magic hand 
Led me anew o'er all the solemn scene, 
Still in the mind's pure eye more solemn dress'd: 
"When straight, methought, the fair majestic Power 
Of Liberty appear'd. Not, as of old. 
Extended in her hand the cap, and rod. 
Whose slave-enlarging touch gave double life : 
But her bright temples bound with British oak, 
And naval honours nodded on her brow. 
Sublime of port : loose o'er her shoulder flow'd 
Her sea-green robe, with constellations gay. 
An island-goddess now ; and her high care 
The Gtueen of Isles, the mistress of the main. 
My heart beat filial transport at the sight; 
And, as she moved to speak, the awaken 'd Muse 
Listen'd intense. Awhile she look'd around. 
With mournful eye the well known rums mark'd, 
And then, her sighs repressing, thus began : 

" Mine are these wonders, all thou seest is mine; 
But ah, how changed! the falhng poor remains 
Of what exalted once the Ausonian shore. 
Look back through time: and, rising from. the 

gloom, 
Mark the dread scene, that paints whate'er I say 

" The great Republic see ! that glow'd, sublime 
With the mix'd freedom of a thousand states ; 
Raised on the thrones of kings her curule chair,. 
And by her fasces awed the subject world. 
See busy millions quickening all the land, 
With cities throng'd, and teeming culture high: 
For Nature then smiled on her free-born sons, 
And pour'd the plenty that belongs to men. ' 
Behold, the country cheering, villas rise,- 
In lively prospect ; by tlie secret lapse 
Of brooks now lost, and streams renown'dinsong: 
In Umbria's closing vales, or on the brow 
Of her brown hills that breathe the scented gale : 
On Baiffi's viny coast; where peaceful seas,- 
Fann'd by kind zephyrs, ever kiss the shore; 
And suns unclouded shme, through purest air: 
Or in the spacious neighbourhood of Rome; 
Far shining upward to the Sabine lulls, 
To Anio's roar, and Tibur's olive shade; / 
To where Preneste lifts her airy brow: 
Or downward spreading to the sunny shorfe, 
Where Alba breathes the fi-eshness of the main. 

"See distant mountains leave their valleys dry, 
And o'er the proud Arcade their tribute pour, ; 
To lave imperial Rome.. For ages laid, 
t)eep, massy, firm, diverging every way, 
With tombs of heroes sacred, see her roads; 
By various nations trod, and supphant kings; 
With legions flaming, or with triumph gay. 

" Full in the centre of these wondrous works, 
The pride of earth ! Rome in her glory see ! 



Behold her demigods, in senate met; 
All head to counsel, and all heart to act: 
The commonweal inspiring every tongue 
With fervent eloquence, unbribed, and bold; 
Ere tame Corruption taught the servile herd 
To rank obedient to a master's voice. 

" tier Forum see, warm, popular," and loud, 
In tremblmg wonder hush'd, when the two Sires,* 
As they the private father greatly quell'd, • 
Stood up the public fathers of the state. 
See Justice judging there, in hmnan shape. 
Hark ! how with freedom's voice it thunders high, 
Or in soft murmurs sinks to Tully's tongue. 

" Her tribes, her census, see ; her generous 
troops, 
Whose pay was glory, and their best reward 
Free for their country and for me to die; 
Ere mercenary murder grew a trade. 

" Mark, as the purple triumph waves along, 
The highest pomp and lowest fall of life. 

" Her festive games, the school of heroes, see: 
Her Ckcus, ardent with contending youth : 
Her streets, her temples, palaces, and baths, 
Full of fair forms, of Beauty's eldest born, 
And of a people cast in virtue's' mould: 
While sculpture lives around, and Asian hills 
Lend their best stores to heave the pillar'd dome. 
All that to Roman strength, the softer touch 
Of Grecian art can join. But language fails 
To paint this sun, this centre of mankind; 
Where every virtue, glory, treasure, art. 
Attracted strong, in heighten'd lustre rdeet. - 

" Need I Ihe contrast mark'? unjoyous view! 
A land in all, in government and arts. 
In virtue, genius, earth, and heaven, reversetl,. 
Who but these far famed ruins to behold, 
Proofs of a people, whose heroic aims 
Soar'd far above the little selfish sphere 
Of doubting modern life; who but inflamed 
With classic zeal, these consecrated scenes 
Of men and deeds to trace ; unhappy land, 
Would trust thy wilds, and cities loose of sway 1. 

" Are these the vales, that, once, exulting states 
In their warm bosom fedl The mountains these, 
On whose high-blooming sides my -sons, of old, 
I bred to glory ^ These dejected towns. 
Where, mean and sordid, life can scarce subsist, 
The scenes of ancient opulence and pomp 1 

"Come! by whatever sadired name disguised, 
Oppression, come! and in thy works rejoice! 
See nature's richest plains to putrid fens 
Turn'd by thy fury. From their cheerful bounds. 
See' razed the enlivening village, farm, and seat. 
First, rural toil, by thy rapacious hand 
Robb'd of his poor reward, resign'd the f)lough ; 
And now he dares not tm"n the noxious glebe. ■ 
'Tis thine entire. The lonely swain himself. 



' Lucius Junius Brutus, and Virginlus. 



70 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Who loves at large along the grassy downs 
His flocks to pasture, thy drear champaign flies. 
Far as the sickening eye can sweep around, 
'Tis all one desert, desolate, and gray, 
Grazed by the sullen buffalo alone ; 
And where the rank uncultivated growth ' 
Of rotting ages taints the passing gale. 
Beneath the baleful blast the city pmes, 
Or sinks enfeebled, or infected burns. 
Beneath it mourns the solitary road, 
Roll'd in rude mazes o'er the abandon'd waste; 
While ancient ways, ingulf 'd, are seen no more. 

" Such thy dire plains, thou self-destroyer! foe 
To human kind ! thy mountains too, profuse, 
Where savage nature blooms, seem their isad plaint 
To raise against thy desolating rod. 
There on the breezy brow, where thriving states 
And famous cities, once, to the pleased sun, 
Far other scenes of rising culture spread. 
Pale shine thy ragged towns. Neglected round, 
Each harvest pines; the livid, lean produce 
Of heartless labour: wliile thy hated joys, 
Not proper pleasure, hft the lazy hand. 
Better to sink in sloth the woes of Ufe, 
Than wake their rage with unavailing toil. 
Hence, drooping art almost to nature leaved 
The rude unguided year. Thin wave the gifts 
Of yellow Ceres, tliin the radiant blush 
Of orchard reddens in th.e warmest ray. 
To weedy wildness run, no rural wealth 
(Such as dictators fed) the garden pours. 
Crude the wild olive flows, and foul the- vine;. • 
Nor juice Csecubian, or Falernian, more. 
Streams life and joy, save in the Muse's bowl. 
Unseconded by art, the spinliing race 
Draw the bright thread in vain, and idly toil. 
In vain, forlorn in wilds, the citron blows; 
And flowfcring plants perfume the desert gale. 
Through the vile thorn the, tender myrtle tv^ines: 
Inglorious droops the laurel, dead to song,' 
And long a stranger to the hero's brow. ' 

"Nor half thy triumph tliis: cast, ftom brute 
fields. 
Into the haunts of men thy ruthless eye; 
There buxom Plenty never turns her horn ; ■ 
The grace arid virtue of exterior Hfe, 
No clean convenience reigns; e'en sleep itself, 
Least delicate of powers, reluctant, there, 
Lays on the bed impure liis heavy head. 
Thy horrid walk! dead, empty, unadorn'd, 
See streets whose echoes never know the voice 
Of cheerful hurry, commerce many-tongued, 
An'd art mechanic at bis various task, 
Fervent, employ'd, Mark the desponding race, 
Of occupation void, as void of hope; 
Hope, the glad ray, glanced from Eternal Good, 
That life enlivens, and exalts its powers. 
With views of fortune — madness allto them! 
By thee relentless seized their better joys, 



To the soft aid of cordial airs they fly, 
Breathing a kind obUvion o'er their woes, 
And love and music melt their souls away. 
From feeble Justice, see how rash Revenge, 
Trembling, the balance snatches; and the sword, 
Fearful himself, to venal ruffians gives. 
See where God's altar, nursing murder, stands, 
With the red touch of dark assassins stain'd. 

" But chief let Rome, the mighty city! speak 
The full-exerted genius of thy reign. 
Behold her rise amid the lifeless waste, 
Expiring nature all corrupted round; 
While the lone Tiber, through the desert plain, 
Winds his waste stores, and sullen sweeps 

, along. 
Patch'd from my fragments, in tinsoUd pomp, 
Mark how the temple glares; and artful dress'd, 
Amusive, draws the superstitious train. 
Mark how the palace lifts a lying front, 
Concealing often, in magnific jail. 
Proud want; a deep unanimated gloom! 
And oft adjoining to th^ drear abode 
Of misery^ whose melancholy walls 
Seem its voracious grandeur to reproach. 
Within the city bounds the desert see. ■ • 
See the rank vine o'er subterranean roofs, 
Indecent, spread; beneath whose fretted gold 
It once, exulting, flow'd. The people mark, 
Matchless, wliilt? fired by me; to public good 
Inexorably firm, just, generous, brave, 
Afraid of nothing but unworthy life. 
Elate with glory, an heroic soul 
Known to the vulgar breast : behold them now 
A thin despairing number, all-subdued, 
The slaves of slaves, by superstition fool'd. 
By vice unmann'd and a licentious rule; 
In guile ingenious, and in murder brave; 
Such in one land, beneath the same fair clime, 
Thy sons. Oppression, are; and such were mine. 
• " E'en with thy labour'd Pomp, for whose vain 
show , . 
Deluded thousands starve; all age-begrimed, 
Torn, robb'd, and scatter'd in unnumber'd sacks, 
And by the tempest of two thousand years 
Continual sh-aken, let my ruins vie. 
These roads that yet the Roman hand assert. 
Beyond the weak repair of modern toil , 
These fractured arches, that the chiding stream 
No more delighted hear; these rich remains 
Of marbles now unknown, whiere shines imbibed 
Each parent ray; these massy columns, hew'd 
From Afric's farthest shore ; one granite all, 
These obelisks high-towering to the sky. 
Mysterious mark'd with dark Egyptian lore; 
These endless wonders that this sacred* way 
Illumine still, and consecrate to fame ; 
These fountains, vases, urns, and statues, 'charged 

* Via Sacra. 



LIBERTY. 



77 



With the fine stores of art-completing Greece. 

Mine is, besides, thy every later boast : 

Thy Buonarotis, thy Palladios mine; 

And mine the fair designs, which Raphael's* soul 

O'er the hve canvass, emanating, breathed. 

" What would ye say, ye conquerors of earth! 
Ye Romans, could you raise the laurel's head ; 
Could you the country see, by seas of blood, 
And the dread toil of ages, won so' dear ; 
Your pride, your trimnph, your supreme delight ! 
For whose defence oft, in the doubtful hour, 
You rush'd with rapture down the gulf of fate, 
Of death ambitious ! till by awful deeds, 
Virtues, and courage, that amaze mankind, 
The queen of nations rose; possess'd of all 
Which nature, art, and glory could bestow : 
What would you say, deep in the last abyss 
Of slavery, ^ice, and unambitious want. 
Thus to behold her sunk 1 your crowded plains, 
Void of their cities ; unadorn'd your hills ; 
Ungraded your lakes; your poi'ts to sliips un- 
known; 
Your lawless floods, and youi- abandon 'd streams; 
These could you know; these could you love 

again "l 
Thy Tiber, Horace, coiilditnow inspire, 
Cojitent, poetic ease, and rural joyj 
Soon bursting into song : while through the groves 
Of headlong Anio, dashing to th6 vale, 
In many a tortured stream, you mused along 1 ■■ . 
Yon wild retreat,+ where superstition dreams, 
Could, Tully, you your Tusculmn believe? 
And could you deem yon naked hills that form, 
Famed in old song, the ship-forsaken bay,t 
Your Formian^hore'] Once the delight of earth, • 
Where art and nature, ever smiUng, join'd 
On the gay land to lavish all their stores. 
How changed, how vacant, Virgil, wide around. 
Would now your Naples seem? disaster'd less 
By Black Vesuvius thundering o'er the coast 
His midnight earthquakes, and his mining fires, 
Than by despotic rage :§ that inward gnaws , • 
A native foe ; a foreign, tears without. 
First from your flattered Caesars this began: 
Till, doomed to tyrants an eternal prey, 
Thua peopled spreads, at last, the syren plain, II 
That the dire soul of Hannibal disarm'd , 



* Michael" Angelo Buonaroti, Palladio, and Raphael d'Ur- 
bino; the three great mddeni masters in sculpture, architec- 
ture, and painting. ■ ' 

t Tusculum is reckoned to have stood at a place now called 
Grotta Ferrata, a convent of monks. 

' 1 The bay of Mola, fanciently Fonniae) into which Homer 
brings Ulysses and his companions. Near Formiae Cicero 
had a villa. 

§ Naples, tlien under tlie Austrian government. 

B' Campagna Felice, adjoining to Capita. 



And wrapt in weeds the shore* of Venus lies. 
There Baia; sees no more the joyous throng; 
Her bank all beaming with the pride of Rome: 
No generous vines now bask along the hills, 
Where sport the breezes of the Tyrrhene main: 
With baths and temples mix'd, no villas rise; 
Nor, art sustain'd amid reluctant waves, 
Draw the cool murmurs of the breathing deep ; 
No spreading ports their sacred arms extend: 
No mighty moles the big intrusive storm, 
From the cahh station, roll j^sounding back. 
An almost total desolation sits, 
A dreary stillness saddenmg o'er the coast ; 
Where,t when soft suns and tepid winters rose^ 
Rejoicing crowds inhaled the balm of peace; 
Where citied hill to hill reflected blaze ; 
And where, with Ceres Bacchus wont to hold 
A genial strife. Her youthful form, robust, 
E'en Nature yields; by fire and earthquake rent; 
Whole stately cities in the dark abrupt 
Svyallow'd at.once, or vile in rubbish laid, 
A nest for serpents; from the red abyss 
New lulls, explosive, thrown ; tlie Lucrine lake 
A reedy pool : and all to Cuma's point, - 
The sea recovering his usurp'd domain. 
And pour'd triumphant o'er the buried dome 
. ' Hence Britain, learn ; my best establish'd, last. 
And more than Greece, or Rome, my steady reign ; 
The land where. King and People equal bound 
By guardian laws, my fullest blessings flow; 
And where my jealous unsubmitting soul. 
The dread of tyrants ! burns in every breast, 
Learn hence, if such the miserable fate 
Of an heroic race, the masters once 
Of hunrankind ; what, when deprived of me, 
How grievous must be tliine? in spite of climes, 
Whose sun-enlivened ether wakes the soul 
To higher powers; in spite of happy soils, 
That, but by labour's shghtest aid impell'd, 
With treasures , teem to thy cold clime unknown; 
If there desponding fail the common arts, 
And sustenance of life: could life itself, 
Far less a thoughtless tyrant's hollow pomp. 
Subsist with thee? against depressing skies, 
Join'd to full spread oppression's cloudy hrow, 
How could thy. spirits hold? where vigour find 
Forced fruits to tear from their unnative soil? 
Or, storing every harvest in thy ports, 
To plough the dreadful all producing wave?' 

Here paused the Goddess. By the cause assured. 
In trembling accents thus I moved my prayer: 



The coast of Baiffi, which was formerly adorned with the 
works mentioned in tlie following lines ; and where, amidst 
hiany magnificent ruins, those of a temple erected to Venus 
are still to be seen. • . ' 

t AU along^this coast the ancient Romans had their winter 
retreats; and several populous cities stood. ., 



H 



78 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



' Oh first, and most benevplent of powers! 
Come from eternal splendours here on earth, 
Against despotic pride, and rage, and lust, 
To shield mankind; to raise them to assert 
The native rights and honour of their race: 
Teach me thy lowest subject, but in zeal 
Yielding to none, the progress of thy reign, 
And with a strain from thee enrich the Muse, 
As thee alone she serves, her patron thou, ' 
And great inspirer be ! then will she joy, 
Though narrow Ufe her lot, and private shade : 
And when her venal voice she barters vUe, 
Or to thy open or thy secret foes; 
May ne'er those sacred raptures touch her more, 
By slavish hearts unfelt ! and may her song 
Sink in oblivion with the nameless crew ! 
Vermin of state! to thy o'erflowing light 
That owe their being, yet betray thy cause.' 

Then, condescending kind, the heavenly Power 

Return'd: ' What here, suggested by the sCene, 

I slight unfold, record and sing at home. 
In that bless'd isle, where (so we spirits move) 
With one quick effort of my will I am. 
There Truth, unlicensed, walks ; and dares accost 
E'en kings themselves, the monarchs of„the free! 
Fix'd on my rock, there an indulgent race 
O'er Britons wield the sceptre of their choice : 
And there, to finish what liis sires began, 
A Prince behold ! for me who burns sincere, 
E'en with a subject's zeal. He my great work 
Will parent-lilce sustain ; and added give 
The touch the Graces and the Muses owe. 
For Britain's glory swells his panting breast; 
And ancient arts he emulous revolves : 
His pride to let the smiling heart abroad, 
Through clouds of pomp, that but conceal the inan; 
To please his pleasure; bounty his delight; 
And all the soul of Titus dwells in him.' . 

Hail, glorious theme! but how, alas! shall verse, 
From the crude stores of mortal language drawn, 
How faint and tedious, sing, what,- piercing, deep. 
The Goddess flash'd at once upon my soul. 
For, clear precision all, the toiague of gods 
Is harmony itself; to every ear 
Familiar known, like light to every e3'^e. 
Meantime, disclosing ages, as she spoke. 
In long succession pour'd their eraphes forth ; 
Scene after scene the human drama-spread; 
And still the embodied picture rose to sight. , 

Oh THOU ! to whom the Muses owe their flame ; 
Who bid'st beneath the pole, Parnassus rise. 
And Hippocrene flow : with thy bold ease. 
The striking force, the hghtning of thy thought. 
And thy strong phrase, that rolls profound and 

• clear; ■ 
Oh, gracious Goddess! reinspire my song; 
While I, to nobler than poetic fame 
Aspiring, thy commands to Britons bear. 



PART II. 

GREECE. 

CONTENTS. 
Liberty traced from the pastoral agea, and the fu'st uniting 
of neighbouring familieB into civil government. The several 
establisliments of Liberty, in Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, Pales- 
tine, slightly touched upon, down to her great establishment 
in Greece. Geographical desoription of -Greece. ■ Sparta and 
Athens, tiie two principal states of Greece, described. Lrflu- 
ence of Liberty over all the Grecian states ; with regard to 
their Government, their Politeness, their Virtues, their Arts, 
and Sciences. The vast superiority it gave tliem, in point of 
force and bravery, over the Persians, exemphfied by the action 
of Thermopylffi, the battle of Marathon, and the retreat of the ' 
Ten Thousand. Its full exertion, and most beautiful efTecta 
in Atliens. Liberty the somxe of free Philosophy. The va- 
rious schools which toolc their rise from Socrates. Enumera- 
tion of Fine Arts ; Eloquence, Poetiy, Music, Sculpture,' 
Painting, and Architecture ; the effects of Liberty in Greece, 
and brought to their utmost perfection there. Transition to 
the modern state of Greece. Wliy Liberty declined, and was 
at last entirely lost among the Greeks. Concluding Reflec- 
tion. 



Thus spoke the Goddess of the fearless eye ; 
And at her voice, renew'd the Vision rose: 

' First, in the dawn of time, with eastern swains, 
In woods, and tents, and cottages, I lived ; 
While on from plain to plain they led their flocks, 
In search of clearer spruig, and fresher field. 
These, as increasmg families disclosed 
The tender state, I taught an equal sway. 
Pew were oflJelices, properties, and laws. 
Beneath the rural portal, palm-o'erspread. 
The father senate met. There Justice dealt, 
With reason then and equity the same. 
Free as the common air, her prompt decree ; 
Nor yet had stain'd her sword with subjects' blood. 
The simpler arts were all their simple wants 
Had urged to Ught. But instant, these suppUed, 
Another set of fonder wants arose, 
And other arts with them of finer aim; 
Till, from refining want to want impelM, 
The mind by thinldng push'd her latent powers, 
And life began to glow, and arts to shine. 

' At first, on brutes alone the rustic war 
Launch'd the rude spear ; swift, as he glared along. 
On the glim lion, or the robber wolf 
For then young sportive hfe was void of toil, 
Demanding little, and with little pleased: 
But when to manhood grown, and endless joys, 
Led on by equal toils, the bosom fired ; . 
Lewd lazy rapine broke primeval peace, 
And, hid in caves and idle forests drear. 
From the lone pilgrim, and the wandcrhig swain 
Seized what he durst not earn. Then brother's 

blood , 

First, horrid, smoked on the polluted skies. 
Awful in justice, then the, burning youth, 



LIBERTY 



79 



Led by their tcmper'd sires, on lawless men, 
The last worst monsters of the shaggy wood, 
Turn'd the keen arrow, and the sharpen'd spear. 
Then war grew glorious. Heroes then arose ; 
Who, scorning coward self, for others lived, 
ToiI'd for their ease, and for their safety bled. 
West, with the living day, to Greece I came : 
Earth smiled beneath my beam: the Muse before 
Sonorous flew, that low till then in woods 
Had tuned the reed, and sigh'd the shepherd's 

pain; 
But now, to sing heroic deeds, she swell'd 
A nobler note, and bade the banquet burn. 
' For Greece my sons of Egy^jt I forsook ; 
A boastflil race, that in the vain abyss 
Of fabUng ages loved to lose their source, 
And with tlieir river traced it from the skies. 
While there my laws alone despotic reign'd, 
And king, as well as people, proud obey'd; 
I taught them science, virtue, wisdom, arts ; 
By poets, sages, legislators sought ; 
The school of poUsh'd life, and human kind. 
But when mysterious Stiperstition came. 
And, with her Civil Sister* leagued, involved 
In studied darkness the desponding mind; 
Then Tyrant Power the righteous scourge un- 
loosed: 
For yielded reason speaks the soul a slave. 
Instead of useful works, like nature's, great. 
Enormous, cruel wonders crush'd the land ; 
And round a tyrant's tomb,t who none deserved, 
For one vile carcass perish'd countless lives. 
Then the great Dragon,t couch'd amid his floods, 
Swell'd his fierce heart, and cried, " This flood is 

mine, 
'Tis I that bid it flow." But, undeceived, 
His frenzy soon. the proud blasphemer felt ; 
Felt that, without my fertilizing power. 
Suns lost their force, and Niles o'erflow'd in vain. 
Nought could retard me: nor the frugal state 
Of rising Persia, sober in extreme. 
Beyond the pitch of man, and thence reversed 
Into luxurious waste : nor yet the ports 
Of old Phoenicia : first for letters famed, 
rfhat paint the voice, and silent speak to sight ; 
Of arts prime source, a:nd guardian! by fair stars. 
First tempted out into the lonely deep; 
To whom I first disclosed mechanic arts, 
The winds to conqueJ, to subdue the waves, 
With all the peaceful power of ruling trade ; 
Earnest of Britain. Nor by these retain'd ; 
Nor by the neighbouring land, whose palmy shore 
The silver Jordan laves. Before me lay 
The promised Land of Arts, and urged my flight. 
' Hail, Nature's utmost boast ! unrival'd Greece ! 
My fairest reign ! where every power benign 



' Civil Tyranny. i The Pyrainids. 

X The Tyrants of Egypt. 
34 



Conspired to blow the flower of human kind, 
And lavish'd all t!iat genius can inspire. 
Clear, sunny climates, by the breezy main, 
Ionian or .lEgean^ tcmper'd kind : 
Light, airy soils : a country rich, and gay 
Broke into hills with balmy odours crown'd, 
And, bright with purple harvest, joyous vales: 
Mountains, and streams, where verse spontaneous 

flow'd ; 
Whence dcem'd by wondciing men the scat of 

gods. 
And still the mountains and the streams of song. 
All that boon Nature could luxuriant pour 
Of high materials, and my restless Arts 
Frame into finish'd life. Plow many statesj 
And clustering towns, and monuments of fame, 
And scenes of glorious deeds, in little bounds % 
From the rough tract of bending mountains, beat 
By Adria's here, there by jEgean waves ; 
To where the deep adorning Cyclade Isles 
In sliining prospect rise, and on the shore 
Of farthest Crete resounds the Libyan main. 

' O'er all two rival cities rear'd the brow. 
And balanced all. Spread on Eurotas' banlc. 
Amid a circle of soft rising hills. 
The patient Sparta one : the sober, hard. 
And man-suhduing city; which no shape 
Of pain could conquer, nor of pleasure charm. 
Lycurgus there built, on the solid base 
Of equal life, so well a temper'd state; 
Where mix'd each government, in such just poise; 
Each power so checking, and supporting each ; 
That firm for ages, and unmoved, it stood. 
The fort of Greece ! without one giddy hour. 
One shock of faction, or of party rage. 
For, drain'd the springs of wealth. Corruption 

there 
Lay wither'd at the root. Thrice happy land ! 
Had not neglected art, with weedy vice 
Confounded, sunk. But if Athenian arts 
Loved not the soil ; yet there the calm abode 
Of wisdom, virtue, philosophic ease, 
Of manly sense and wii, in frugal phrase 
Confined, and press'd into Laconic force. 
There too, by rooting thence still treacherous self, 
The Public and the Private grew the same. 
The children of the nursing Public all. 
And at its table fed; for that they toil'd. 
For that they lived entire, and even for that 
The tender mother urged her son to die. 
Of softer genius, but not less intent 
To seize the palm of empire, Athens rose. 
Where, with bright marbles big and future pomp, 
Hymettus* spread, amid the scented sky, 
His thymy treasures to the labouring bee. 
And to botanic hand the stores of health ; 
Wrapt in a soul-attenuating clime. 



' A mountain near Athens. 



80 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Between Ilissus and Cephissus* glow'd 
This hive of science, shedding sweets divine, 
Of active arts, and animated arms. 
There, passionate for me, an easy moved, 
A quick, refined, a delicate, humane, 
Enlighten'd people reign'd. Oft on the hrink 
Of ruin, hurried by the charm of speech, 
Inforcing hasty counsel immature, 
Totter'd the rash Democracy; unpoised, 
And by the rage devour'd, that ever tears 
A populace unequal; part too rich. 
And part or fierce with want or abject grown. 
Solon at last, their mild restorer, rose : ' 
AUay'd the tempest ; to the calm of laws 
Reduced the settling whole ; and, with the weight 
"Which the two senatest to the public lent, 
As with an anchor fix'd the driving state. 

' Nor was my forming care to these confin'd. 
For emulation through the whole I pour'd. 
Noble contention ! who should most excel 
In government well poised, adjusted best 
To public weal: in countries cultured high: 
In ornamented towns, where order reigns. 
Free social life, and polish'd manners fair 
In exercise, and arms ; arms only drawn 
For common Greece, to quell the Persian pride : 
In moral science, and in graceful arts. 
Hence, as for glory peacefully they strove. 
The prize grew greater, and the prize of all. 
By contest brighten'd, hence the radiant youth, 
Pour'd every beam ; by generous pride inflamed. 
Felt every ardour burn: their great reward 
The verdant wreath, which sounding Pisat gave. 

' Hence flourish'd Greece ; and hence a race of 
men. 
As gods by conscious future times adored: 
In whom each virtue wore a smiling air. 
Each science shed o'er life a friendly light. 
Each art was nature. Spartan valour hence, 
At the famed pas"s,§ firm as an isthmus stood; 
And the whole eastern ocean, waving far 
As eye could dart its vision, nobly check'd. 
While in extended battle, at the field 
Of Marathon, my keen Athenians drove 
Before their ardent band a host of slaves. 

'Hence through the continent ten thousand 
Greeks 
Urged a retreat, whose glory not the prime 
Of victories can reach. Deserts, in vain. 
Opposed their course ; and hostile lands, unknown ; 



* Two rivers, betwixt wliicli Athens was situated. 

t The Areopagus, or Supreme Court of Judicature, which 
Solon reformed and improved : and the council of Four 
Hundred, by liim instituted. In this council all affairs of 
state were deliberated, before they came to be voted in the 
assembly of the people. 

5 Or Olympia, the city where the Olympic games were 
celebrated. 

5 The Straits of Thermopylae. 



And deep rapacious floods, dire bank'd with death; 
And mountains, in whose jaws destriiction grinn'd ; 
Hunger, and toil; Armenian snows, and storms; 
And circling myriads still of barbarous foes. 
Greece in their view, and glory yet untouch'd, 
Their steady column pierced the scattering herds, 
Which a whole empire pour'd ; and held its way 
Triumphant, by the sage-exalted Chief* 
Fired and sustain'd. Oh light and force of mind, 
Almost almighty in severe extremes ! 
The sea at last from Colchian mountains seen, 
Kind-hearted transport round their captains threw 
The soldiers' fond embrace ; o'erflow'd their eyes 
With tender floods, and loosed the general voice 
To cries resounding loud — " The sea ! The sea!" 

' In Attic bounds hence heroes, sages, wits, 
Shone thick as stars, the milky way of Greece ! 
And though gay wit, and pleasing grace was theirs, 
All the soft modes of elegance, and ease ; ^ 

Yet was not courage less, the patient touch 
Of toiling art, and disquisition deep. 

' My spirit pours a vigour through the soul, 
The unfetter'd thought with energy inspires, 
Invincible in arts, in the bright field 
Of nobler Science, as in that of Arms. 
Athenians thus not less intrepid burst 
The bonds of tyrant darkness, than they spum'd 
The Persian chains : while through the city full 
Of mirthful quarrel and of witty war, 
Incessant struggled taste refining taste. 
And friendly free discussion, calling forth 
From the fair jewel Truth its latent ray. 
O'er all shone out the great Athenian Sage,t 
And Father of Philosophy ; the sun, 
From whose white blaze eine'rged, each various 

sect 
Took various tints, but with diminish'd beam. 
Tutor of Athens ! he, in every street. 
Dealt priceless treasure : goodness his delight, 
Wisdom his wealth, and glory his reward. 
Deep through the human heart, with playful art, 
His simple question stole : as into truth, 
And serious deeds, he smiled the laughing race ; 
Taught moral happy life, vvhate'er can bless, 
Or grace mankind; and what he taught he was. 
Compounded high, though plain, his doctrine broke 
In different Schools: the bold poetic phrase 
Of figured Plato ; Zenophon's pure strain, 
Like the clear brook that steals along the vale; 
Dissecting truth, the Stagyrite's keen eye ; 
The exalted Stoic pride; the Cynic sneer; 
The slow-consenting Academic doubt ; 
And, joining bUss to virtue, the glad ease 
Of Epicurus, seldom understood 
They, ever candid, reason still opposed 
To reason ; and, since virtue was their aim, 
Each by sure practice tried to prove his way 



■ Xenophon. 



LIBERTY. 



SI 



The best. Then stood untouch'd the soUd base 
Of Liberty, the Uberty of mind: 
Por systems yet, and soul-enslaving creeds, 
Slept with the monsters of succeeding times. 
From priestly darkness sprung the enlightening 

arts 
Of fire, and sword, and rage, and horrid names. 

' O Greece ! thou sapient nurse of finer arts ! 
Which to bright science blooming fancy bore ; 
Be this thy praise, that thou, and thou alone. 
In these hast led the way, in these excell'd, 
Crown'd with the laurel of assenting Time. 

' In thy full language, speaking mighty things ; 
Like a clear torrent close, or else difl'used 
A broad majestic stream, and rolling on 
Through all the winding harmony of sound: 
In it the power of Eloquence, at large, 
Breathed the persuasive or pathetic soul ; 
Still'd by degrees the democratic storm. 
Or bade it threatening rise, and tyrants shook, 
Flush'd at the head of their victorious troops. 
In it the Muse, her fiiry never quench'd, 
By mean unyielding phrase, or jarring sound, 
Her unconfined divinity display'd ; 
And, still harmonious, form'd it to her will : 
Or soft depress'd it to the shepherd's moan. 
Or raised it swelhng to the tongue of gods. 

' Heroic song was thine; the Fountain Bard,* 
Whence each poetic stream derives its course. 
Thine the dread moral scene, thy chief delight! 
Where idle Fancy durst not fix her voice. 
When Reason spoke august ; the fervent heart 
Or plain'd, or storm'd; and in the impassioned 

man. 
Concealing art with art, the poet sunk. 
This potent school of manners, but when left 
To loose neglect, a land-corrupting plague, 
Was not unworthy deem'd of public care. 
And boundless cost, by thee ; vvhose every son, 
E'en last mechanic, the true taste possess'd 
Of what had flavour to the nourish'd soul. 

' The sweet enforcer of the poet's strain, 
Thine was the meaning music of the heart. 
Not the vain trill, that, void of passion, runs 
In giddy mazes, tickling idle ears; 
But that deep-searching voice, and artful hand, 
To which respondent shakes the varied soul. ' 

' Thy fair ideas, thy deUghtful forms. 
By Love imagined, by the Graces touch'd. 
The boast of well pleased Nature ! Sculpture 

seized. 
And bade them ever smile in Parian stone. 
Selecting Beauty's choice, and that again 
Exalting, blending in a perfect whole, 
Thy workmen left e'en Nature's self behind. 
From those far different, whose prolific hand 
Peoples a nation ; they for years on years. 



' Homer. 



By the cool touches of judicious toil, 
Their rapid genius curbing, pour'd it all 
Through the live features of one breathing stone. 
There, beaming full, it shone; expressing gods: 
Jove's awful brow, Apollo's air divine, 
The fierce atrocious frown of sinewed Mars, 
Or the sly graces of the Cyiirian Clueen. 
Minutely perfect all ! Each dimple sunk; 
And every muscle swell'd, as nature taught. 
In tresses, braided gay, the marble waved ; 
Flow'd in loose robes, or tiiin transparent veils ; 
Sprung into motion ; softened into fiesh ; 
Was fired to passion, or refined to soul. 

' Nor less thy pencil, with creative touch, 
Shed mimic life, when all thy briglitest dames, 
Assembled, Zeuxis in his Helen mix'd. 
And when Apelles, who peculiar knew 
To give a grace that more than mortal smiled, 
The soul of beauty ! call'd the Gluecn of Love, 
Fresh from the billows, blushing orient charms. 
E'en such enchantment then thy pencil pour'd, - 
That cruel-thoughtcd War the impatient torch 
Dash'd to the ground ; and, rather than destroy 
The patriot picture,* let the city scape. 

" First, elder Sculpture taught her sister art 
Correct design; where great ideas shone, 
And in the secret trace expression spoke : . 
Taught her the graceful attitude ; the turn. 
And beauteous airs of head ; the native act. 
Or bold, or easy ; and, cast free behind. 
The swelling mantle's well adjusted flow. 
Then the "bright Muse, their elder sister, came; 
And bade her follow where she led the way : 
Bade fearth, and sea, and air, in colours rise ; 
And copious action on the canvass glow . 
Gave her gay Fable ; spread Inventions's store ; 
Enlarged her view.; taught composition high. 
And just arrangement, circling round one point. 
That starts to sight, binds and commands the 

whole. 
Caught from the heavenly Muse a nobler aim, 
And scorning the soft trade of mere delight, 
O'er all thy temples, porticos, and schools. 
Heroic deeds she traced, and warm display'd 
Each moral beauty to the ravish'd eye. 
There, as the imagined presence of the god 
Aroused the mind, or vacant hours induced 
Calm contemplation, or assembled youth 
Burn'd in ambitious circle round the sage, 
The living lesson stole into the heart. 
With more prevailing force than dwells in words. 
These rouse to glory ; while, to rural Ufe, 
The softer canvass oft reposed the soul. 
There gaily broke the sun-illumined qloud ; 



When Demetrius besieged Rhodes, and could have re- 
duced the city, by setting fire to that quarter of it where stood 
the house of the celebrated Protogenes; he chose rather to 
raise the siege, than hazard the burning of a famoi;s picture 
called Jasylus, the masterpiece of that painter. 



83 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



The lessening prospect, and the mountain blue, 
Vanish'd in air; the precipice frown'd, dire; 
White, down the rock, the rushing torrent dash'd; 
The sun shone, trembhng, o'er the distant main ; 
The tempest foam'd, immense ; the driving storm 
Sadden'd the skies, and, from the doubhng gloom, 
On the scathed oak the ragged lightning fell ; 
In closing shades, and where the cun'ent strays, 
With Peace, and Love, and innocence around, 
Piped the lone shepherd to his feeding flock : 
Round happy parents smiled their younger selves ; 
And friends conversed, by death divided long. 

" To public virtue thus the smiling arts, 
Unblemish'd handmaids, served; the Graces they 
To dress this fairest Verms. Thus revered, 
And placed beyond the reach of sordid care, 
The high awarders of immortal fame. 
Alone for glory thy great masters strove ; 
Courted by kings, and by contending states 
Assumed the boasted honour of their birth. 
" In architecture too thy rank supreme ! 
That art where most magnificent appears 
The little builder man ; by thee refined. 
And, smiling Mgh, to full perfection brought. 
Such thy sure rules, that Goths of every age, 
Who scorn'd their aid, have only loaded earth 
With labour'd heavy monuments of shame. 
Not those gay domes that o'er thy splendid shore 
Shot, all proportion, up. First unadorn'd, 
And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose ; 
The Ionic then, with decent matron gra<;p, 
Her airy pillar heaved ; luxuriant last, 
The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath. 
The whole so measured true, so lessen'd off 
By fine proportion, that the marble pile, 
Form'd to repel the still or stormy waste 
Of rolling ages, light as fabrics look'd 
That from the magic wand aerial rise. 

" These were the wonders that illumined 
Greece, 

From end to end" Here interrupting warm, 

"Where are they now 1 (I cried) say, goddess, 

where? 
And what the land, thy darling thus of old 1" 
" Sunk! (she resumed) deep in the kindred gloom 
Of superstition, and of slavery, sunk ! 
No glory now can touch their hearts, benimib'd 
By loose dejected sloth and servile fear: 
No science pierce the darkness of their minds; 

No nobler art the quick ambitious soul 

Of imitation in their breast awake. 

E'en to supply the needful arts of life. 

Mechanic toil denies the hopeless hand. 

Scarce any trace remaining, vestige gray, . 

Or nodding column on the desert shore. 

To point where Corinth, or where Athens stood. 

A faithless land of violence, and death ! 

Where commerce parleys, dubious, on the shore ; 

And his wild impulse curious search restrains, 



Afraid to tnist the inhospitable clime. 
Neglected nature fails ; in sordid want 
Sunk and debased, their beauty beams no moie» 
The sun himself seems, angry, to regard, 
Of light unworthy, the degenerate race; 
And fires them oft with pestilential rays: 
While earth, blue poison steaming on the skies, 
Indignant, shakes them from her troubled sides. 
But as from man to man, Fate's first decree, 
Impartial death the tide of riches rolls, 
So states must die and Liberty go round. 

'■ Fierce was the stand, ere Virtue, Valour, 
Arts, 
And the soul fired by me (that often, stung 
With thoughts of better times and old renown, 
From hydra-tyrants tried to clear the land) 
Lay quite extinct in Greece, their works effaced 
And gross o'er all unfeeling bondage spread. 
Sooner I moved my much reluctant flight. 
Poised on the doubtful wing: when Greece with 

Greece 
Embroil'd in foul contention fought no more 
For common glory, and for common weal: 
But false to Freedom, sought to quell the free; 
Broke the firm band of Peace, and sacred Love, 
That lent the whole irrefragable force; 
And, as around the partia.1 trophy blush'd, 
Prepared the way for total overthrow. 
Then to the Persian power, whose pride they 

scorn'd. 
When Xerxes pour'd his millions o'er the land, 
Sparta, by turns, and Athens, vilely sued ; 
Sued to be venal parricides, to spill 
Their country's bravest blood, and on themselves 
To turn their matchless mercenary arms. 
Peaceful in Susa, then, sat the Great King;* 
And by the trick of treaties, the still waste 
Of sly corruption, and barbaric gold, 
Effected what his steel could ne'er perform. 
Profuse he gave them the luxurious draught, 
Inflaming all the land : unbalanced wide 
Their tottering states ; their wild assemblies ruled. 
As the winds turn at every blast the seas: 
And by their listed orators, whose breath 
Still with a factious storm infested Greece, 
Roused them to civil war, or dash'd them dowii 
To sordid peace — Peace !t that, when Sparta 

shook 
Astonish'd Artaxerxes on his throne, 
Gave up, fair-spread o'er Asia's sunny shore, 
Their kindred cities to perpetual chains. 
What could so base, so infamous a thought 
In Spartan hearts inspire 1 Jealous, they saw 



' So the kings of Persia were caUed by the- Greeks. 

TThe peace made by Antalcidas, the Lacedemonian ad- 
miral, with the Persians ; by which the Lacedemonians aban- 
doned all the Greeks established in the lesser Asia, to the do- 
minion of Uie King of Persia. 



LIBERTY. 



83 



Respiring Athens* rear again her walls : 

And the pale fury fired them, once again 

To crush this rival city to the dust. 

For now no more the noble social soul 

Of Liberty my families combined ; 

But by short views, and selfish passions, broke, 

Dire as when friends are rankled into foes. 

They mix'd severe, and waged eternal war: 

Nor felt they, furious, their exhausted force ; 

Nor, with false glory, discord, madness bhnd, 

Saw how the blackening storm from Thracia came. 

Long years roU'd on,t by many a battle stain'd. 

The blush and boast of Fame ! where courage, art, 

And military glory shone supreme : 

But let detesting ages, from the scene 

Of Greece self-mangled, turn, the sickening eye. 

At last, when bleeding from a thousand wounds, 

She felt her spirits fail, and in the dust 

Her latest heroes, Nicias, Conon, lay, 

Agesilaus, and the Theban friends -.t 

The Macedonian vulture mark'd his time, 

By the dire scent of Cheronaea§ lured, 

And, fierce descending, seized his hapless prey. 

" Thus tame submitted to the victor's yoke 
Greece, once the gay, the turbulent, the bold ; 
For every grace, and muse, and science born ; 
With arts of War, of Government, elate: 
To tyrants dreadful, dreadful to the best ; 
Whom I myself could scarcely rule : and thus 
The Persian fetters, that inthrall'd the mind, 
Were turn'd to formal arid apparent chains. 
; " Uidess Corruption first deject the pride, 
And guardian vigour of the fi-ee-born soul, 
All crude attempts of violence are vain ; 
For firm within, and while at heart untouch'd. 
Ne'er yet by force was freedom overcome. 
But soon as Independence stoops the head, 
To Vice enslaved, and vice-created wants; 
Then to some foul corrupting hand, whose waste 
These heighten'd wants with fatal bounty feeds: 
From man to man the slackening ruin runs, 
Till the whole state unnerved in Slavery sinks.' 



Italy. Traasiiiiin In I'ylhagoms ami liis pliilosopliy, which 
•he taught through tluwu fee stales and cities. Amiilst the 
many small Republics iti Italy, llome the deslinotl seal of Li- 
beixy. Her establishment there dated from the expulsion of 
the Taniuins. How diilering from that in Greece. Reference 
to a view of the Roman Republic given in the First Part of 
this Poem : to mark its Rise afid Fall the peculiar purport of 
this. During its first ages, the greatest force of Liberty and 
Virtue exerted. The source whence derived the Heroic Vir- 
tues of the Romans. Enumeration of these Virtues. Thence 
their security at home ; their glory, success, <md empire 
abroad. Bounds of the Roman empire geograpliically de- 
scribed. The slates of Greece restored to Liberty, by Titus 
Quintus Flaminius, the highest instance of public generosity 
and beneficence. The loss of Liberty in Rome. Its causes^ 
progress, and completion in the deatli of Brutus. Rome under 
the emperors. From Rome the Goddess of Liberty goes 
an\ong the Nortliern Nations ; where, by infusing into them 
her Spirit and general principles, she lays the groundwork of 
her future establishments; sends them in vengeance on the 
Roman empire, now totally enslaved ; and then, with Arts 
and Sciences in her train, quits. earth during the dark ages. 
Tlie celestial regions, to which Liberty retired, not proper to 
be opened to the view of mortals. 



PART in. 

ROME. 

CONTENTS. 

As this part contains a description of the establishment of 
Liberty in Rome, it begins with a view Of the Grecian Colo- 
nies settled in the southern parts of Italy, which With Sicily 
constituted the Great Greece of the Ancients. With these co- 
lonies, the Spirit of Liberty and of Republics, spreads over 



• Athens had been dismantled by the Lacedemonians, at 
the end of the first Peloponnesian war, and was at this time 
restored by Conon to its former splendour. 

t The Peloponnesian war. 

JPelopidas and Epaminondas. 

§ The battle of Cheronsa, in which Philip of Macedon ut- 
terly defeated the Greeks. 



Here melting mixed with air the ideal forms 
That painted still whate'er the goddess sung. 
Then I, impatient. — ' From extinguish'd Greece, 
To what new region stream'd the Human Dayl' 
She softly sighing, as when Zephyr leaves, 
Resign'd to Boreas, the declining year, 
Resumed. — ' Indignant, these last scenes I fled:* 
And long ere then, Leucadia's cloudy cUff, 
And the Ceraunian hills behind me thrown, 
All Latium stood aroused. Ages before, 
Great mother of republics ! Greece had pour'd, 
Swarm after swarm, her ardent youth around. 
On Asia, Afric, Sicily, they stoop'd, 
But chief on fair Hesperia's winding shore.; 
Where, from Laciniumt to Etrurian vales, 
They roU'd increasing colonies along. 
And lent materials for my Roman reign. 
With them my spirit spread ; and numerous states, 
And cities rose, on Grecian models formed; 
As its parental policy and arts 
Each had imbibed. Besides, to each assign'd 
A guardian Genius, o'er the public weal, 
Kept an unclosing eye; tried to sustain, 
Or more sublime, the soul infused by me: 
And strong the battle rose, with .various wave, 
Against the t3'rant demons of the land. 
Thus they their little wars and triumphs knew; 
Their flows of fortune, and receding times, 
But almost all below the ■ proud regard 
Of story vow'd to Rome, on deeds intent 
That truth beyond the flight of Fable bore. 

' Not so the Samian sage ;t to him belongs 
The brightest witness of recording Fame. 
For these free states his native isle§ forsook, 



' The last struggles of Liberty in Greece. 

t A promontory in Calabria, 

t Pythagoras. 

§ Samos, over which then reigned the tyrant Polycratea. 



84 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



And a vain tyrant's transitory ernile, 

He sought Crotona's pure salubrious air; 

And through Great Greece'*' his gentle wisdom 

taught ; 
Wisdom thatcalm'd for listening yearst the mind, 
Nor ever heard amid the storm of zeal. 
His mental eye first launch'd into the deeps 
Of boundless ether; where unnmnber'd orbs, 
Myriads on myriads, through the pathless sky 
Unerring roll, and wind their steady way. 
There he the full consenting choir beheld; 
There first disccrn'd the secret band of love, 
The Idnd attraction that to central suns 
Binds circling earths, and world with world unites. 
Instructed thence, he great ideas form'd 
Of the whole-moving all-informing God, 
The Sun of beings ! beaming unconfined 
Light, life, and love, and ever active power; 
Whom nought can image, and who best approves 
The silent worship of the moral heart, 
That joys in bounteous Heaven, and spreads the 

joy- 

Nor scorn'd the soaring sage to stoop to life. 
And bound his season to the sphere of man. 
He gave the four yet reigning virtues? name ; 
Inspired the study of the finer arts, 
That civilize manlcind, and laws devised 
Where witli enlightened justice mercy mix'd. 
He e'en into his tender system, took 
Whatever shares the brotherhood of life: 
He taught that life's indissoluble flame. 
From brute to man, and man to brute again. 
For ever. shifting, runs the eternal round ; 
Thehce tried against the blood-polluted meal, 
And limbs yet quivering with some kindred soul, 
To turn the human heart. DeUghtful truth 1 
Had he beheld the living chain ascend,' ' 
And not a circhng form, but rising whole. 

' Amid these small repubUcs one arose ■ 
On yellow Tiber's bank, almighty Rome, 
Fated for me. A nobler spirit warm'd 
Her sons; and, roused by tyrants, nobler still 
It burn'd in Brutus ; the proud Tarquins chased, 
With all their crimes ; bade radiant eras rise, 
And the long honours of the Consul-line. 

' Here, from the fairer, not the greater, plan 
Of Greece I varied; whose unmixing states, 
By the keen soul of emulation pierced. 
Long waged alone the bloodless war of arts. 
And their best empire gain'd. But to diffuse 
O'er men an empire was my purpose now: 
To let my martial majesty abroad ; 
Into the vortex of one state to draw 
The whole mix'd force, and liberty, on earth; 
To conquer tyrants, and set nations free. 

' The southern parts of Italy and Sicily, so called because 
of the Grecian colonics there settled, 
t His scliolara were enjoined silence for five years. 
1 Tlic four cardinal virtues. 



'Already have I given, with flying touch, 
A broken view of this my amplest reign. 
Now, while its first, last, periods you survey, 
Mark how it labouring rose, and rapid fell. 

' When Rome, in noon-tide empire grasp'd 'the 
world, 
And, soon as her resistless legions shone, 
The nations stoop'd around; though then appeai'd 
Her grandeur most; yet in her dawn of power. 
By many a jealous equal people press'd. 
Then was the toil, the mighty struggle then; 
Then for each Roman I a hero told ; 
And every passing sun, and'Latian scene, 
Saw patriot virtues then, and awful deeds, 
That or surpass the faith of modern times, 
Or, if believed, with sacred horror strike. 

' For then to prove my most exalted power, 
I to the point of full perfection push'd, 
To fondness and enthusiastic zeal. 
The great, the reigning passion of the free. 
That godlike passion ! which, the bounds of self 
Divinely bursting, the whole public takes 
Into the heart, enlarged, and burning high 
With the mix'd aj.-dour of unntunber'd selves ; 
Of all who safe beneath the voted laws 
Of the same parent state, fraternal, live. 
From this kind sun of moral nature flow'd 
Virtues, that shme the light of humankind, 
And, ray'd through story, warm remotest time. 
These virtues too, reflected to their source. 
Increased its flame. The social charm went 

round, 
The fair idea, more attractive still, 
As more by virtue mark'd ; till Romans, all 
One band of friends, unconquerable grew. 

' Hence, when their country raised her plaintive 
voice, 
The voice of pleading Nature was not heard; 
And in their hearts the fathers throbb'd no more ; 
Stern to themselves, but gentle to the whole. 
Hence sweeten'd Pain, the luxury of toil ; 
Patience, that baffled fortune's utmost rage; 
High-minded Hope, which at the lowest ebb. 
When Brennus conquer'd, and when Cannae bled, 
The bravest impulse felt, and scorn'd despair. 
Hence Moderation a new conquest gain'd : 
As on the vanquish'd, like descending heaven, 
Their dewy mercy dropp'd, the bounty beam'd, 
And by the labouring hand were crowns bestow'd. 
Fruitful of men, hence hard laborious life, 
Which no fatigue can quell, no season pierce. 
Hence, Independence, with liis little pleased 
Serene, and self-sufficient, like a god ; 
In whom Corraption could not lodge one charm, 
While he his honest roots to gold preferr'd; 
Wliile truly rich, and by his Sabine field, 
The man maintain'd, the Roman's splendour all 
Was in the pubKc wealth and glory placed : 
Or ready, a rough swain, to guide the plough.; 



LIBERTY. 



85 



Or else, the purple o'er his shoulder thrown, 
In long majestic flow, to rule the state, 
With Wisdom's purest eye; or, clad in steel, 
To drive the steady battle on the foe. 
Hence every passion, e'en the proudest, stoop'd 
To common good: Camillus, thy revenge; 
Thy glory, Fabius. All submissive hence, 
Consuls, Dictators, still resign'd their rule, 
The very moment that the laws ordain'd. 
Though Conquest o'er them clapp'd her eagle- 
wings, ■ • .' 
Her laurels wreath'd, and yoked her snowy steeds 
To the triumphal car; soon as expired 
The latest hour of sway, taught to submit, 
(A harder lesson that than to command) 
Into the private Roman sunk the chief. 
If Rome was served, and glorious, careless they 
By whom. Their country's fame they deem'd 

their own; 
And above envy, in a rival's train. 
Sung the loud 16s by themselves deserved. 
Hence matchless courage. On Cremera's bank. 
Hence fell the Fabii; hence the Decii died; 
And Curtius plunged into the flaming gulf. 
Hence Regulus the wavering fathers flrm'd. 
By dreadful counsel never given before ; 
For Roman honour sued, and his own doom. 
Hence he sustain'd to dare a death prepared 
By Punic rage. On earth his manly look 
Relentless fix'd, he from a last embrace, 
By chains polluted, put his wife aside,- 
His little children climbing for a kiss ; 
Then dumb through rows of weeping, wondering 

friends, 
A new illustrious exile ! press'd dong. 
Nor less impatient did he pierce the crowds 
Opposing his return, than if, escaped 
From long htigious suits, he glad forsook 
The noisy town a while and city cloud 
To breathe Venafrian, or Tarentine air. 
Need I these high particulars recount 1 
The meanest bosom felt a thirst for fame ; 
Flight their worst death, and shame their only fear. 
Life had no charms, nor any terrors fate. 
When Rome and glory call'd. But, in one view, 
Mark the rare bosist of these unequal'd times. . 
Ages revolved unsullied by a crime: 
Astrea reign'd, and scarcely needed laws 
To bind a race elated with the pride 
Of virtue, and disdaining to descend 
To meanness, mutual violence, and wrongs. 
While war around them raged, in happy Rome 
All peaceful smiled, all save the passing clouds 
That often hang on Freed6m's jealous brow; 
And fair unblemish'd centuries elapsed. 
When not a Roman bled but in the field. 
Their virtue such, that an unbalanced state, 
Still between Noble and Plebeian tost, 
As flow'd the wave of fluctuating powel-, 



Was then kept firm, and with triumphant prow 
Rode out the storms. Oft though the native 

feuds. 
That from the first their constitution. shook, 
(A latent ruin, growing as it grew,) 
Stood on the threatening point of civil war 
Ready to rush : yet could the lenient voice 
Of wisdom, soothing the tumultuous soul. 
Those sons of virtue calm. Their generous hearts 
Unpetrified by self, so naked lay 
And sensible to Truth, that o'er the rage 
Of giddy faction, by oppression swell'd, 
Prevail'd a sunple fable, and at once 
To peace recover'd the divided state. 
But if their often cheated hopes refused 
The soothing touch ; still, in the love of Rome, 
The dread Dictator found a sure resource. 
Was she assaulted "? was her glory stain'd 1 
One common quarrel wide inflamed the whole. 
Foes in the forum in the field were friends. 
By social danger bound ; each fond for each, 
And for their dearest country all, to die. 

' Thus up the hill of empire slow they toil'd : 
Till, the bold summit gain'd, the thousand states 
Of proud Italia blended into one; 
Then o'er the nations they resistless rush'd, 
And touch'd the limits of the failing world. 

' Let Fancy's eye the distant lines unite. 
See that which borders wild the western main. 
Where storms at large resound, and tides im- 
mense; 
From Caledonia's dim cerulean coast. 
And moist Hibernia, to where Atlas, lodged 
Amid the restless clouds and leaning heaven, 
Hangs o'er the deep that borrows thence its name. 
Mark that opposed, where first the springing morn 
Her roses sheds, and shakes around her dews : 
From the dire deserts by the Caspian laved. 
To where the Tigris and Euprates, join'd, 
Impetuous tear the Babylonian plain; 
And bless'd Arabia aromatic breathes. 
See that dividing far the watery north. 
Parent of floods ! from the majestic Rhine, 
Drunk by Batavian meads, to where seven- 

mouth'd, 
InEuxine waves the flashing Danube roars: 
To where the frozen Tanais scarcely stirs 
The dead Meotic pool, or the long Rha,* 
In the black Scythian seat his torrent throws. 
Last, that beneath the burning zone behold : 
See where it runs, from the deep-loaded plains 
Of Mauritania to the Libyan sands. 
Where Ammon lifts amid the torrid waste 
A verdant isle, with shade and fountain fresh; 
And farther to the full Egyptian shore. 
To where the Nile from Ethiopian clouds, 



* The ancient name of the Volga. 
t'The Caspian Sea. 



86 



THOMSON'S WORKS, 



His never drain'd ethereal urn, descends. 

In this vast space what various tongues and states ! 

What bounding rocks, and mountains, floods, and 

seas ! 
What purple tyrants quell'd, and nations freedl 
' O'er Greece, descended chief, with stealth di- 
vine. 
The Roman bounty in a flood of day : 
As at her Isthmian games, a fading pomp ! 
Her full-assembled youth innumerous swarra'd. 
On a tribunal raised, Flaminius sat : 
A victor he, from the deep phalanx pierced 
Of iron-coated Macedon, and back' 
The Grecian tyrant* to his bounds repell'd. 
In the high thoughtless gaiety of game, 
While sport alone their unambitious hearts 
Possess'd; the sudden trmnpct, sounding hoarse,' 
Bade silence o'er the bright assembly reign. 
Then thus a herald : — " To the states of Greece 
The Roman people, unconfined, restore • 
Their countries, cities, liberties, and laws: 
Taxes remit, and garrisons withdraw." 
The crowd astonish'd half, and half inform'd, 
Stared dubious round; some question'd, some ex- 

claim'd, 
(Like one who dreaming, between hope and fear, 
Is lost in anxious joy,) ' Be that again, , 

Be that again proclaim'd, distinct, and loud.' 
Loud, and distinct, it was again proclaim'd ; 
And still as midnight in the rural shade, 
When the gale slumbers, they the words devour'd. 
A while severe amazement held them mute. 
Then bursting broad, the boundless shout to Hea- 
ven 
From many a thousand hearts ecstatic sprung. 
On every hand rebellow'd to their joy 
The swelling sea, 'the rocks, and vocal hills: 
Through all her turrets stately Corintht shook ; 
And, from the void above of shatter'd air. 
The flitting bird fell breathless to the ground. 
What piercing bliss, how keen a sense of fame. 
Did then, Flaminius, reach thy inmost soul ! 
And with what deep-felt glory didst thou then 
Escape the fondness of transported Greece 1 
Mix'd in a tempest of superior joy, 
They left the sports; like Tacchanals they flew. 
Each other straining in a strict embrace. 
Nor strain'd a slave ; and loud acclauns till night 
Round the Proconsul's tent repeated rung. 
Then, crowh'd with garlands, came the festive 

hours ; 
And music, sparkling wine, and converse warm, 
Their raptures waked anew. "Ye gods! (they 

cried) 
Ye guardian gods of Greece! and are we free 7 
Was it not madness deem'd the very thought 1 



' The King of Macedonia. 

1 Tiie Isthmian games were celebrated at Corinth. 



And is it true 1 How did we purchase chains 1 

At what a dire expense of kindred blood 1 

And are they now dissolved 1 And scarce one 

drop 
For the fair first of blessings have we paid 1 
Courage, and conduct, in the doubtful field, 
When rages wide the storm of minghng war, 
Are rare indeed ; but how to generous ends 
To turn success, and conquest, rarer still: 
That the great gods and Romans only know. 
Lives Ijiore on earth, ahnost to Greece unknown, 
A people so magnanimous, to quit 
Their native soil, traverse the stormy deep. 
And by their blood and treasure, spent for us, 
Redeem our states, our liberties, and laws ! 
There does! there does! Oh saviour, Titus! 

Rome!' 
Thus through the happy night they pour'd their 

souls, 
And in my last reflected beams rejoiced. 
As when the shepherd, on the mountain-brow, 
Sits piping to his flocks and gamesome kids ; 
Meantime the sun, beneath the green earth sunk, 
Slants upward o'er the scene a' parting gleam: 
Short is the glory that the mountain gilds. 
Plays on the glittering flocks, and glads the 

swain; 
To western worlds irrevocable roU'd, 
Rapid, the source of light recalls his ray.' 

Here interposing I — ' Oh, Glueen of men ! 
Beneath whose sceptre in essential rights 
Equal they live; though placed for cormnon good, 
Various, or in subjection or command; 
And that by common choice : alas ! the scene, 
With virtue, freedom, and with glory bright. 
Streams into blood, and darkens into wo." 
Thus she pursued: — " Near this great era, Rome 
Began to- feel the swift approach of fate, 
That now her vitals gain'd : still more and more 
Her deep divisions kindling into rage, 
And war with chains and desolation charged. 
From an unequal balance of her sons 
T hese fierce contentions sprung : a;nd, as increased 
This hated inequality, more fierce 
They flamed to tumult. Independence fail'd; 
Here by luxurious wants, by real there; 
And with this virtue every virtue sunk. 
As, with the sliding rock, the pile sustain'd. 
A last attempt, too late, the Gracchi made. 
To fix the flying scale, and poise the sfate. 
On one side swell'd aristocratic pride; 
With Usury, the villain! whose fell gripe 
Bends by degrees to baseness the free soul: 
And Luxury rapacious, cruel, mean, 
Mother of vice ! While on the other crept 
A populace in want, with pleasure fired ; 
Fit for proscriptions, for the darkest deeds. 
As the proud feeder bade; inconstant, blind. 
Deserting friends at need, and duped by foes : 



LIBERTY. 



87 



Loud and seditious, when a chief inspired 
Their headlong fury, but of him deprived, 
Already slaves that lick'd the scourging hand. 

" This firm repubhc, that against the blast 
Of opposition rose; that (like an oak, 
Nursed on ferocious Algidum,* whose boughs 
Still stronger shoot beneath the rigid axe,) 
By loss, by slaughter, from the steel itself. 
E'en force and spirit drew; smit with the calm, 
The dead serene of prosperous fortune, pined. 
Nought now her weighty legions could oppose ; 
Hert terror once, on Afric's tawny shore. 
Now smoked in dust, a stabling now for wolves; 
And every dreaded power received the yoke. 
Besides, destructive, from the conquer'd East, 
In the soft plunder came that worst of plagues, 
That pestilence of mind, a fever'd tliirst 
For the false joys which Luxury prepares. 
Unworthy joys ! that wasteful leave behind 
No mark of honour, in reflecting hour, 
No secret ray to glad the conscious soul; 
At once involving in one ruin wealth, 
And wealth-acquiring ptwers: while stupid self. 
Of narrow gust, and hebetating sense. 
Devour the nobler faculties of bhss. 
Hence Roman virtue slacken'd into sloth; 
Security relax'd the softening state; 
And the broad eye of govermnent lay closed. 
No more the laws inviolable reign'd. 
And pubUc weal no more : but party raged ; 
And partial power, and license unrestrain'd, 
Let Discord through the deathful city loose. 
First, mild Tiberius,t on thy sacred head 
The fury's vengeance fell ; the first, whose blood 
Had since the consuls stain'd contending Rome. 
Of precedent pernicious ! with thee bled 
Three hundred Romans; with thy brother, next. 
Three thousand more: till, into battles turn'd 
Debates of peace, and forced the trembUng laws. 
The Forum and Comitia horrid grew, 
A scene of barter'd power, or reeking gore. 
When, half-ashamed. Corruption's thievish arts. 
And ruffian force begin to sap th« momids 
And majesty of laws ; if not in time 
Repress'd severe, for human aid too strong 
The torrent turns, and overbears the whole. 

" Thus Luxmy, Dissension, amix'd rage 
Of boundless pleasure and of boundless wealth, 
Want- wishing change, and waste-repairing war. 
Rapine for ever lost to peaceful toil. 
Guilt unatoned, profuse of blood Revenge, 
Corruption all avow'd, and lawless Force, 
Each heightening each, alternate shook the state. 
Meantime Ambition, at the dazzling head 
Of hardy legions, with the laurels heap'd " 
And spoil of nations, in one circling blast 



* A town of Laiium, near Tusculum. 
t Tiberius Gracchus. 



1 Carthage. 



Combined in various storm, and from its base 

Tlie broad republic tore. By Virtue built 

It touch'd the skies, and spread o'er shelter'd earth 

An ample roof: by Virtue too sustain'd. 

And balanced .steady, every tempest sung 

Innoxious by, or by.de it firmer stand. 

But when, with sudden and enormous change, 

The first of mankind sunk into the last, 

As once in Virtue, so in Vice extreme, 

Tlris universal fabric yielded loose. 

Before Ambition still; and thundering down, 

At last, beneath its ruins crush'd a world. 

A conquering people, to themselves a prey, 

Must ever fall ; when their victorious troops, 

In blood and rapine savage grown, can find 

No land to sack and pillage but their ovm. 

" By brutal Marius, and keen Sylla, first 
Effused the deluge dire of civil blood. 
Unceasing woes began, and this, or that. 
Deep-drenching their revenge, nor virtue spared, 
Nor sex, nor age, nor quality, nor name; 
Till Rome, into a human shambles turn'd, 
Made deserts lovely, — Oh, to well earn'd chains. 
Devoted race! — If no true Roman then, 
No Scaevola there was, to raise for me 
A vengeful hand: was there no father, robb'd 
Of blooming youth to 'prop his wither'd age"? 
No son, a witness to his hoary sire 
In dust and gore defiled 1 no friend, forlorn? 
No wretch that doubtful trembled for himself? 
None brave, or wild, to pierce a monster's heart, 
Whoj heaping horror round, no more deserved 
The sacred shelter of the laws he spurii'd? 
No: — Sad o'er all profound dejection sat; 
And nerveless fear. The slave's asylum theirs: 
Or flight, ill-judging, that the timid back 
Turns weak to slaughter ; or partaken guilt. 
In vain from^ylla's vanity I drew 
An unexampled deed. The power resign'd, 
And all unhoped the commonwealth restored, 
Amazed the public, and effaced his crimes. 
Through streets yet streanung from his murderous 

hand 
Unarm'd he stray'd, unguarded, unassail'd. 
And on the bed of peace his ashes laid; 
A grace, which I to his demission gave. 
But with him died not the despotic soul. 
Ambition saw that stooping Rome could bear 
A master, nor had virtue to be free. 
Hence, for succeeding years, my troubled reign 
No certain peace, no spreadmg prospect knew. 
Destruction gather'd round. Still the black soul, 
Or of a Catiline, or RuUus,* swell'd 
With fell designs; and all the watchful art 



'■Publius Servilius RuUiis, tribune of the people, proposed 
an Agrarian Law, in appeai-ance very advantageous for the 
people, but destructive of their liberty : and which was de- 
feated by the eloquence of Cicero, in his speech against RuUus. 



88 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Of Cicero denianJcd, all the force, 
All the state-wielding magic of his tongue; 
And all the thunder of my Cato's zeal. 
With these I lingcr'd ; till the flame anew 
Burst out, in blaze immense, and wrapt the world. 
The shameful -contest sprung ; to whom mankind 
Should yield the neck : to Pompey, who conceal'd 
A rage impatient of an equal name; 
Or to the nobler Caesar, on whose brow 
O'er daring vicfe deluding virtue smiled, 
And who no less a vfdn superior scorn'd. 
Both bled, but bled in vain. New traitors rose. 
The venal will be bought, the base have lords. 
To these vile wars I left ambitious slaves; 
And from Philippi's field, from where in dust 
The last of Romans, matcliless Brutus ! lay. 
Spread to the north untamed a rapid wing. 

' What though the first smooth Ccesars arts ca- 
ress'd, 
Merit and virtue, stimulating me"? 
Severely tender ! cruelly humane ! 
The chain to clinch, and make it softer sit 
On the new-broken still ferocious state. 
From the dark Third,* succeeding, I beheld 
The imperial monsters all. — A race on earth 
Vindictive, sent the scourge of humankind I 
Whose blind profusion draiii'd a bankrupt world ; 
Whose lust to forming nature scenis disgrace; 
And whose infernal rage bade every drop 
Of ancient blood, that yet retain'd my flame, 
To that of P£etus,t in the peaceful bath. 
Or Rome's affrighted streets, inglorious flow. 
But almost just the meanly patient death, 
That waits a tyrant's unprevented stroke. 
Titus indeed gave one short evening gleam ; 
More cordial felt, as in the midst it spread 
Of storm, and horror. The delight of men ! 
He who the day, when his o'erflowing hand 
Had made no happy heart, concluded lost ; 
Trajan and he, with the mild siret and son, 
His son of virtue ! eased awhile mankind ; 
And arts revived beneath their gentle beam. 
Then was their last effort: what sculpture raised 
To Trajan's glory, following triumphs stole; 
And mix'd with Gothic forms, (the chisel's shame) 
On that triumphal arch,§ the forms of Greece. 

'Meantime o'er rocky Thrace, and the deep 
vales 
Of gelid Haemus, I pursued my flight ; 



* Tiberius. 

t Thrasea Pajtus, put to death by Nero. Tacitus introduces 
the account he ^ves of his death, thus: — 'After having in- 
humanly slaughtered so many illustrious men, he (Nero) 
burned at la.st with a desire of cutting off virtue itself in the 
person of Thrasea,' &c. 

J Antoninus Pius, and his adopted son Marcus Aurelius, 
afterwards called Antoninus Philosophus. 

§ Constantine's arch, to build which, that of Trajan was 
destroyed, sculptiure having been then almost entirely lost. 



And, piercing farthest Scythia, westward swept 
Samiatia,* traversed by a thousand streams. 
A sullen land of lakes, and fens immense. 
Of rocks, resounding torrents, gloomy heaths, 
And cruel deserts black with sounding pine ; 
Where nature frowns: though sometimes into 

smiles. 
She softens ; and immediate at the touch 
Of southern gales, throws from the sudden glebe 
Luxuriixnt pasture, and a waste of flowers. 
But, cold-compress'd, when the "whole loaded 

heaven 
Descends in snow, lost in one white abrupt, 
Lies undistinguish'd earth ; and, seized by frost 
Lakes, headlong streams, and floods, and oceans 

sleep. 
Yet there life glows ; the furry millions there 
Deep dig their dens beneath the sheltering snows : 
And there a race of men prolific swarms, 
To various pain, to little pleasure used ; 
On whom, keen-parching, beat Riphaean winds ; 
Hard Uke their soil, and like their climate fierce, 
The nursery of nations !— These I roused, 
Drove land on land, on people people pour'd; 
Till from aJmost perpetual night they broke, 
As if in search of day ; and o'er thje banks 
Of yielding empire, only slave-sustain'd. 
Resistless raged ; in vengeance urged by me. 

' Long in the barbarous heart the buried seeds 
Of Freedom lay, for many a wintry age ; 
And though my spirit work'd, by slow degrees, 
Nought but its pride and fierceness yet appear'd, 
Then was the night of time, that parted worlds. 
I quitted earth the while. As when the tribes 
Aerial, warn'd of rising winter, ride 
Autumual winds, to warmer climaltes borne; 
So, a,rts and each good genius in my train, 
I cut the closing gloom, and soar'd to Heaven. 

' In the bright regions there of purest day, 
Far other scenes, and palaces, arise, 
Adom'd profuse with other arts divine. 
All beauty here below, to them compared, 
Would, like a rose before the nudday sun, 
Shrink up its blossom; like a bubble break 
The passmg poor magnificence of kings. 
For there the King of Nature, in full blaze, 
Calls every splendour forth; and there his court, 
Amid ethereal powers, and virtues, holds ; 
Angel, archangel,. tutelary gods, . 
Of cities, nations, empires, and of worlds. 
But sacred be the veil, that kindly clouds 
A light too keen for mortals ; wraps a view 
Too softening fair, for those that here in dust 
Must cheerfiil toil out their appointed years. 
A sense of higher hfe would only damp 
The schoolboy's task, and spoil his playful hours. 



' The ancient Sarinatia contained a vast tract of country 
running all along the north of Europe and Asia. 



LIBERTY. 



80 



Nor could the child of Reason, feeble man, 
With vigour through this infant-being drudge ; 
Did brighter worlds, their uniaiagincd bliss 
Disclosing, dazzle and dissolve his mind.' 



CONTENTS. 
Difference betwixt the Ancients and Moderns slightly 
touched upon. Description of the dark ages. The Goddess 
of Liberty, who during these is supposed to have left canh, 
returns, attended widi Arts and Science. She first descends 
on Italy. Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture'fix at Rome, 
to revive their several arts by the great models, of antiquity 
ihfercj which many barbarons invasions had not been able to 
destroy. The revival of these arts marked out. That some- 
times arts may flourish for a while under despotic govern- 
ments, though never the natural and genuine production of 
them. Leai-ning begins to dawn. The Muse and Science 
attend Liberty, who in her progress towards Great Britain 
raises several free states and cities. These enumerated. Au- 
thor's exclamation of joy, upon seeing the British seas an(? 
coasts rise in the vision, which painted whatever the Goddess 
of Liberty said. She resumes her narration. The Genius of 
the Deep appears, and addressing Liberty, associates Great 
Britain into his dominioa Liberty received and congratu- 
lated by Britannia, and the Native .Genii or Virtues of the 
island. These described. Animated by the presence of Li- 
berty, they begin their operations. Their beneficent influence 
contrasted with the works and delusions of opposing Demons. 
Concludes with an abstract of the English historj', marking 
the several Advances of Liberty, down to her complete esta- 
blishment at the Revolution. 



Struck with the rising scene, thus Pamazed: 
'Ah, Goddess, what a change! is earth the 

same"? . 

Of the same kind the ruthless race she feeds 1 
And does the same fair sun and ether spread 
Round this vile spot their all-enlivening soul 1 
Lo ! beauty fails; lost in unlovely forms 
Of little pomp, magnificence no more 
Exalts the mind, and bid the public smile : 
"While to rapacious interest Glory leaves 
Mankind, and every grace of hfe is gone.' 

To this the Power, whose vital radiance calls 
From the brute mass of man an order'd world : 
' ' Wait till the morning shines, and from the 

depth 
Of Gothic darkness springs another day. 
True, Genius droops ; the tender ancient taste 
Of Beauty, then fresh blooming in her prime. 
But faintly trembles through the callous soul ; 
And Grandeur, or of morals, or of life. 
Sinks into safe pursuits, and creeping cares. 
E'en cautious Virtue seems to stoop her flight, 
And aged life to deem the generous deeds 
Of youth romantic. Yet in cooler thought 
Well reason'd, in researches piercing deep 
Through nature's works, in profitable arts, 



And all that calm Experience can disclose, 
(Slow guide, but sure,) behold the world anew 
Exalted rise, witli otlier honours crown'd ; 
And, where my Spirit wakes the finer powers, 
Athcni.in laurels still afresh shall bloom. 

' Oblivious ages pass'd ; while earth, forsook 
By her best Genii, lay to Demons foul, 
And unchain'd Furies, an abandon'd prey. 
Contention led the van ; first small of size, 
But soon dilating to the skies she towers : 
Then, wide as air, the livid Fury spread. 
And high her head above the stormy clouds, 
She blazed in omens, swell'd the groaning winds 
With wild surmises, battlings, sounds of war : 
From land to land the maddening trumpet blew, 
And pour'd her venom through the heart of man. 
Shook to the pole, the North obey'd her call. 
Forth rush'd the bloody power of Gothic war, 
War against human kind : Rapine, that led 
Millions of raging robbers in his train : 
Unlistening, barbarous Force, to whom the sword 
Is reason, honour, law: the foe of arts 
By monsters follow'd, hideous to behold, 
That claim'd their place. Outrageous mix'd with 

these 
Another species of tyrannic* rule, 
Unknown before, whose cankerous shackles seized 
The envenom'd soul ; a wilder Fury, she 
Even o'er her Elder Sistert tyrannized ; 
Or, if perchance agreed, inflamed her rage. 
Dire was her train, and loud : the sable band, 
Thundering; — " Submit, ye Laity! ye profane! 
Earth is the Lord's, and therefore ours ; let kings 
Allow the common claim, and half be theirs ; 
If not, behold I the sacred lightning flies !" 
Scholastic Discord, with a hundred tongues, 
For science uttering jangling words obscure. 
Where frighted reason never yet could dwell : 
Of peremptory feature, cleric Pride, 
Whose reddening cheek no contradiction bears; 
And holy Slander, his associate firm. 
On whom the lying Spirit still descends : 
Mother of tortures 1 persecuting Zeal, 
High flashing in her hand the ready torch, 
Or poniard iathed in unbelieving blood ; 
Hell's fiercest fiend ! of saintly bYow demure. 
Assuming a celestial seraph's name, • 
While she beneath the blasphemous pretence 
Of pleasing Parent Heaven, the Source of Love ! 
Has wrought more horrors, more detested deeds. 
Than all the rest combined. Led on by her, 
And wild of head to work her fell designs, 
Came idiot superstition ; round with ears 
Innumerous strow'd, ten thousand monkish forms 
With legends ply'd them, and with tenets, meant 
To charm or scare the simple into slaves, 



* Church power, or ecclesiastical tyranny. 
1 Civil tyranny. 



90 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



And poison reason ; gross, she swallows all, 
The most absurd believing ever most. 
Broad o'er the whole her universal night, 
The gloom still doubling, Ignorance diffused. 

' Nought to be seen, but visionary monks 
To councils strolling, and embroiling creeds ; 
Banditti Saints,* disturbing distant lands ; 
And unknown nations, wandering for a home. 
All lay reversed : the sacred arts of rule, 
* Turn'd to flagitious leagues against mankind, 
And arts of plunder more and more avow'd ; 
Pure plain Devotiont to a solemn farce; 
To holy dotage Virtue, even to a guile, 
To murder, and a mockery of oaths ; 
Brave ancient Freedom to the rage of slaves,* 
Proud of their state, and fighting for their chains ; 
Dishonour'd Courage to the bravo's trade,§ 
To civil broil ; and Glory to romance. 
Thus human life unhinged, to ruin reel'd, 
And giddy Reason totter'd on her throne. 

' At last Heaven's best inexplicable scheme, 
Disclosing, bade new brightening eras smile. 
The high command gone forth. Arts in my train, 
And azure-mantled Science: swift we spread 
A sounding pinion. Eager pity, mix'd 
With indignation, urged her downward flight. 
On Latimn first we stoop'd, for doubtful hfe 
That panted, sunk beneath unnumber'd woes. 
Ah, poor Italia ! what a bitter cup 
Of vengeance hast thou drain'd] Goths. Vandals, 

Huns, 
Lombards, barbarians broke from every land. 
How many a ruffian fonn hast thou beheld 1 
What horrid jargons heard, where rage alone 
Was all thy frighted ear could comprehend'? 
How frequent by the red inhuman hand, 
Yet warm with brother's, husband's, father's 

blood. , 

Hast thou thy maitrons and thy virgins seen 
To violation dragg'd, and mingled death'? 
What conflagrations, earthquakes, ravage, floods, 
Have turn'd thy cities into stony wilds; 
And succourless, and bare, the poor remains 
Of wretches forth to Nature's common casf? 
Added to these the still continued waste 
Of inbred foes that on thy vitals prey, II 
And, double tyrants, seize the very soul.' 
Where hadst thou treasures for this .rapine alH 
These hungry myriads, that thy bowels tore, 
Heap'd sack on sack, and buried in their rage 
Wonders of art; whence this gray scene, amine 
Of more than gold becomes and orient gems. 
Where Egypt. Greece, and Rome united glow. 

" Here Sculpture, Painting, Architecture, bent 



* Crusades. 

♦ The corruptions of the church of Rome. 

t Vassalage, whence the attachment of clana to their chief. 
§ DuelUng. || The Hierarchy. 



From ancient modcLs to restore their arts, 
Rcmain'd. A little trace we how they rose. 

' Amid the hoary ruins, Sculpture first. 
Deep digging, froni the cavern dark and damp, 
Their grave for ages, bid her marble race 
Spring to new liglit. Joy sparkled in her eyes. 
And old remembrance thrill'd in every thought, 
As she the pleasing resurrection saw. 
In leaning site, respiring from his toils, 
The well known Hero,* who deliver'd Greece, 
His ample chest, all tempested with force. 
Unconquerable rear'd. She saw the head, 
Breatliing the hero, small, of Grecian size, 
Scarce more extensive than the sinewy neck: 
The spreading shoulders, muscular and broad; 
The whole a mass of swelling sinews, touch'd 
Into harmonious shape ; she saw, and joy'd. _ 
The yellow hunter, Meleager, raised 
His beauteous front, and through the finish' d 

whole 
Shows what ideas smiled of old in Greece, 
Of raging aspect, rush'd impetuous forth 
The Gladiator :t pitiless his look, 
And each keen sinew braced, the storm of war, 
Ruffling, o'er all his nervous body frowns. 
The dying othert from the gloom she drew: 
Supported on his shortened arm he leans, 
Prone, agonizing; with incumbent fate. 
Heavy decUnes his head; yet dark beneath 
The suflering feature sullen vengeance lours. 
Shame, indignation, unaccomplish'd rage, 
And still the cheated eye expects his fall. 
All conquest-flush'd, from prostrate Python, came 
The quiver'd God.§ In graceful act he stands, 
His arm extended with the slacken'd bow: 
Light flows his easy robe, and fair displays 
A manly soften'd form. The bloom of gods 
Seems youthful o'er the beardless cheek to wave : 
His features yet heroic ardour warms; 
And sweet subsiding to a native smile, 
Mix'd with the joy elating conquest gives, 
A scatter'd frown exalts his matchless air. 
On Flora moved; her full proportion'd limbs 
Rise through the mantle fluttering in the breeze. 
The Q.ueen of Lovell arose, as from the deep 
She sprung in all the melting pomp of charms. 
Bashful she bends, her well taught look aside 
Turns in enchanting guise, where dubious mix 
Vain conscious beauty, a dissembled sense 
Of modest shame, and slippery looks of love. 
The gazer grows enamour'd, and the stone. 
As if exulting in its conquest, smiles. 
So turn'd each limb, so swell'd with softening 

art, 
That the deluded eye the marble doubts. 



• The Hercules of Farneso. 1 Fighting Gladiator. 

} Dying-Gladiator. § Apollo of Belvidere, 

U Venus of Medici. 



LIBERTY. 



91 



At last her utmost masterpiece* she found, 

That Maro fired ;t the miserable sire, 

Wrapt with his son's in fate's severest grasp : 

The serpents, twisting round, their stringent folds 

Inextricable tie. Such passion here. 

Such agonies, such bitterness of pain, 

Seem so to tremble through the tortured stone, 

That the touch'd heart engrosses all the view. 

Almost unmark'd the best proportions pass, 

That ever Greece beheld; and, seen alone, 

On the rapt eye the imperious passions seize : 

The father's double pangs, both for himself 

And sons convulsed ; to Heaven his rueful look, 

Imploring aid, and half accusing, cast; 

His fell despair with indignation mix'd. 

As the strong curling monsters from his side 

His full extended fury can not tear. 

More tender touch'd, with varied art, his sons 

All the soft rage of younger passions show. 

In a boy's helpless fate one sinks oppress'd ; 

While, yet unpierced, the frighted other tries 

His foot to steal out of the horrid twine. 

" She bore no more, but straight from Gothic 
rust 
Her chisel clear'd, and dustt and fragments drove 
Impetuous round. Successive as it went 
From son to son, with more enlivening touch. 
From the brute rock it call'd the breathing form ; 
Till, in a legislator's awful grace 
Dress'd, Buonaroti bid a MosesS rise. 
And, looking love immense, a Saviour God.§ 

' Of these observant. Painting felt the fire 
Burn inward. Then extatic she diffused 
The canvas, seized the pallet, with quick hand 
The colours brew'd ; and on the void expanse 
Her gay creation pour'd, her miniic world. 
Poor was the manner of her eldest race. 
Barren and dry; just strugghng from the taste, 
That had for ages scared in cloisters dim 
The superstitious herd ; yet glorious then 
Were deem'd their works ; where undeveloped lay 
The future wonders that enricli'd mankind. 
And a new light and grace o'er Europe cast. 
Arts gradual gather streams. Enlarging This, 
To each his portion of her various gifts 
The Goddess dealt, to none indulging all; 
No, not to Raphael. At kind distance still 
Perfection stands, like Happiness, to tempt 
The eternal chase. In elegant design. 
Improving nature: in ideas fair. 
Or great, extracted from the fine antique; 



* The group of Laocoon and his two sona, destroyed by 
two serpents. 

t See ^neid H. ver. 199—227. 

t It is reported of Michael Angelo Buonaroti, the most ce- 
lebrated master of modern sculpture, that he wrought with 
a Wnd of inspiration, or enthusiastical fury, wliich produced 
tlie elFecthere mentioned. 

§ Esteemed the two finest pieces of modern sculpture. 



In attitude, expression, airs divine; 

Her sons of n.oi)ic and Florence bore the prize. 

To those of Venice she the magic art 

Of colours melting into colours gave, 

Theirs too it was by one embracing mass 

Of light and shade, that settles round the whole, 

Or varies tremulous from part to part, 

O'er all a binding harmony to throw, 

To raise the picture, and repose the sight. 

The Lombard school*, succeeding, mingled both. 

' Meantime, dread fanes, and palaces, around, 
Rear'd the magnilic front. Music again 
Her universal language of the heart 
Renew'd ; and, rising from the plaintive vale, 
To the full concert spread, and solemn quire. . 

' E'en bigots smiled ; to their protection took 
Arts not their own, and from them bo;rrow'dpomp: 
For in a tyrant's garden these awhile 
May bloom, though Freedom be their parent soil. 

' And now confess'd, with gently growing gleam 
The morning shone, and westward stream'd its 

light. 
The Muse awoke. Not sooner on the wing 
Is the gay bird of dawn. Artless her voice. 
Untaught and wild, 3^et warbling through the woods 
Romantic lays. But as her northern course 
She, with Tier tutor Science, in my train. 
Ardent pursued, her strains more noble grew: 
While Reason drew the plan, the Heart inform'd 
The moral page, and Fancy lent it grace. 

' Rome and her circling deserts cast behind, 
I pass'd not idle to my great sojourn. 

On Arno'st fertile plain, where the rich vine 
Luxuriant o'er Etrurian mountains roves, 
Safe in the lap reposed of private bliss, 
I small republicst raised. Thrice happy they! 
Had social Freedom bound their peace, and arts, 
Instead of ruling Power, ne'er meant for them. 
Employ 'd their little cares, and saved their fate. 

' Beyond the rugged Apennines, that roll 
Far through ItaUan bounds their wavy tops, 
My path, too, I with public blessings strow'd: 
Free states and cities, where the Lombard plain. 
In spite of culture negligent and gross, 
From her deep bosom pours unbidden joys, 
And green o'er all the land a garden spreads. 

' The barren rocks thiemselves beneath my foot. 
Relenting bloom'd -on the Ligurian shore. 
Thick swarming people? there, like emmets, seized 
Amid surrounding cliffs, the scatter'd spots 
Which Nature left in her destroying rage, II 
Made their own fields, nor sighed for other lands. 



' The school of tlie Caracci. 

t The river Arno runs through Florence. 

+ The republics of Florence, Pisa, Lucca, and Sienna. 

§ The Genoese territory is reclJoned very populous ; but 
the towns and villages for the most pait lie hid among the 
Ap'penine rocks and mountains. 

According to Dr. Burnet's system of the Deluge. 



92 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



There, in white prospect from the rocky hill 
Gradual descending to the shelter'd shore, 
By me proud Genoa's marble turrets rose. 
And while my genuine spirit warm'd her sons, 
Beneath her Dorias, not unworthy, she 
Vied for the trident of the narrow seas. 
Ere Britain had yet open'd all the main. 

■ Not be the then triumphant state forgot ;♦ 
Where,t ptish'd from plunder'd earth, a remnant 

still 
Inspired by me, through the dark ages kept 
Of my old Roman flame some sparks alive: 
The seeming god-built city ! which my hand 
Deep in the bosom fix'd of wondering seas. 
Astonish'd mortals sail'd, with pleasing awe. 
Around the sea-girt walls, by Neptmae fenced, 
And down the briny street ; wkere on each hand. 
Amazing seen amid unstable waves, 
The splendid palace shines ; and rising tides. 
The green steps marking, murmur at the door. 
To this fair dueen of Adria's. stormy gulf. 
The mart of nations ! long, obedient seas 
Roll'd ail the treasure of the radiant East. 
But now no more. Than one great tyrant worse 
(Whose shared oppression lightens, as dlfFused,) 
Each subject tearing, many tyrants rose. 
The least the proudest. Join'd in dark cabal. 
They jealous, watchful, silent, and severe, 
Cast o'er the whole indissoluble chains : 
The softer shackles of luxurious ease 
They likewise added, to secure their sway. 
Thus Venice fainter shines ; and Commerce thus, 
Of toil impatient, flags the drooping sail. 
Bursting, besides, his ancient bounds, he took 
A larger circle :t found another seat,§ 
Opening a thousand ports, and, charm'd with toil. 
Whom nothing can dismay, far other sons. 
' ' The mountain then, clad with eternal snow, 
Confess'd my power. Deep as the rampant rocks. 
By Nature thrown insuperable round, 
1 planted there a league of friendly states, II 
And bade plain Freedom there ambition be. 
There in the vale, where rural plenty fills. 
From lakes, and meads, and furrow'd fields, her 

horn. 
Chief, IT where the Leman pure emits the Rhone, 
Rare to be seen ! unguilty cities rise. 
Cities of brothers forra'd : while equal life. 



* Venice was the most flourisliing city in Europe, with re- 
gardlo trade before the passage to the East Indies by the Cape 
of Good Hope and America was discovered. 

t Those who fled to some marshes in the Adriatic gulf, 
from the desolation spread over Italy by an irruption of the 
Huns, first founded there this famous city, about the begin- 
ning of the fifth century. 

J The Main Ocean. § Great Britain. 

j Swiss Cantons. 

^ Geneva, situated on Lacus Lemanus, a small state, but 
noble example of the blessings of civil and religious liberty. 



Accorded gracious with revolving power. 
Maintains them free ; and, in their happy streets, 
Nor cruel deed, nor misery, is known. 
For valour, faith, and innocence of life, 
Renown'd, a rough, laborious people, there, 
Not only give the dreadful Alps to smile. 
And press their culture on retiring snows ; 
But, to firm order train'd and patient war. 
They hkewise know, beyond the nerve remiss 
Of mercenary force; how to defend 
The tasteful little their hard toil has earn'd, 
And the proud arm of Bourbon to defy. 

' E'en, cheer'd by me, their shaggy mountains 
charm. 
More than or Gallic or Italian plains; 
And sickening Fancy oft, when absent long. 
Pines* to behold their Alpine views again; 
The hollow-winding stream: the vale, "fair spread 
Amid an amphitheatre of hills ; 
Whence, vapour-wing 'd, the sudden tempest . 

springs: 
From steep to steep ascending, the, gay train 
Of fogs, thick-roU'd into romantic shapes: 
The flitting cloud, against the summit dash'd; 
And, by the sun illumined, pouring bright 
A gemmy shower ; hung 6'cr amazing rocks. 
The mountain ash, and solemn sounding pine : 
The snow-fed torrent, in white mazes tost, 
Down to the clear ethereal lake below : 
And, high o'ertopping all the broken scene, 
The mountain fading into sky ; where shines 
On winter, winter shivering, and whose top 
Licks from their cloudy magazine the snows. 

' From- these descending, as I waved my course 
O'er vast Germania, the ferocious nurse 
Of hardy men, and hearts affronting death, 
I gave some favour'd citiest there to lift 
A nobler brow, and through their swarming streets, 
More busy, wealthy, cheerful, and alive, 
In each contented face to look my soul. 

' Thence the loud Baltic passing, black with 
storm. 
To wintry Scandanavia's utmost bound ; 
There, I the manly race,t the parent hive 
Of the mix'd kingdoms, form'd into a state 
More regularly free. By keener air 
Their genius purged, and temper'd hard by frost, 
Tempest and toil their nerves, the sons of those 
Whose§ only terror was a bloodless death. 
They wise and dauntless, still sustain my cause. 
Yet there I fix'd not. Turning to the south. 
The whispering zephyrs sigh'd at my delay.' 

Here, vriith the shifted vision, burst my joy :— 



* The Swiss, after having been long absent from their na- 
tive country, are seized with such a violent desire of seeing it 
again, as affects them with akind of languishing indisposition, 
caUed the Swiss-sickness. 

1 The Hans Towns. * The Swedes. § See note 4 p. gg. 



LIBERTY. 



93 



' O the, dear prospect ! O majestic view ! 
See Britain's empire! lo! the watery vast 
Wide v^'aves, diffusing the cerulean plain. 
And now, methinks, like clouds at distance seen, 
Emerging white from deeps of ether, dawn 
My kindred cliffs, whence, wafted in the gale, 
Ineffable, a secret sweetness breathes. 
Goddess, forgive ! — My heart, surprised, o'erflows 
With filial fondness for the land you bless.' 
As parents to a child complacent deign 
Approvance, the celestial brightness smiled; 
, Then thiis — ' As o'er the wave resounding deep, 
To my near reign, the happy isle, I stcer'd 
With easy wing; behold! from surge to surge, 
Stalk'd the tremendous Genius of the Deep. 
Around him clouds, in mingled tempest, hung ; 
Thick flashing meteors crown'd his starry head ; 
And ready thunder redden'd in his hand. 
Or from it stream'd compress'd the gloomy cloud. 
Where'er he look'd, the- trembling waves recoil'd. 
He need? but strike the conscious flood, and shook 
From shore to shore in agitation dire, 
It works Jiis dreadful will. To me his voice 
(Like that hoarse blast that round the cavern howls, 
Mix'd with the murmurs of the falling main,) 
Address'd, began — " By Fate commission'd, go, 
My Sister-Goddess now, to yon bless'd isle, 
Henceforth the partner of my rough domain. 
All my dread walks to Britons open lie. 
Those that refulgent, or with rosy morn. 
Or yellow evening, flame ; those that, profuse. 
Drunk by equator suns, severely shine ; 
Or those that, to the poles approaching, rise 
In billows rolling into Alps of ice. 
E'en, yet untouch'd by daring keel, be theirs • 
The vast Pacific; that on other worlds. 
Their future conquest, rolls resounding tides. 
Long I maintain'd imiolate my reign; 
Nor Alexanders me, nor Cfesars braved. 
Still, in the crook of shore, the coward sail 
Till now low crept ; and peddling commerce ply'd 
Between near joining lands. For Britons, chief, 
It was reserved, with star-directed prow, 
To dare the middle deep, and drive assured 
To distant nations through the pathless main. 
Chief, for their fearless hearts the glory waits. 
Long months from land, while the. black stormy 

night 
Around them rages, on the groaning mast 
With unshook knee to know their giddy way ; 
To sing, unquell'd, amid the lashing wave; 
To laugh at danger. Theirs the triumph be. 
By deep Invention's keen pervading eye, 
The heart of Courage, and the hand of Toil, 
Each conquer'd ocean staining with their blood, 
Instead of treasure robb'd by ruffian war. 
Round social earth to circle fair exchange, 
And bind the nations in a golden chain. 
To these I honour'd stoop. Rushing to Ught 
I 



A race of men behold! whose daring deeds 
Will in renown exalt my nameless plains 
O'er tho.se of fabling earth, as hers to mine 
In terror yiclt^ Nay, could my savage heart 
Such glories check, their unsubmitting soul 
Would all my fury brave, my tempest climb. 
And might in spite of me my kingdom force." 
Here, waiting no reply, the shadowy power 
Eased the dark sky, and to the deeps return'd : 
While the loud thunder rattling from his hand, 
Auspicious, shook opponent Gallia's shore. 

' Of this encounter glad, my way to land 
I quick pursued, that from the smiling sea 
Received me joyous. Loud acclaims were heard ; 
And music, more than mortal, warbling, fiU'd 
With pleased astonishment the -labouring hind, 
Who for a while the unfinish'd furrow left, 
And let the listening steer forget his toil. 
Unseen by grosser eye, Britannia breathed. 
And her aerial train, these sounds of joy. 
For of old time, since first the rushing flood, 
Urged by almighty power, this favour'd isle 
Turn'd flashing from the continent aside, 
Indented shore to shore responsive still. 
Its guardian she — the Goddess, whose staid eye 
Beams the dark azure of the doubtful dawn. 
Her tresses, like a flood of soften'd light 
Through clouds inxbrown'd, in waving circles play. 
Warm on her cheek sits Beauty's brightest rose, 
Of high demeanour, stately, shedding grace 
With every motion. Full her rising chest; 
And new ideas, from her finish'd shape, 
Charm'd Sculpture taking might improve her art. 
Such the fair Guardian of an isle that boasts. 
Profuse as vernal blooms, the fairest dames. 
High shining on the promontory's brow. 
Awaiting me, she stood ; with hope inflamed. 
By my mixed spirit burning in her sons. 
To firm, to polish, and exalt the state. 

' The native Genii, round her, radiant smiled. 
C6urage, of soft deportment, aspect calm, 
Unboastful, suffering long, and, till provoked, 
As mild and harmless as the sporting child ; 
But, on just reason, once his fury roused. 
No lion springs more eager to his prey : 
Blood is a pastime ; and his heart, elate. 
Knows no depressing fear. That Virtue known 
By the relenting look, whose equal heart 
For others feels, as for another self; 
Of various name, as various objects wake. 
Warm into action, the kind sense within : 
Whether the blameless poor, the nobly maim'd, 
The lost to reason, the declined in life. 
The helpless young that kiss no mother's hand. 
And the gray second infancy of age, 
She gives in public famihes to live, 
A sight to gladden Heaven ! whether she stands 
Fair beckoning at the hospitable gate, 
And bids the stranger take repose and joy : 



94 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Whether, to solace honest labour, she 
Rejoices those that make the land rejoice: 
Or whether to Philosophy, and Arts, 
(At once the basis and the finish'd pride 
Of government and Ufe) she spreads her hand ; 
Nor knows her gift profuse, nor seems to know. 
Doubling her bounty, that she gives at all. 
Justice to these her awful presence join'd. 
The mother of the state ! no low revenge. 
No turbid passions in her breast ferment : 
Tender, serene, compassionate of vice, 
As the last wo that can aiHict mankind. 
She punishment awards; yet of the good 
More piteous still, and of the suffering whole, 
Awards it firm. So fair her just decree. 
That, in his judging peers, each on himself 
Pronounces his own doom. O happy land ! 
Where reigns alone this justice of the free ! 
Mid the bright group Sincerity his front, 
Diffusive, rear'd ; his pure untroubled eye 
The fount of truth. The thoughtful Power, apart, 
Now, pensive, cast on earth his fix'd regard, 
Now, touch'd celestial, launch'd it on the sky. 
The Genius he vyhence Britain shines supreme, 
The land of light, and rectitude of mind. 
He, too, the fire of fancy feeds intense. 
With all the train of passions thence derived : 
Not kindling quick, a noisy transient blaze. 
But gradual, silent, lasting, and profound. 
Near him Retirement, pointing to the shade, 
And Independence stood: the generous pair, 
That simple. life, the quiet- whispering grove, 
And the still raptures of the free-born soul. 
To cates prefer by Virtue brought, not earn'd, 
Proudly prefer them to the servile pomp, , 
And to the heart-embitter'd joys of slaves. 
Or should the latter, to the public scene 
Demanded, quit his' silvan friend awhile ; 
Nought can his firmness shake, nothing seduce 
His zeal, still active for the commonweal; 
Nor stormy tyrants, nor corruption's tools. 
Foul ministers, dark- working by the force 
Of seci'et-sapping gold. All their vile arts, 
Their shameful honours, their perfidious gifts, 
He greatly scorns; and, if he must betray 
His plunder'd country, or his power resign, 
A moment's parley were eternal shame: 
Illustrious into private life again, 
From dirty levees, he unstain'd ascends. 
And firm in senates stands the pij,triot's ground. 
Or draws new vigour in the peaceful shade. 
Aloof the bashful virtue hover'd coy, 
Proving by sweet distrust distrusted worth. 
Rough Labour closed the train : and in his hand 
Rude, callous, sinew-swell'd, and lilack with toil, 
Came manly Indignation. Sour he seems. 
And more than seems, by lawless pride assail'd ; 
Yet kind at heart, and just, and generous, there 
No vengeance lurks, no pale insidious gall : 



Even in the very luxury of rage, . 

He softening can forgive a gallant foe ; 

The nerve, support, and glory of the lan3 

Nor be Religion, rational and fi-ee, 

Here pass'd in silence ; whose enraptured eye 

Sees Heaven with earth connected, human things 

Link'd to divine : wlio not from servile fear. 

By rights for some weak tyrant incense fit, 

The God of Love adores, but from a heart 

Effusing gladness, into pleasing awe 

That now astonish'd swells, now in a calm 

Of fearless confidence that smiles serene; 

That lives devotion, one continual hymn. 

And then most grateful, when Heaven's bounty 

most 
Is right- enjoy'd. This ever cheerful Power 
O'er the raised circle ray'd superior day. 

' I joy'd to join the Virtues, whence my reign 
O'er Albion was to rise. Each cheering each, 
And, like the circling planets from the sun. 
All borrowing beams from me, a heighten'd zeal 
Impatient fired us to commence our toils. 
Or pleasures rather. Long the pungent time 
Pass'd not in mutual hails; but, through the land 
Darting our light, we shone the fogs away. 

' The Virtues conquer with a single look. 
Such grace, such beauty, such victorious light, 
Live in their presence, stream in every glance. 
That the soul won, enamour'd, and refined. 
Grows their own image, pure ethereal flame. 
Hence the foul Demons, that oppose our reign, 
Would still from us deluded mortals wrap ; 
Or in gross shades they drown the visual ray, 
Or by the fogs of prejudice, where mix 
Falsehood and truth confounded, foil the sense 
With vain refracted images of bhss. 
But chief around the court of flatter'd kings 
They roll the dusky rampart, wall o'er wall 
Of darkest pile, and with their thickest shade 
Secure the throne. No savage Alp, the den 
Of wolves, and bears, and monstrous things, ob- 
scene. 
That vex the swain, and vi'aste the country round, 
Protected lies beneath a deeper cloud. 
Yet there we sometimes send a searching ray, 
As, at the sacred opening of the morn. 
The prowling race retire ; so, pierced severe, 
Before our potent blaze these Demons fly. 

And all their works dissolve the whisper'd tale, 

That, like the fabling Nile, no fountain knows. 
Fair-faced Deceit, whose wily conscious eye 
Ne'er looks direct. The tongue that hcks the dust, 
But, when it safely dares, as prompt to sting : 
Smooth crocodile Destruction, whose fell tears 
Ensnare. The Janus-face of courtly Pride; 
One to superiors heaves submissive eyes, 
On hapless worth the other scowls disdain : 
Cheeks that for some weak tenderness, alone, 
Some virtuous slip can wear a blush. The laugh 



LIBERTY. 



95 



Profane, when midnight bowls disclose the heart, 
At starving Virtue, and at Virtue's fools. 
.Determined to be broke, the plighted faith; 
JNay more, the godless oath, that kaiows no tics. 
Soft-buzzing Slander; silky moths, that cat 
'An honest name. The harpy hand, and maw. 
Of avaricious Luxury; who makes 
The throne his shelter, venal-laws liis fort, 
And, his service, who betrays his king. 

' Now turn your view, and mark from Celtic* 
night ' 

To present grandeur how my Britain rose. 

'Bold were those Britons, who, the careless sons 
Of Nature, roam'd the forest-bounds, at once 
Their verdant city, high-embowering fane, 
And the gay circle of their woodland wars : 
For by the Druidt taught, that death but shifts 
■The vital scene, they that prime fear despised; 
And, prone to rush on steel, disdain'd to spare 
An ill saved life that riiust again return. 
Erect from Nature's hand; by tyrant force, 
And stiil more tyrant custom, unsubdued, 
~Man knows no master save creatmg Heaven, 
Or siich as choice and common good ordain. 
This general sense, with which the nations I 
Promiscuous fire, in Britons burn'd intense. 
Of future times prophetic. Witile^s, Rome, 
Who saw'st thy Caesar, from the naked land, 
Whose only fort was British hearts, repell'd. 
To seek Pharsalian wreaths. Witness, the toil. 
The blood of ages, bootless to secm-e. 
Beneath an empire'st yoke, a stubborn isle. 
Disputed hard, and never quite subdued. 
The ]North§ remain'd untouch'd, where those who 

scorn'd 
To stoop retired; and, to their keen effort 
Yielding at last, recoil'd the Roman power. 
In vain, imable to sustain the shock, 
'From sea to sea desponding legions raised 
The wall inunense,ll and yet, on summer's eve, 
While sport Ms lambkinS round, the shepherd's 

■gaze. ' ■.'■ • . . •. .".' ■ 

Continual o'er it burst the northern storm,ir 
As often, check'd, receded; threate;iing hoarse 
A swift return. But the devouring flood 
No more endured control, when, to support 
The last remains of empire,** was recall'd 



. * Great Britain was peopled by the Celtee or Gauls. ■ 

t The Druids, among the ancient Gauls and Britons,, had 
the care and dii'ection of aH rejigiotis matters. 

I The Roman empire. , . '. 

§ Caledonia, inhabited by the Scots and Picts; whither a 
great many Britons, wh9 would not submit to the Romans, 
retired. ' ' . 

. llThe wall of Severus, built upon Adrian's rampart, which 
ranfor eighty miles quite across the country, from the mouth 
of the Tyne to Solway Frith. 

IT Irruptions of the Scots and Picts. 

* ' The Roman empire being miserably torn by the northern 
35 



The weary Roman, and the Briton lay 
Unnerved, exhausted, spiritless, and sunk. 
Great proof! how men enfeeble into slaves. 
The sword* behind him (lash'd; before him roar'd, 
Deaf to his woes, the dec[). Forlorn, around 
He roll'd his eye, not sparkling ardent flame, 
As when Caractacust to battle led 
Silurian swains, and Boadiccat taught 
Her raging troops the miseries ofslav.es. 
' Then (sad relief!) from the. bleak coast, that 
hears , . 

The German ocean roar, dccp-blooming, strong, 
And yellow-hair'd, the blue-eyed Saxon came. 
He came implored, but came with other aim 
Than to protect : for conquest and defence 
SufRoes the same arm. With the fierce race 
Pour'd in a fresh invigoralmg stream, 
Blood, where unquell'd a mighty spirit glow'd. 
Rash war, and perilous battle, their delight; 
And immature, and red with glorious wounds, 
Unpeaceful death their choice : deriving thence 
A right to feast, and drain immortal bowls, . 
In Odin's hall ;§ whose blazing roof resounds 
The genial uproar of those shades, who fall 
In desperate fight, or by some brave attempt; 
And though more polish'd tunes, the martial creed 
Disown, yet still the fearless habit lives. ■ 
Nor were the surly gifts of war their all. 
Wisdom was likewise theirs,, indulgent laws. 
The calm gradations of art-nursing peace, 
And matchless orders, the deep basis still 



nations, Britain was foi- ever abandoned by the Romans in the 
year 426 or 427. 

' The Britons applying to Mlius the Roman general for as- 
sistance, tlrus expressed their miserable condition: — "We 
know not which way to turn us. The Barbarians drive us to 
sea, and the sea forces us back to the Barbarians; between 
which we have only the choice of two deaths, either to be 
swallowed up by the waves, or butchered by the sword:" 

t King of the Silures, famous for his great exploits, and ac- 
counted the best general Great Britain had ever produced. 
The Silures were esteemed the bravest and meet powerful 
of all the Britons: they inhabited Herefordshire, Radnorshire, 
Brecknockshire, Monmoutlishire, and Glamorganshire. 

{Queen of the Iceni. 

§ It is certain, that an opinion was fixed and general among 
them (die Goths) that death was but the entrance into another 
life ; that all men who lived lazy and unactive lives, and died 
natural deaths, by sickness or by age, went into vast caves im- 
der ground,, all dark and iriiry, full of noisome creattures usual 
to such places, and there for ever groveled in endlesg' stenct 
and misery. On. the contrary, all who gave themselves to 
warlike actions and enterprises, to the conquest of their neigh- . 
"botjrs and the slaughter of their enemies, and died in battle, 
or of violent deaths upon bold adventures or resolutions, went 
immetliately to the vast hall or palace of Odin, their god of 
war, who eternally kept open house for all such guests, where 
they were entertained at injSjiite tables, in perpetual feasts and 
mirth, carousing in bowls made of the skulls of their enemies 
they had slain ; according to the number of whom, every one 
in these mansions of pleasure was the ^nost honom'ed and best 
entertained. ■ • > . • 

Sir Wiltiam Temples Essay on Heroic Virtue. 



96 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



On which ascends my British reign. Untamed 
To the refining subtleties of slaves, 
They brought a happy government along ; 
Form'd by that freedom, which with secret voice. 
Impartial Nature teaches all her sons, 
And which of old through the whole Scythian mass 
I strong inspired. Monarchical their state, 
But prudently confined, and mingled wise 
Of each harmonious power : only, too much, " 
Imperious war into their rule infused, 
Prevail'd their GeneraHiing, and Chieftain- 
Thanes. 

' In many a field, by civil fury stain'd, 
Bled the discordant Heptarchy;* and long 
(Educing good from ill) the battle groan'd ; 
Ere, blood-cemented, Anglo-Saxon saw 
Egbertt and Peace on one united throne. 

'No sooner dawn'dthe fair disclosing calm 
Of brighter days, when lo ! the North anew, 
With stormy nations black, on England pour'd 
Woes the severest e'er a people felt. 
The Danish Raven,t lured by annual prey. 
Hung 6'er the land incessant. Fleet on fleet 
Of barbarous pirates unremitting tofe 
The miserable coast. Before them stalk'd. 
Far seen, the Demon of devouring Flame ; 
Rapine, and Murder, all with blood besmear'd. 
Without or ear, or eye, or feeling heart; 
While close behind them march'd the sallow 

Power 
Of desolating Famine, who delights 
In grass-grown cities, and in desert fields ; 
And purple-spotted PestUence, by whom 
E'en Friendship scared, in sickening horror sinks 
Each social sense and tenderness of life. 
Fixing at last, the sanguinary race, 
Spread, from the Humber's loud resounding shore 
To where the Thames devolves his gentle maze, 
And with superior arm the Saxon awed. 
But Superstition first, and monkish dreams, 
And monk-directed cloister-seeking kings, 
Had eat away his vigour, eat away 
His edge of Courage, and depress'd the soul 
Of conquering Freedom, which he once respired. 
Thus cruel ages pass'd ; and rare appear'd 
White-mantled Peace, exulting o'er the vale. 
As when, with Alfred,§ from the wilds she came 



• The seven kingdoms of the Anglo- Saxons, considered as 
being united into one common government, under a general 
in chief or monarch, and by the means of an assembly gene. 
ral, or wittenagemot. 

t Egbert, King of Wessex, Who, after having reduced all the 
other kingdoms of the Heptarcljy under his dominion, was 
the first king of England. 

t A famous Danish standard was called Reafan, or Raven. 
The Danes imagined that, before a battle, the Raven wrought 
upon this standard clapt its wings or hung down its head, in 
token of victory or defeat. 

i Alfred the Great, renowned in war and no less famous 



To policed cities and protected plains. 
Thus by degrees the Saxon empire sunk,' 
Then set entire in Hastings'* bloody field. ■ 

" Compendious war! (on Britain's glory bent, 
So fate ordain'd) in that decisive day, " 
The haughty Norman seized at once an isle. 
For which, through many a century, in vain. 
The Roman, Saxon, Dane, had toil'd and bled. 
Of Gothic nations this the final burst; 
And, mix'd the genius of these people all. 
Their virtues mix'd in one exalted stream, 
Here the rich tide of English blood grew full. 

' Awhile my Spirit slept ; the land awhile, 
Affrighted, droop'd beneath despotic rage. 
Instead of Edward' st equal gentle laws,. 
The furious victor's partial will prevail'd. 
All prostrate lay ; and, in the secret shade. 
Deep stung but fearful Indignation gnash'd 
His teeth. Of freedom, property, despoil'd, 
And of their bulwark, arms ; with castles crush'd, 
With ruflSans quarter'd o'er the bridled land ; 
The shivering wretches, at the curfewt sound, 
Dejected shrunk into their sordid beds. 
And, through the mournful gloom of ancient times 
Mused sad, or dreamt of better. E'en to feed 
A tyrant's idle sport the peasant- starved : 
To the wild herd, the pasture of the tame, 
The cheerftd hamlet, spiry town, w!S,s given, 
And the brown forest§ roughen'd wide around. 

' But this so dead, so vile submission, long 
Endured not. Gathering force, my gradual flame 
Shook off the mountain of tyrannic sway. 
Unused to bend, impatient of Control, 
Tyrants themselves the common tyrant check'd. 
The Church, by kings intractable and fierce, 
Denied her portion of the plunder'd state. 
Or tempted, by the timorous and iveak. 
To gain new ground, first taught their rapine law. 
The Barons nest a nobler league began. 
Both those of English and of Norman race, 
In one fraternal nation blended now. 
The nation of the Free! piriess'd by a bandli 



in peace for his many excellent institutions, particularly that 
of juries. 

' The battle of Hastings, in which Harold H. the last of the 
Saxon kings, was slain, and WiUiaha the Conqueror made 
himself master of England. 

t Edward in, the Confessor, who reduced, the West Saxon, 
Mercian, and Danish laws into one body ; which from that 
time became common to all England, under the name of 
"The Laws of Edward." 

I The Curfew-Bell (from the French Couvrefeu) which 
was rung every night at eiglit of the clock, to warn the Eng- 
lish to put out their fires and candles, under the penalty of a 
severe fine. ..' 

§ Tlie New Forest in Hampshire; to make which, the 
country for above thirty miles in compass was laid waste. 

II On the 5th of June, 1215, King John, met by tlie Barons on 
Runnemede, signed the Great Charter of Libciiies, or Magna 
Charta. • 



«;■ 



LIBERTY. 



97 



Of Patriots, ardent as the summer's noon 
That looks deUghted on, the tyrant see] 
Mark I how with feign'd alacrity he boars 
His strong reluctance cfown, his dark revenge, 
And gives the Charter, by wliich life indeed 
Becomes of price, a glory to be taan. 

' Through this, and through succeeding reigns 
affirm'd . 
These long-contested rights, the wholesome winds 
Of Opposition* hence began to blow, 
And often since have lent the country life. 
Before their breath Corruption's inscct-bUghts, 
The darkening clouds of evil counsel fly ; 
Or should they sounding swell a putrid court, 
A pestilential ministry, they purge, 
And ventilated states renew their bloom. 
' Though with the temper'd Monarchy here 
mix'd . • 
Aristocratic sway, the People still, 
Flatter'd by this or that, as interest lean'd. 
No full protection knew. For me reserved, 
And for my Commons, was that glorious turn. 
They crown'd my first attempt, in senatest rose 
The fort of Freedom! Slow till then, alone, 
Had work'd that general liberty, that soul 
Which generous nature breathes, and which, 

when left , 
By me to bondage, was corrupted Rome, 
I through the northern nations wide diffused. 
Hence, many a people, fierce v^ith freedom, rush'd 
From the rude iron regions, of the Worth, 
To Libyan desefts swarm protruding swarm. 
And pour'd new spirit through a slavish world. 
Yet o'er these Gothic states, the King and Chiefs 
Retained the high prerogative of war, 
And with enormous property engross'd 
The mingled power. But on Britannia's shore 
Now present, I to raise my reign began 
By raisiiig the Democracy, the tliird 
And broadest bulwark of the guarded state. 
. Then was the full the perfect plan disclosed 
Of Britain's matchless constitution, mix'd 
Of mutual checking and supporting powers, 
King, Lords, and Commons ; nor the name of free 
Deserving, while the vassal-many droop'd: 



* The league formed by the Barons, during the. reign of 
John, in the year 1213, was the first coniederacy made in 
England in defence of the nation's interest against the king. 

§ The Commons are generally thought to have been first 
represented in ParKament towards the end of Henry the 
Third's reign. To a Parhament called in the. year 1264, each 
county was ordered to send four knights, as representatives 
of their respective shires : and to a parliament called in the 
year following, each county was ordered to send, as their re- 
presentatives, two tnights, and each city and borough as 
many citizens and burgesses., TiU then, history makes no 
mention of them ; whence a very strong argument may be 
drawn, to fix the original of the House of Conunons to that 



For since the moment of the whole they form. 
So, as deprcss'd or raised, the balance they 
Of puljhc welfare and of glory cast. 
Mark from this period the continual proof 

' When Kings of narrow genius, minion-rid, 
Neglecting faithful worth for fawning slaves; 
Proudly regardless of their people's plaints, 
And poorly passive of insulting foes; 
Double, not prudent, obstinate, not firm, 
Their mercy fear, necessity their faith; 
Instead of generous fire, presumptuous, hot, . ■ 
Rash to resolve, and slothful to perform; 
Tyrants at once and slaves, iinperious, mean 
To want rapacious joining shameful waste ; 
By counsels weak and wicked, easy roused 
To paltry schemes of absolute command. 
To seek their splendour in their sure disgrace, 
And in a broken ruin'd people wealth: 
When such o'ercast tlie state, no bond or love, 
No heart, no soul, no unity, no nerve. 
Combined the loose disjointed public, lost 
To fame abroad, to happiness at home. 

' But when an Edward* and a Henryt breathed 
Through the charm 'd whole one all-exerting soul: 
Drawn sympathetic from his dark retreat. 
When wide-attracted merit round fhera glow'd : 
Then counsels just, extensive, generous, firm, 
Amid the maze of state, determined kept 
Some ruling point in view: when, on the stock 
Of public good "and glory grafted, spread 
Their palms, their laurels: or. if thence they stray'd, 
Svpift to return, and patient of restraint : 
When regal state, pre-eminence of place. 
They scorn'd to deem pre-eminence of ease, 
To be luxurious drones, that only rob 
The busy hive: as in distinction, power, 
Indulgence, .honour, and- advantage, first; 
When they too claim'd in virtue, danger, toil, 
Superior rank; with equal hand. prepared 
To guard the subject, and to quell the foe: 
When such with me their vital influence shed, 
No mutter'd ^ievance, hopeless sigh, was heard; 
No foul distrust through wary senates ran, 
Confined their bounty, and their ardour quench'd: 
On aid, imquestion'd liberal aid was given : 
Safe in their conduct, by their valour fired. 
Fond where they led victorious armies rush'd ; 
And Cressy, Poitiers, Agincourtt proclaim 
What Kings supported by almighty Love, 
And People fired with Liberty, can do. 

' Be veil'd the savage "reigns,§ when kindred rage 
The numerous once Plantagenets devour'd, 
A race to vengeance vow'd ! and, when oppress'd 
By private feuds, almost extingiiish'd lay 



•Edward in. . . 't Henry V._ 

t The famous batfles gained by the EngUsh over the French, 
§ During the civil wars betwixt the families of York and 
Lancaster. 



98 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



My quivering flame. But, in the next, behold ! 
A cautious tyrant* lend it oil anew. 

Proud, dark, suspicious, brooding o'er his gold, 
As how to fix his throne he jealous cast 
His crafty views around; pierced with a ray, 
Which on his timid mind I darted full, 
He mark'd the Barons of excessive sway. 
At pleasure making and unmaking kings ;t 
And hence to crush these petty tyrants, plaim'd. 
A laWjt that let them by the silent waste 
Of luxury, their landed wealth diffuse, 
And with that wealth their implicated power; 
By soft degrees a mighty change ensued,' 
E'en working to this day. With streams, deduced 
From these diminish'd floods, the country smiled. 
As when impetuous from the snow-heap'd Alps, 
To vernal suns relenting, pours the Rhine ; 
While, undivided, oft, with wasteful sweep. 
He foams along; but through Batavian meads, 
Branch'd into fair canals, indulgent flows ; 
Waters a thousand fields; and culture, trade, 
Towns, irieadows, ghding ships, und villas mix'd, 
A rich, a wondrous landscape rises round. 
His furious son,§ the soul enslaving chain, 1 1 
Which many a doting venerable age 
Had link by link strong twisted roufld the land, 
Shook off. No longer could be borne a power, 
From Heaven pretended, to deceive, to void 
Each solemn tie, to plunder vsdthout bounds. 
To curb the generous soul, to fool •mankind; 
And, wild at last, to plunge into a sea 
Of blood and horror. The returning light. 
That first through WickUfflT streak'd the priestly 

gloom. 
Now burst in open day. Bared to the blaze. 
Forth from the haunts of Superstition** crawled 
Her motley sons, fantastic figures all ; 
And, wide dispersed, their useless fetid wealth 
In graceful labour bloom'd, and fruits of peace. 
• ' Trade, join'd to these, on every sea display'd 
A darmg canvass, pour'd with every tide 
A golden flood. From other worldstt were roU'd 
The guilty glittering stores, whose fatal charms. 
By the plain Indian happily despised. 
Yet work'd his wo ; and to the blissful groves, 
WTiere Nature lived herself among her sons. 
And Innocence and Joy for ever dwelt, 
Drew rage unknown to pagan climes before. 



• Henry VII. 

t The famous Earl of Wfirwick, during tlio reigns of Henry 
VI. and Edward IV. wa'j called the ' King Maker.' 

t Permiuing ihe Barona to alienate their landa. 

§ Henry VIU. . . II Of papal dominion. 

TI John Wicldiff, doctor of divinity, wlio, towards the close 
of the fourteenth century, published doctrines very contrary 
to those of the church of Rome, and particulaily denying the 
papal authority. His followers gi'evv very numerous, and 
were called Lollards. 

* ' Suppression of monasteries. 

11 The Spanish West Indies. 



The worst the zeal-inflamed barbaiian drew. 
Be no such horrid commerce, Britain, thine ! 
But want for want, vnth mutual aid, supply. 
' The Commons thus enrich'd, and powerful 
grown, 
Against the Barons weigh'di Eliza then, 
Amid these doubtful motion^, steady, gave- 
The beam to fix. She ! like the secret Eye, 
That never closes on a guarded world, 
So sought, so mark'd, so seized the public good, 
That self-supported, without oiie ally. 
She awed her inward, queU'd her circUng foes. 
Inspired by me,- beneath her sheltering arm, 
In spite of raging universal sway* 
And raging seas repress'd, the Belgic states, 
My bulwark on the continent, arose. 
Matchless in all the spirit of her days ! 
With confidence, unbounded, fearless Jove 
Elate, her fervent people waited gay, 
Cheerful demanded the long threaten'd fleet,f . 
And dash'd the pride of Spain around their isle. 
Nor ceased the British thunder here to rage : 
The deep, reclaim'd, obey'd its' awful call ; 
In fire and smoke Ibeiian ports involved. 
The trembUng foe eten to the centre shook 
Of their hew conquer'4 world, and, skulking, 

stole 
By veering winds their Indian treasure home. 
Meantime, Peace, Plenty, Justice, Science, Arts, 
With softer laurels crown'd her happy reign. . 
As yet uncircihnscribed the regal power. 
And wild and vague prerogative remaul'd ; 
A wide voracious gulf, where swallow'd oft 
The helpless subject lay. This to reduce 
To the just limit was my great effort. 

' By means that evil seem to narrow man, 
Superior Beings work their mystic will : 
Frdm storm and trouble thus a settled calm, 
At last, effulgent,, o'er Britannia siniled. 

'The gathering tempest, Heaven-comnrission'd, 
came. 
Came in the piince,t who, drunk with flattery, 

dreamt 
His vain pacific counsels ruled the worid ;. 
Though scorn'd abroad, bewilder'd in a maze 
Of fruitless treaties ; while at home enslaved. 
And by a worthless crew insatiate drain'd, . 
He lost his people's confidence and love: 
Irreparable loss I whence crowns become 
An anxious burden. Years inglorious pass'd : 
Triumphant Spain the Vengeful draughir enjoy'd , 
Abandon'd Frederick! pined, and Raleigh bled. 



'Tliedominionof the house of Austria. " 

■( Tlie Spanish Armada. Eapin says, that after.proper mea- 
siu-es had boon taken, tlie enemy was expected with uncom- 
mon alacrity. 

t James I. ■ '. • • 

§ Elector Palatine, and who bad been cliosen King of Bohe- 
mia, but was stripped of all his dominions and dignities by 



LIBERTY. 



99 



But nothing that to these internal broils, , 
■ That rancour, he began ; while lawless sway 
He, with his slavish Doctors, tried to rear 
On metaphysic,* on enchanted ground, 
And all the mazy quibbles of the schools: 
As if for one, and sometimes for the worst, 
Heaven had mankind in vengeance only made. 
Vain the pretence! not so the dire efl'ect, 
The fierce, the foohsh discordt thence derived, 
That tears the country still, by party rage 
And ministerial clamour kept alive. 
In action weak, and for the wordy war 
Best fitted, faint tliis prince pursued his claim : 
Content to teach the subject herd, how great, 
How sacred he ! how despicable they ! 

' But his unyielding sont these doctrines drapk, 
With all a bigot's rage ; (who never damps 
By reasoning his fire) and what they taught,. 
Warm, and tenacious, into practice push'd. 
Senates, in vain, their kind restraint applied: 
The more they struggled ^o support the laws, 
His justice-dreading ministers the more 
Drove him beyond their boUnds. Tired with the 

check ' ■ , ■ , 

Of faithful Love, and with the flatteiy pleased 
Of false designing Guilt, tlie fountain^ he 
Of Public Wisdom and of Justice shut. 
Wide mourn'd the land. Straight to the voted 

aid 
Free, cordial, large, of never failing source, 
The illegal imposition follow'd harsh. 
With execration giveri, or ruthless squeezed 
From an insulted people, by a band 
Of the worst ruffians, those of tyrant power. 
Oppression walk'd at large, and pour'd abroad 
Her unrelenting train : informers, spies, 
Bloodhounds, that sturdy Freedom to the grove 
Pursue; projectors of aggrieving schemes. 
Commerce to load for unprotected seas,ll 
To sell the starving many to the few,ir 
And drain a thousand ways the exhausted land. 
E'en from that place, whence healing Peace should 

flow. 
And Gospel truth, inhuman bigots shed 
Their poison*"*- round ; and on the venal bench, 
Instead of justice, party held the scale, 
And violence the sword. AfHicted years. 
Too patient, felt at last their vengeance full. 



the Emperor Ferdinand, while Janies the First, his fatlier-in- 
law, being amused from time to time, endeavoured to mediate 
a peace. 

"The monstrous and tilltlienunheard-of doctrines of divine 
indefeasible hereditaiy right, passive obedience, &c. 

t The parties of \Wiig and Tory. J Charles I. 

§ Parliaments. II Ship-money, if Monopolies. 

* * The raging High-Church sermons of these times, inspir- 
ing a spirit of slavish submission to the court, and of bitter 
persecution against those whom they call Chm-ch and State 
Puritans. 



' Mid the low murmurs of submissive fear 
And mingled rage, my Hamdbcn raised his voice, 
And to the laws appcal'd; the laws no more 
In judgment sat, behoved some other ear. 
When instant from the keen rcsentive North, 
By long oppression, by religion roused. 
The guardian army came. Beneath its wing 
Was call'd, though meant to furnisii hostile aid, 
The more than Roman senate. There a flame ■ 
Broke out, that clear'd, consumed, renew'd the 

land. 
In deep motion hurl'd, nor Greece, nor Rome 
Indignant bursting from a tyi-ant's chain, 
While, full of me, each agitated soul ' 
Strung every nerve, and flamed in every eye, 
Had e'er beheld such light and heat combined ! 
Such heads and hearts! such dreadful zeal, led on 
By calm majestic wisdom, taught its course 
What nuisance to devour ; such vnsdom fired 
With unabating zeal, and aim'd sincere 
To clear the weedy state, restore the laws, 
And for the future to secure their sway. 

' This then the purpose of my mildest sons. 
But man is blind. A nation once inflamed 
(Chief, should the breath of factions fury blow, 
With the wild rage of mad enthusiast swell'd) 
Not easy .cools again. From breast to breast, 
From eye to eye, the kindling passions mix 
In heighten'd blaze ; and, ever wise and just. 
High Heaven to gracious-ends directs the storm. 
Thus in one conflagration Britain wrapt, 
And by Confusion's lawless sons despoil'd. 
Kings, Lords, and Commons, thundering to the 

ground. 
Successive, rush'd— Lo ! from their ashes rose, 
Gay beaming radiant youth, the Phosnix State.* 

' The grievous yoke of vassalage, the yoke 
Of private life, lay by those flames dissolved ; 
And, fronxthe wasteful, the luxurious king,t 
Was purchased? that which taught the young to 

bend. 
Stronger restored, the Commons tax'd the whole, ' 
And built on that eternal rock their- power. 
The Crown,- of its hereditary wealth 
Despoil'd, on senates more dependent grew. 
And they more frequent, more assured. Yet lived, 
And in full vigour spread that bitter root. 
The passive doctrines, by their patrons first, 
Opposed ferocious, when they touch themselves. 

This wild delusive cant; the rash cabal , 
Of hungry courtiers, ravenous for prey; 
The bigot, restless in a double chain 
To bind anew the laiid; the constant need 
Of finding faithless means, of shifting forms. 
And flattering senates, to supply his waste; 
These tore some moments from the careless prince, 



' At the Restoration. f Charles II. 

t Court of Wards. 



100 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



And in his brcaat awaked the kindred plan. 

By dangerous softness .long he mined his way; . 

By subtle arts, dissimulating deep ; 

By sharing what corruption showcr'd, profuse ; 

By breathing wide the gay Ucentious plague, 

And pleasmg manners, fitted to deceive. 

' At last subsided the dehrious joy, 
On whose high billow, from the saintly reign, 
The nation drove too far. A pension'd lung. 
Against his country bribed by GalUc gold ; 
The Port* pernicious sold, the Scylla since 
And fell Charybdis of the British seas ; 
Freedom attack'd abroad,! with surer blow 
To cut it off" at home ; the saviour leaguet 
Of Europe broke ; the progress e'en advanced 
Of universal sway,§ which to reduce 
Such seas of blood and treasure Britain cost; 
The milUons, by a generous people given. 
Or squander'd vile, or to corrupt, disgrace. 
And awe the land with forces 11 not their ovm. 
Employ'd;. the darling church herelf betray 'd; 
All these, broad glaring, oped the general eyej 
And waked my spirit, the resistmg soul. 

' Mild was, at first, and half ashamed, the check 
Of senates, shook from the fantastic dream 
Of absolute submission, tenets vile ! 
Which slaves would blush to own, and which re- 
duced 
To practice, always honest nature shock. 
Not e'en the mask removed; and the fierce front 
Of tyranny disclosed; nor trampled laws; 
Nor seized each badge of freedom IT through the 

land; 
Nor Sidney bleeding for the tmpubUsh'd page ; 
Nor on the bench avowed corruption placed, 
And murderous rage itself, in JelFeries' form.;** . 
Nor endless acts of arbitrary power. 
Cruel, and false, could raise the pubhc .arm. 
Distrustful, scatter'd, of combining chiefs 
Devoid and dreading blind rapacious war, 
The patient public turns not, till irapell'd 
To the near verge of ruin. Hence I roused 
The bigot king,tt and hurried fated on 
His measures immature. But chief his zeal. 
Out-flaming Rome herself, portentous scared 
The troubled nation: Mary's horrid days 
To fancy bleeding rose, and the dire glare 
Of Smithfield lighten'd in its eyes anew. 
Yet silence reign'd. Each on another scowl'd 
Rueful amazement, pressing down his rage : 
As, mustering vengeance, tlic deep thunder frowns. 



* Dunkirk. 

t The war in conjunction wilh France, against the Dutch, 
t The Triple Alliance. • § Under Lewis XIV. 

1 A standing army, raised without the consent of parlia- 
ment. 
" The charters of corporation'^. " ' Judge Jefleries. 

It James II, 



Awfully still, waiting the high commiwB 
Tospring. Straight from his countryEurope sav^, 
To save Britannia, lo ! my darling son. 
Than hero more! the patriot of mankind! 
Iimnortal Nassau came. I hush'd the deep 
By demons roused, and bade the hsted winds,* 
Still shifting as behoved, with various breath, 
Waft the dehverer to the longing shore'. 
See ! wide alive, the foaming channelt bright 
With swelUng sails, and all the pride of war, 
Delightful view! when justice" draws the sword: 
And mark! diffusing ardent soul around. 
And swest contempt of death; My streaming flag.* 
E'en adverse navies§ bicss'd tlic binding gale, 
Kept down the glad acclaim, and silent joy'd. 
Arrived, the pomp, and not the waste of arms 
His progress mark'd. The faint opposing hostll 
For once in yielding their best victory found. 
And by desertion proved exalted faith : 
While his the bloodless conquest of the heart, 
Shouts without groa;n, and triulnph without war. 

' Then dawn'd. the period destmed to confine 
The surge of wild prerogative, to raise 
A mound restraining its imperious rage. 
And bid the raving deep no farther flow 
Nor were,- without that fence, the sWallow'd state 
Better than Belgian plains without their dykes, 
Sustaining weighty seas. This, often saved 
By more than human hand, the pubhc saw. 
And seized the white-wing'd moment. PleasedIT 

to yield 
Destructive power, a wise heroic prince** 
E'en lent his aid — Thrice happy ! did they know 
Their happiness, Britannia's bounded kings. 
What though not theirs the boast, in djingeon 

glooms. 
To plunge bold freedom ; or, to cheerless wilds, 
To drive him from the cordial face of friend ; 
Or fierce to strike him at the midnight hour. 
By mandate bhnd, not justice, that delights 
To dare the keenest eye of open day.* 



' The Prince of Orange, in his passage to England, though 
his fleet, had been at first dispersed by a storm, was afterwards 
extremely favoured by several changes of wind.' 

T Rapin, in his History o^ England. — The third of Novem- 
ber the fleet entered the Channel, and lay by between Calais' 
and Dover, to stay for the ships that were behind. Here the 
Prince called a council of war. It is easy to imagine what a 
glorious show th<} fleet made. Five or six hundred ships in 
so narrow a channel, and both the English and French shores 
covered with numberle.ss spectators, are no common sight. 
For my part, who was tlien on board- the fleet, I own it struck 
me extremely. . . 

i The Prince placed himself in the main body, carrying a 
flag with English colours, and their highnesses' arms surround- 
ed wilh this motto, 'The Protestant Religion and the Liber- 
ties of England ;' and underneath the motto of the house of 
Nassau, ' Je Maintiendrai,' I will maintain. — Rapin. 

§ The English fleet. . II The king's army. 

H By the Bill of Rights and the Act of SuccessiBa 

'• William ID. 



LIBERTY. 



101 



What though no glory to control the laws, 
And make injurious will their only rule,- ' 
They deem it.- What though, tools of wanton 

power, . . 

Pestiferous armies swarm not at their call. 
What though they give not a relentless crew 
Of civil furies, proud oppression's fangs! 
To tear at pleasure the dejected land, 
With starving labour pampering idle waste. 
To clothe the naked, feed the hungry, wipe 
The guiltless tear from lone affliction's eye ; 
To raise liid merit, set the alluring light 
Of virtue' high to view ; to nourish arts. 
Direct the thunder of an injured state, 
Make a whole glorious people sing for joy. 
Bless humankind, and through the downward depth 
Of future times to spread that better sun 
Which hghts up British soul : for deeds Uke these, 
The dazzling fair career unbounded Ues ; 
While (still superior bUss!) the dark abrupt 
Is kindly barr'd, the precipice of ill. 
O luxury divine ! O poor to this. 
Ye giddy glories of despotic thrones ! 
By this, by this indeed, is imaged Heaven, 
By boundless good without the power of ill. 

' And now behold ! exalted as the cope 
That swells immense o'er many-peopled earth, 
And hke it free, my fabric stands complete, 
The palace of the. laws. To the four heavens 
Foiir gates impartial throwrn, unceasing crowds. 
With kings themselves the hearty peasant mix'd. 
Pour urgent in. And though to different ranks 
Responsive place belongs, yet equal spreads 
The sheltering roof o'er all; while plenty flows, 
And glad contentment echoes round the whole. 
Ye floods descend! Ye winds, confirming, blow I 
Nor outward tempest, nor corrosive time, 
Nought but the felon undermining hand 
Of dark corruption, can its frame dissolve, 
And lay the toil of ages in the dust,' 



PART V. 
THE PROSPECT. 

CONTENTS. 
' The author addresses the Goddess of Liberty, marking the 
happiness and grandeur of Great Britain, as arising iirom her 
influence. She resumes her discourse, and points out the 
chief Virtues which are necessary to maintain her establish- 
ment there. Recommends as its last ornament and finishing, 
Sciences, Fine Arts, and Public Works. The encotn-agement 
of these urged from the example of France, though under a 
despotic government. The whole concludes with a prospect 
of fiiture times, given by the Goddess of Liberty: this de- 
scribed by the author, as it passes in vision before hirn. 



Here interposing, as the Goddess paused; — 
' O bless'd Britannia! in thy presence bless'd, 



Thou guardian of mankind! whence spring, alone, 
All hmnan grandeur, happiness, and fame ; 
For toil, by thee protracted, feels no pain; 
The poor man's lot with milk and honey flows; 
And, gilded with thy rays, even death looks gay. 
Let other lands the potent blessings boast 
Of more exalting suns. Let Asia's woods, 
Untended yield "the vegetable fleece: 
And let the little insect-artist form, 
On Iiigher life intent, its sillicn tomb. 
Let wondering rocks, in radiant birth, disclose 
The various tinctured children of the sun. 
From the prone beam let more delicious fruits, 
A flavour drink, that in one piercing taste 
Bids each comT3ine. Let Gallic vineyards burst 
With floods of joy; with mild balsamic juice 
The Tuscan olive. Let Arabia breathe 
Her spicy gales, her vital gums distil. 
Turbid with gold, let southern rivers flow 
And orient floods draw soft, o'er pearls, their 

maze. 
Let Afric vaunt her treasvu:es; let Peru 
Deep in her bowels her own ruin breed. 
The yellow traitor that her bliss betray'd, — 

Unequal'd bUss and to imequal'd rage ! 

Yet nor the gorgeous East, nor golden Soiith, 
Nor, in full prime, that new discover'd world, 
Where flames the falling day, in wealth and praise, 
Shall with Britannia vie ; while, Goddess, she 
Derives her praise from thee, her matchless 

charms. 
Her hearty fruits the hand of fireedom own ; 
And warm with culture, her thick clustering 

fields «. 

Prohfic teem. Eternal verdure crowns 
Her meeds; her gardens smile eternal spring. 
She gives the hunter-horse, unquell'dbytoil. 
Ardent, to rush into the rapid chase: 
She, whitening o'er her downs, diffusive, pours 
Unnumber'd flocks : she weaves the fleecy robe, 
That wraps the nations: she, to lusty droves, 
The richest pasture spreads; and, hers, deep- 
wave 
Autumnal seas of pleasing plenty round. 
These her delights: and' by no baneful herb. 
No darting tiger, no grim lion's glare, 
No fierce descending wolf, no serpent roU'd 
In spires inmiense progressive o'er the land, 
Disturb'd. Enlivening these, add cities, ftill 
Of wealth, of trade, of cheerful toiling crowds: 
Add thriving fowns; add villages and farms, 
Innumerous sow'd along the Uvely vale. 
Where bold unrival'd peasants happy dwell:' 
Add ancient seats, with venerable oaks 
Embosom'd high, while kiirdred floods below 
Wind through the mead; and those of modern 

• hand, . < 

More pompous, add, that splendid shine afar. 
Need I her lunpid lakes, her rivers name, 



102 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Where swarm the finny racci Thee, chief, 

Thames! 
On whose eacli tide, glad with returning sails, 
Flows in the mingled harvest of mankind 1 
And thee, thou Severn, .whose prodigious swell, 
And waves, resounding, imitate the main'? 
Why need I name her deep capacious ports. 
That point around the world 1 and why her seas? 
All ocean is her own, and every land 
To whom her ruling thunder ocean bears. 
She too the mineral feeds : the obedient lead, 
The warlike iron, nor the peaceful less, 
Forming of life art-civilized the bond ; 
And that* the Tyrian merchant sought of old. 
Not dreaming then of Britain's brighter fame. 
She rears to freedom an undaunted race: 
Compatriot zealous, hospitable, kind. 
Hers the warm Cambrian : hers the lofty Scot. 
To hardship tamed, active in arts and arms. 
Fired with a restless, an impatient flame. 
That leads him raptured where ambition calls: 
And English merif hers; where meet, combined, 
Whate'erhigh fancy, sound judicious thought, 
An ample, generous heart, undrooping soul, 
And firm tenacious valour can bestow. 
Great nurse of fruits, of flocks, of commerce, she ! 
Great nurse of men ! by thee, O Goddess, taught, 
Her old renown 1 trace, disclose her source 
Of wealth, of grandeur, and to Biitains sing 
A strain the Muses never touch'd before. 

' But how shall this thy mighty kingdom standi 
On what unyielding basel howfinish'd shine 1' 

At this her eye, collecting all its fire, 
Beam'd more than human ;■ and her awful voice, 
Majestic thus she raised: ' To Britons bear 
This closing strain, and with intenser note 
Loud let it sound in their awaken'd ear: 

' On virtue can alone my kingdom stand, 
On pubUc virtue, every virtue join'd. 
For, lost this social cement .of mankind, 
The greatest empires, by scarce-felt degrees, 
Will moulder soft away; till, tottering loose, 
They, prone at last, to total ruin rush. 
Unbless'd by virtue, govermnent a league 
Becomes, a circUng junto of the great, , " 
Torobbylaw; religion mild, a yoke 
To tame the stooping soul, a trick of state 
To mask their rapine, and to share the prey. 
What are, without it, senates ; save a face 
Of consultation deep and reason free, 
While the detentnincd voice and heart are sold? 
What boasted freedom, save a sounding name? ^ 
And what election, but a market vile . 
Of slavesself-bartcr'dl Virtue! without thee, 
There is no rlihng eye, no nerve, ;in states; 
War has no vigour, and no safety peace: 
E'en justice warps to party, laws oppress, 



Tin. 



Wide through the land their weak protection fails, 
First broke the balance, and then scorn'd the 

swo?d. ' 

Thus nations sink, society dissolves; 
Rapine and guile, and -violence break loose, 
Everting life, and turning love to gall; ' 
Man hates the face of man, and Indian woods 
And Libya's hissing sands to him are tame. , 

' By those three virtues be the. frame sustain'd , 
Of Biitish freedom; independent life; 
Integrity in office; and, o'er all 
Supreme, a passion for the commonweal. 

' HaU ! Independence, hail ! Heaven's next best 
gift,_. 
To that of liJFe and an immortal soul! 
The life of Ufe ! that to the banquet high 
And sober meal gives taste; to the bow'd roof 
Fair-dream'd repose, and to the cottage charms. 
Of public freedom, hail, thou secret source : 
Whose streams, from every quarter confluent, 

form . 

My better Nile, that nurses human life. 
By rOls from thee dedueedj irrigUous, fed. 
The private field looks gay, with nature's wealth 
Abundant flows, and blooms with each delight 
That nature craves. Its happy niaster there. 
The only freeman, walks his pleasing round: 
Sweet-featured peace attending ; fearless truth ; 
Firm resolution ; goodness, blessing all 
That can rejoice; contentment, surest friend; 
And, still fresh stores from nature's book derived, 
Philosophy, companion ever new. 
These cheer his rural, and. sustain or fire, 
When into action call'd, his busy hours. 
Meantime true judging moderate desires, 
Economy and taste, combined, direct 
His clear affairs, and from debauching fiends 
Secure his little kingdom. Nor can those 
Whom fortune heaps, without these virtues reach 
That truce with pain, that animated ease. 
That self-enjoyment springing from witliin; 
That independence active or retired, ' 

Which make the soundest bhss of man belgw : 
But lost beneath the rubbish of their means, 
And drain'd by wants to nature all unknown, 
A wandering, tasteless, gaily wretched trajn, 
Though rich, are beggars, and though noble, 
slaves, • ■ 

' Lo! damn'd to wealth, at what a gross expense 
They purchase disappointment, pain, and shame. 
Instead of hearty hospitable cheer, 
See ! how the hall with brutal riot flows; 
While in the foaming flood, fermenting, steep'd 
The country maddens into party rage. 
Mark ! those disgraceftd piles of wood and stone ; 
Those parks and gardens, where, liis haunts be- 

trimm'd. 
And nature by presumptuous art oppress'dj 
The woodland genius mourns. See ! the full boatd 



LIBERTY. 



103 



\That steams disgust, and bowls that give no joy; 
No truth invited there, to feed the mind; 
Nor wit, the wine-i'cjoicing reason quafl's. 
Hark I how the dome with insolence resounds, 
With those retain'd hy vanity to scare 
Repose and friends. To tyrant fashion, mark ! 
The costly worship paid, to the broad gaze 
Of fools! From still delusive day to day, 
Led an eternal round of lying hope. 
See ! self-abandon'd, how they roam adrift, 
Dash'd o'er the town, a miserable wreck 1 
Then to adore some warbling eunuch turn'd. 
With Midas' ears the)' crowd; or to the buzz 
Of masquerade unblushing: or, to show 
Their scorn of nature, at the tragic scene 
They mirthful sit, or prove the comic true. 
But, chief, behold ! around the rattUng board, » 
The civil robbers ranged ; and e'en tlie fair. 
The tender fair,' each sweetness laid aside, 
As fierce for plunder as all-hcensed troops 
In some sack'd city. Thus dissolved their wealth. 
Without one generous luxury dissolved, 
Or quarter'd on it many a needless want^ 
At the throng 'd levee bends the vjsnal tribe; 
With fair but faithless smiles each varnish'd o'er. 
Each smooth as those that mutually deceive, 
And for their folsehoqd each despising each; 
Till shook their patron by the wintry winds. 
Wide flies the wither 'd shower, and leaves him 

bare. 
O far superior Afric's sable sons, 
By merchant pilfer'd, to these willing slaves ! 
And rich, as unsqueezed favourite, to them, 
Is he who can his virtue boast alone! 

' Britons ! be finn ! — nor let corruption sly . 
Twine round your heart indissoluble chains! 
The steel of Brutus burst the grosser b(?nds 
By Caesar cast o'er Rome; but still remain'd 
The soft enchanting fetters of the mind, 
And other Caesars, rose. Determined, hold 
Your independence; for, that once destroy 'd, 
Unfounded, Freedom is a morning dream. 
That flits aerial from the spreading eye. 

' Forbid it. Heaven! that ever I need- urge 
Integrity in office on my sons ! . " 

Inculcate common honour not to- rob 

And whom 1 — the gracious, the confiding hand. 
That lavishly rewards'? the toiling poor, ' 
Whose cup with many a bitter drop is mix'd; . 
The guardian public; every face they see. 
And every friend; nay, in effect themselves. 
As in familiar life, the villain's fate 
Admits no cure ; so, when a desperate age 
At this arrives, I the devoted race 
Indignant spurn, and hopeless soaj away. 

' But, ah too little known to modem times 1 
Be not the noblest passion past unsung ; 
That ray peculiar, from unbounded love 
Effused, which kindles the heroic soul; 



Devotion to the public. Glorious flame ! 
Celestial ardour ! ii? what unknown worlds. 
Profusely scatter'd through the blue immense, 
Hast thou been blessing myriads, since in Rome, 
Old virtuous Rome, so many deathless names 
From thee their lustre drew ] since, taught by thee, 
Their poverty put splendour to the blush, 
Pain grew luxurious, and e'en death delight 1 
O wilt thou ne'er, in thy long period, look. 
With blaze direct, on this my last retreat? 

' 'Tis not enough, fi.-om self right understood 
Reflected, that thy rays inflame the heart: 
Though virtue not disdains appeals to self. 
Dreads not the trial ; all her joys arc true, 
Nor is there any real joy save hers. 
Far less the tepid the declaiming race. 
Foes to corruption, to its wages friends. 
Or those whom private passions, for a while. 
Beneath my standard hst ; can they suffice 
'i'o raise and fix the glory of my reign?' 

' An active flood of universal love • 

Must swell the breast. First, in effusion wide, 
The restless spirit roves creation round ' 
And seizes every being: stronger then 
It tends to life, whate'er the kindred search ♦ 
Of bliss allies : then, more collected still. 
It urges human kind; a passion grown, 
At last, the central parent public calls 
Its utmost effort forth, awakes each sense. 
The comely, grand, and tender. Without this 
This awful pant, shook from sublimer powers 
Than those of self, this Heaven-infused delight, 
This moral gravitation, rushing prone 
To press the public good, my system soon, 
Traverse, to several selfish centres drawn, 
WiU reel to ruin : .while for ever shut 
"Stand the bright portals of desponding fame. 

' From sordid self shoot up no shining deeds, 
None.of those ancient lights, that gladden earth, 
Give grace to being, and arouse the brave. 
To just ambition, virtue's quickening fire ! 
Life tedious grows, and idly bustling round, 
Fill'd up With actions animal and mean, 
A dull gazette ! The impatient reader scorns 
The poor liistoric page; till kindly comes 
Oblivion, and redeems a people's shame. 
Not so the times when, emulation-stung, 
Greece shone in genius, science, and in arts. 
And Rome in virtues dreadful to be told I 
To Uve was glory then ! and charm'd mankind, 
Through the deep periods of devolving time. 
Those, raptured, copy ; these, astonish'd, read. 

' True, a corrupted state, \vith every viqe 
And every meanness foul, this passion damps. 
WTio can, unshock'd, behold the cruel eye? ' 
The pale inveigling smile? the ruffian fi:ont ? 
The wretch abandoned to relentless self. 
Equally vile if miser or profuse? 
Powers not of God, assiduous to corrupt? 



104 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



The fell deputed tyrant, who devours 
The poor and. weak,* at distance from redress 1 
Dehrious faction bellowing loud my nameT ' . 
The false fair-seeming patriot's hollow boast 1 
A race resolved on bondage, fierce for chains, 
My sacred rights a merchandize alone 
•Esteeming, and to work their feeder's will . 
By deeds, a horror to mankind, prepared, 
As were the dregs of Romulus of old 1 
Who these indeed can undetesting see 1 — 
But who unpitying 1 to the generous eye 
Distress is virtue; and, though self-betray'd', 
A people struggling vsdth their fate must rouse 
The hero's throb, -Nor can a land, at once, 
Be lost to virtue quite. How glorious then ! 
Fit luxury for gods ! to save the good, 
Protect the feeble, dash bold vice aside. 
Depress thfe wicked, and restore the frail. 
Posterity, besides ! the young are pure. 
And sons may tinge their father's cheek with 

shame. 
'Should then the tunes arrive (which Heaven 

avert !) 
That Britons bend unnerved, not by the force 
O^arms, more generous and more manly, quell'd, 
But by corruption's soul-dejecting art^. 
Arts impudent ! and gross ! by their own gold, 
In part bestow'd. to bribe them to give all. 
With party raging, or immersed in sloth. 
Should they Britannia's well fought laurels yield 
To slily conquering GaiU ; e'en from her brow 
Let her. own naval oak be liasely torn. 
By such as ti-emble at the stiffening gale. 
And nerveless sink while others sing rejoiced, 
Or (darker prospect ! scarce one gleam behind 
Disclosing) should the broad corruptive plague 
Breathe from the'city to the farthest hut. 
That sits serene vyithin the forest shade ; 
The fever'd people fire, inflame their wants, ♦ 
And their luxurious thirst, so gathering rage, 
That, were a buyer found, they stand prepared 
To sell their birthright for a cooling draught. 
Should shameless pens for plain corruption plead; 
The hired assassins of the commonweal ! 
Deem'd the declaiming Tant of Greece and Rome, 
Should pubhc virtue grow the public scoff, 
Till private, failing, staggers through the land: 
Till round the city loose mechanic want, • 
Dire prowling nightly, makes the cheerful haunts 
Of men more hideous than Numidian wilds, 
Nor from its fury sleeps the vale in peace ; 
And murders, horrors, perjuries abound : 
Nay, till to lowest deeds the highest stoop ; 



• Lord Moleswonli, in his account of Denmark, saya, — ' It 
is observed, that in limited monarchies and commonwealths, 
a" neighbourhood to the seat of the government is advanta- 
geous to the subjects; whilst the distant provinces are less 
tliriving, and more liable to oppression.' 



The rich, like starving wretches, thirst for gold ; 
And those, on whom the vernal shovsrers of Hea- 
ven 
All-bounteous fall, and that prime lot bestow, 
A power to Uve to nature and themselves. 
In sick attendance "wear their anxious days, 
With fortune, joyless, and with honours, mean. 
Meantime, perhaps, profusion flows around, 
The waste of war, without the works of peace; 
No mark of niillions in the gulf absorpt 
Of uncreating vice, none but the. rage 
Of roused corruption still demanding more. 
That very portion, which (by faithful skill 
Employ 'd) might make the smihng public rear 
Her ornamented head, drill'd through the hands 
Of mercenary tools, serves but to nurse 
A locust band within, and in the bud 
Leaves starved each work of dignity and use. 

' I paint the worst. But should these times 
arrive, 
If any nobler passion yet remain, 
Let all my sons all parties fling aside. 
Despise their nonsense, and together join; 
Let worth and virtue scorning low despair, 
Exerted full, from every quarter shine, 
Commix'd in heighten'd blaze. Light flash'd to 

light, 
Moral, Or intellectual, more intense 
By giving glows. As on pure winter's eve. 
Gradual, the stars effulge ; fainter, at first, 
They, straggling, rise; but when the radiant host, 
In thick profusion pour'd, shine out immense; 
Each casting vivid influence on each. 
From pole to pole a glittering deluge plays, 
And worlds above rejoice, and men below. 

' But why to Britons this superfluous strain 1 — 
Good na:ture, honest truth e'en somewhat blunt, 
Of crooked baseness an indignant scorn,' 
A zeal unyielding in their country's cause, 
And ready bounty, wont to dwell with them — 
Nor only wont — wide o'er the land diffused, 
In many a bless'd retirement still they dwell. 

.' To softer prospect turn we now the vieW, 
To laurel'd science, arts, and public works, 
That lend my finish'd fabric comely pride, 
Grandeur and grace. Of sullen genius he! 
Cursed by the Muses ! by the Graces Joathed ! 
Who deems beneath the public's high regard 
These last enhvening touches of my reign. 
However puff'd with power, and gorged Tvith 

wealth, 
A nation be ; let trade enormous rise, 
Let East and South their mingled treasure pour, 
Till, swell'd impetuous, the corrupting flood 
Burst o'er the city and devour the land : 
Yet these Jieglected, these recording arts, 
Wealth rots, a nuisance ; and, oblivious sunk, 
That nation must another Carthage lie. 
' If not by them, on monumental brass, 



LIBERTY. 



105 



On sculptured marble, on the deathless page, 
Impress'd, renown had left no trace behind : 
In vain, to future time*, the sage had thought, 
The legislator plann'd, the hero found. 
A beauteous death, the patriot toil'd in vain. 
The awarders they of Fame's immortal wreath, 
They rouse anibition, they the mind exalt, 
Give great ideas, lovely forms infuse, 
Delight the general eye, and, dress'd by them, 
The moral Venus glows with double charms. 

' Science, my close associate, still attends 
Where'er I go.- Sometimes, in simple guise. 
She walks the furrow with the consul-swain. 
Whispering imletter'd wisdom to the heart, 
Direct ; or, sometimes, in the pompous robe 
Of fancy dress'd, she charms Athenian wits. 
And a whole sapient city round her burr^p. 
Then o'er her brow Minerva's terrors nod: 
With Xenophon, sometimes, in dtre extremes, 
She breathes deliberate soul, and makes retreat* 
Unequal'd glory:' with the Theban sage, 
Epaminondas, first and best of men ! 
Sometimes she bids the deep-embattled host, 
Above the vulgar reach, resistless form'd, 
March to sure conquest — never gain'd before !t 
Nor on the treacherous seas of giddy 'state ■ 
Unskilful she : when the triumphant tide 
Of high-swoln empire wears one boundless smile, 
And the gale tempts to new pursuits of farne, 
Sometimes, with Scipio, she collects her sail, 
And seeks the blissful shore of rural ease, 
Where, but the Aonian maids, no sirens sing; 
Or should the deep-brew'd tempest muttering rise. 
While rocks and shoals perfidious lurk around, 
With Tully she her wide-reviving light 
To senates holds; a Catiline confounds. 
And saves awhile from Ca3sar sinking Rome. 
Such the kind power, whose piercing eye' dissolves 
Each mental fetter, and sets reason free ; 
For me inspiring an enlightened zeal. 
The more tenacious as the more cbnvinced 
How happy freemen, and how wretched slaves. 
To Britons not unknown, to Britons full 
The Goddess spreads her stores, the secret soul 
That quickens trade, the breath unseen that wafts 
To them the -treasures of a balanced world. 
But finer arts*(save what the Muse has sung 
In daring flight, above all modern wing,) 
Neglected droop the head ; and public works. 
Broke by corruption into private gain, 
Not ornament, disgrace ; not serve, destroy. 

* The famous Retreat of the Teii Tliousand was chiefly 
conducted by Xenophon. 

tEpamhiondas, after having beat the Lacedemonians and 
their aUies, in the battle of Leuctra, made an incm-sion, at the 
head of a powei'ful army, into Laconia. It was now six him- 
dred years since the Dorians had possessed this country, and 
In all that time the face of an enemy had not been seen withm 
theu ievxiloxlea.— Plutarch in Ag'esilaiis. 



' Shall Britons, by their own joint wisdom ruled 
Bencatli one Royal Head, whose vital power ' 
Connects, enlivens, and exerts the whole; 
In finer arts, and pulilic worjis, shall they . 
To Galha yield 1 yiekl to a land that bends 
Dcpress'd, and broke, beneath the will of and 
Of one who, should the unkingly thirst of gold, 
Or tyi-ant passions, or ambition, prompt. 
Calls locust-armies o'er .the blasted land: • 
Drains from its thirsty bounds the springs of 

wealth,' . ■ 

His own insatiate reservoir to fill : 
To. the lone desert patriot-merit frowns. 
Or into dungeons arts, when they, their chains, 
Indignant, bursting; for their nobler works 
All other license scorn but truths and mine. 
Oh shame to think! shall Britons, in the field 
Unconquer'd still, the better laurel lose 1 
E'en in that mpnarch's reign,* who vainly dreamt, 
By giddy power, betray'd, and flatter'd pride. 
To grasp unbounded sway; while, swarming 

round. 

His armies dared all Europe to the field ; 
To hostile hands while treasme flow'd profuse. 
And, that great source of treasure, subjects' blood, 
Inhuman squander'd, sicken'd every land ; 
From Britain, chief, .while my superior sons, 
In vengeance rushing, dash'd his idle hopes, 
And bade his agonizing heart be low: 
E'en then, as in the golden. calm of peace. 
What public works, at home, .what arts arose! ■ 
What various science shone ! what genius glowd ! 

' 'Tis not for me to paint, diffusive shot- 
O'er fair extents of land, the shining road ; 
The flood-compelling arch ; the long canal,t 
Through mountains piercing and uniting seas ; 
The domet resounding sweet with infant joy, 
From famine saved, or cruel-handed shame; 
And that* where valour counts his noble scars, 
The land where social pleasure loves to dwell, 
Of theiierce demon, Gothic duel, freed; 
The robber from his farthest forest chased ; 
The turbid city clear'd, and, by degrees, 
Into sure peace the best pohce refined. 
Magnificence, and grace, and decent joy. 
Let Gallic bards record, how honour'd arts, 
And science, by despotic bounty bless'd. 
At distance flourish'd from my parent-eye. 
Restoring ancient taste, how Boileau rose : 
How the big Roman soul shook, in Corneille, 
The trembling stage. In elegant Racine; 
How the more powerful though more humble voice 
Of nature-painting Greece, resistless, breathed 
The whole awaken'd heart. How Mohere's scene, 
Chastised and regular; with well judged wit. 
Not scatter'd wild, and native humour, graced. 



* Lewis XIV. t The Canal of Languedoa 

} The hospital* for foundlings and invalids, 



106 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Was life itself. To public honours icaised, 
How learning in warm seminaries* spread; 
And, more for glory than the small reward,. 
How emulation strove. How their pure tongue 
Almost obtain'd what was, denied their arms. 
From Rome, awliile, how Painting, courted long, 
With Poussin came ; ancient design, that lifts 
A fairer front, and looks another soul. 
How the kind art,t that, of unvalued price, 
The famed and only picture, easy, gives, 
Refined her tciuch, and, .through the shadow'd 

piece. 
All the live spirit of the painter pour'd. 
Coyest of arts, how sculpture northward deign'd 
A look, and bade her Giradon arise. 
How lavish grandeur blazed ; the barren waste, 
Astonish'd, saw t^ie sudden palace swell, 
And fountains spout amid its arid shades. 
For leagues, bright vistas opening to, the view, 
How forests in majestic gardens smUed, ' 
How menftil arts, by their gay sisters taught, 
Wove the deep flower, the'blooming foliage train'd 
In joyous figures, o'er the silky lawn,, 
The palace cheer'd, illumed the storied wall, 
And with the pi3ncil vied the glowing loom.t 

These laurels, Lewis, by the droppings raised 
Of thy profusion, its dishonour shade, 
And, green through future times, shall bind thy 

broW; 
While the vain honours of perfidious war 
Wither abhor'd, or inoblivion lost. ' • . 

With what prevailing vigour had they shot, 
And stole a deeper root, by the full tide • 
Of war-sunk millions fed? Superior still. 
How had they branch'd luxuriant to the skies; 
In Britain planted, by the potent juice 
Of Freedom swell'dl Forced is the blo6m of arts, 
A. false uncertain spring, when JBounty gives, 
Weak without me,' a transitory gleam. . ,' 
Fair shine the slippery days, enticing skies 
Of favour smile, and courtly breezes blow; 
Till arts betray'd, trust to the'flattering air ' 
.Their tender blossom: then malignant rise 
The blights of Envy, of those insect clouds, 
That, blasting merit often cover courts: 
Nay, should perchance some kind Maecisnas aid 
The doubtful beamings of his prince's Soul, 
His wavering ardour fix, and unconfined 
Difl'use his warm beneficence around; 
Yet death, at last, and wintry tyrants come. 
Each sprig of genius killing- at the root. 
But when with, me imperial Bounty joins. 
Wide o'er the public blows eternal spring; • 
While mingled autumn every harvest pours 



* The Academies of Sciences, of the Belles Lettres, and of 
Painting, 
t Engraving. 
X The tapestry of the Gobelins, 



Of every land; whate'er Invention, Art, 
Creating Toil, and Nature can produce.' 

Here ceased the Goddess; and her ardent wings, 
Dipt in the colours of the heavenly bow, 
Stood waving radiance round, for sudden flight 
Prepared, when thus, impatientj burst my prayer : 
' Oh forming light of life ! O better sun! 
Sun of mankind! by whom the cloudy north, 
Sublimed, not envies Languedocianskies, :^ 
That, unstain'd ether all, diff"usive smile: 
When shall we call these ancient laurels ours;? 
And when thy work complete V Straight with her 

hand 
Celestial red, she touch'd my darken'.d eyes. 
As at the touch of day the shades dissolve. 
So quick, methought, the misty circle clear'd, 
That dims the dawn of being here below: , 
The future shone disclosed, and in long View, 
Bright lising eras instant rush'd to-light. 

'They come! great Goddess! I the times be- 
■ hold'! . . ' 
The times our fathers, in the bloody field, 
HaVe eam'd so dear, and, not with less renown, 
In the warm struggles of the senate fight. 
The times I see ! whosp glory tg supply, ' • 
For toihng ages. Commerce round the world 
Has wing'd vmnumbcr'd sails, and from each land 
Materials heap'd, that, well employ'd, with Rome 
Might vie our grandeur, and with Greece our art. 

' Lo ! Princes I behold contriving still, ■ 
And still conducting firm some brave design; 
Kings! that the narrow joyless circle scorn, 
Burst the blockade of false designing men, 
Of treacherous smiles, of adulation fell, 
And of the bhnding clouds around them thrown: 
Their court rejoicing millions; worth alone, ' 
And Virtue dear to them; their best delight. 
In' just proportion, to give general joy; 
Their jealous care thy kingdom to maintain; 
The public glory theirs ; unsparing love ' 
Their endless treasure ; and their deeds their praise. 
With thee they. work. Nought can resist your 

force : , 

Life feels it quickening in her dark retreats: 
Strong spread the blooms of Genius, Science, Art; 
His bashful bounds disclosing Merit Ijreaks ; ' 
And, big with fruits of glory. Virtue ilows 
Expansive o'er the land. - Another rac^ 
Of generous youth, of patriot sires, I see ! 
Not those vain insects fluttering in the blaze 
Of court, and ball, and play; those venal souls 
Corruption's veteran unrelenting bands. 
That to their vices slaves, can ne'er be free. 

' I see the fountains purged ! whence life derives 
A clear or turbid flow; see ilie young mind , 
Not fed inipure by chancp, by flattery fool'd. 
Or by scholastic jargon bloated proud, 
But fiU'd and nourish'd by-the light of truth. 
I Then beam'd through fancy the refining ray, 



LIBERTY. 



107 



And pouring on the heart, the passions feel 
At once inlbnning Ught and moving flame ; 
Till moral, public, graceful action crowns 
The whole. Behold ! the fair contention glows, 
In all that mind or body can adorn, 
And form to hfe. Instead of barren heads. 
Barbarian pedants, wrangling sons of -pride, 
And truth-perplexing metaphysic wits, 
Men, patriots, cliiefs, and citizens arc form'd. 

' Lo ! Justice, like the liberal hght of Heaven, . . 
Unpurchased shines on aU; and. from her beam, 
Appalhng guilt, retire the savage crew, 
That prowl amid the darkness they themselves 
Have thrown around the laws. Oppression grieves, 
See ! how her legal furies bite the lip. 
While Yorkes and Talbots their deep snares detect. 
And seize swift justice through the clouds they 
raise. i ^ • _ 

' See ! social Labour lifts his guarded head, 
And men not yield to government in vain. 
From the sure land is rooted ruffian force, 
And, the lewd nurse of villains, idle waste ; 
Lo! raised their haunts, down dash'd then' mad- 

.dening bowl, 
A nation's poison ! beauteous order reigns ! 
Manly submission, imimposing toil, 
Trade without guile, civility that marks 
From the foul herd of brutal slaves thy sons, 
And fearless peace. Or should affronting war 
To slow but dreadfiil vengeance rouse the just, 
Unfailing fields of freemen I behold ! 
That know, with .their own proper arm, to guard 
Their own bless'd isle against a leaguing world. 
Bespairing Gaiil her boihng youth restrains, 
Dissolved. her dream of universal sway; 
The winds and seas. are Britain's wide domain; 
And not a sail, but by permission, spreads. 

' Lo ! swarming southward on rejoicing suns, 
Gay colonies extend ; the calm retreat 
Of imdeserved distress, the better home 
Of those whom bigots chase from foreign lands. 
Nor built on rapine, servitude, and wo. 
And in their turn some- petty tyrant's prey; 
But, bound by social Freedom, firm they rise ; 
Such as, of late, an Oglethorpe has form'd. 
And, crowding round, the charm'd Savannah sees. 

' Horrid with want and misery no more 
Our streets the tender passenger afilict. 
Nor shivering age, nor sickness without friend. 
Or home, or bed to bear his burning load ; 
Nor agonizing mfant, tliat ne'er earn'd 
Its guiltless pangs ; I see! t]ie stores, profuse. 
Which British bounty has to these assign'd, '• . 
No more the sacrilegious riot swell ■ 
Of cannibal' deyourers ! right applied. 
No starving wi'etch the land of fi-eedom stains : 
If poor, employment finds ; if old, demands, 
If sick, if maim'd, his miserable due ; 
And will, if young, repay the fondest care. 



Sweet sets the sun of stormy life; and sweet 
The morning shines, in Mercy's dews array'd. 
Lo ! how they rise ! these families of Heaven ! 
That ! chief,* (but why — ye bigots ! — why so late^) 
Where blooms and warbles glad a rising age ;' 
What smiles of praise ! and, while their song as- 
cends, ■ ■ ■ 
The Ustening se/aph kys his lute qiside. 

' Hark I the gay muses raise a nobler strain, 
With active nature, warm impassion'd trath, 
Engaging fable, lucid order, notes 
Of various string, and heart-felt image fiU'd. 
Behold ! I see the dread delightful school 
Of temper'd passions, and of polish'd life, 
Restored: behold! the well dissembled scene 
Calls from embeUish'd eyes the lovely tear, ■ 
Or lights up mirth in modest cheeks again. 
Lo! vanish'd monster l^nd. Lo! driven away 
Those that Apollo's sacred walks profane r 
Their wild creation scatter'd, where a world 
Unknown to nature. Chaos more confused, 
O'er the brute scene its Ouran-Outangs pours ;t 
Detested forms ! that, on the mind impress'd, 
Corrupt, confound, and barbarize an age. 

' Behold ! all thine again the Sister- Arts, 
Thy graces they, knit in harmonious dance, 
Ninrsed by the treasure from a nation drain'd ' 
Their works to purchase, they to nobler rouse 
Their untamed genius, their imfetter'd thought ; 
Of pompous tyrants, and of dfeaming monks, 
The gaudy tools, and prisoners no more. 

' Lo ! numerous, domes a Burlington confess : 
For kings and senates fit, the palace see t 
The temple breathirig a rehgious awe ; 
E'en framed with elegance the plain retreat. 
The private dwelling. Certain in his aim, 
Taste, never idly v?orking, saves expense. 

' See ! silvan scenes, where Art alone pretends 
To dress her mistress, and disclose her charms: 
Suqh as a Pope in miniature has shown ;t 
A Bathoirst o'er the widening forest§ spreads ; 
And such as form a Richmond, Cliiswick, Stowe, 

' August, around, what pubhc works I see ! 
Lo! stately streets, lo! squares that court the 

breeze, • ' 

In spite of those to whom pertams the care, 
Ingulfing more than fomided Roman ways, 
Lo ! ray'd from cities o'er the brighten'd land, . 
Connecting sea to sea, the solid road. 
Lo ! the proud arch (no vile exactor's stand) 
With' easy sweep .bestrides the ch.asing flood. 
See! long canals, and de'epen'd rivers join 
Each part with each, and with.the circling, main 



* Tile Foundling'Hospital. 

t A creature which, of all brutes, most resembles man. 

Sec Dr. Ti/son's Treatise on this animal. 
{ At his Twickenham Villa. 
§ Okely woods, near Cirencester. 



108 



TH^OMSON'S WORKS. 



The whole enUven'd isle. Lo ! ports expand, 
Free as the winds and waves their sheltering arms. 
Lo ! streaming comfort o'er the troubled deep, 
On every pointed coast the lighthouse towers ; 
And, by the broad imperious mole repell'd, 



Hark ! how the baffled storm indignant roars. 
As thick to view these varied, wonders rose, 
Shook all my soul with transport, unassured, 
The Vision broke ; and, on my waking eye, . 
Rush'd the still ruins of dejected Rome. 



iWii^celUneott!^ ^otm^. 



TO THE MEMORY OP . 
THE RIGHT HON. LORD TALBOT, 

LATE CHANCELLOR Of GEEAT BRITAIN. 
ADDRESSED TO HIS SON. 

While with the pubUc, you, my Lord, lament 
A friend and father lost; permit the Muse, 
The Muse assign'd of old a double theme. 
To praise dead worth, and humble living pride. 
Whose generous task begins where interest ends; 
Permit her on a Talbot's tomb to lay " • 

This cordial verse sincercj by truth inspired. 
Which means not to bestow but borrow fame. 
Yes, she may sing his matchless virtues now — 
Unhappy that she may. — But where begin 1 
How from the diamond single out each ray. 
Where all, though trembUng with ten thousand 

hues, -■ ■ 

Effuse one dazzUng undivided light '? 

Let the low-minded of these narrow days 
No more presume to deem the lofty tale 
Of ancient times, in pity to their own, 
Romance. In Talbot we united saw 
The piercing eye, the quick enlighten'd soul. 
The graceful ease, the flowing tongue of Greece, 
Join'd to the virtues and the force of Rome. - 

Eternal Wisdom, that all-quickening sun, 
Whence every Ufe, in just proportion, draws 
Directing light and actuating flame, 
Ne'er wdth a larger portion of its beams 
Awaken'd mortal clay. Hence steady, calm. 
Diffusive, deep, and clear, his reason saw. 
With instantaneous view, the truth of things ; 
Chief what to hiunan life and human bliss 
Pertains, that noblest science, fit for man : 
And hence, responsive to his knowledge, glow'd 
His ardent virtue. Ignorance and vice, 
In consort foul, agree; each heightening each; 
While virtue draws from knowledge brighter fire. 

What grand, what comely, or what tender 
sense, 
What talent, or what virtue was not his; 
What that can render man or great, or good, 
Give useful worth, or amiable grace '? 



Nor could he brook in studious shade to lie, 
In soft retirement, indolently pleased 
With selfish peace. The Syren of the wise, 
(Who steals the Aonian song, and, in the shape 
Of Virtue, woos them from a worthless world) 
Though deep he felt her charms, could never melt 
His strenuous spirit, recollected, calm, 
As silent night, yet active as the day. 
The more the bold, the busthng, and the bad. 
Press to usurp the reigns of power, the more, . 
Behoves it virtue, with indignant zeal, - \ 
To check their combination. Shall low A'iews 
Of sneaking interest or luxurious vice. 
The villain's passions, quicken moje to toU, 
And dart a livelier vigour through the ^oul, 
Than those that mingled with our truest good, 
With present honour and immortal fame, 
Involve the good of all 1 An empty form 
Is the weak Virtue, that amid the shade 
Lamenting Ues, with future schemes amused, 
While Wickedness and Folly, kindred powers, 
Confound the world.- A Talbot's, different far, ' 
Sprung ardent into action: action, that disdain 'd 
To lose in deathlike sloth one pulse of life. 
That might be saved ; disdain'd for coward ease. 
And her insipid pleasures, to resign 
The prize of glory, the keen sweets of toil. 
And those high joys that teach the truly great 
To live for others, and for others die. 

Early, behold T he breaks benign on life. 
Not breathing more beneficence, the spring 
Leads in her swelling train the gentle airs : 
While gay, beliind her, smiles the kindling waste 
Of rufiian storms and Winter's lawless rage. 
In him Astrea, to this dun abode 
Of ever wandering men, retum'd again : 
To bless them his dehght, to bring them back 
From thorny error, frqjn unjoyous wrong 
Into the paths of kind primeval faith, 
Of happiness and justice. All his' parts, 
His virtues all, collected, sought the good 
Of humankind. For that he, fervent, felt 
The throb of patriots, when they model states: 
Anxious for that, nor needful sleep could hold 
His still-awaken'd soul ; nor friends had charms 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



109 



To steal, with pleasing guile, one useful hour; 
Toil knew no languor, no attraction joy. 
Thus with unwearied stepp, by Virtue led, 
He gain'd thesummit of that, sacred hill. 
Where, raised above black Envy's darkening 

clouds, 
Her spotless temple lifts its radiant front. 
Be named, victorious ravages, no more ! 
Vanish, ye human comets ! shrink your blaze ! 
Ye that your glory to your terrors owe, 
As, o'er the gazing desolated earth, 
You scatter famine, pestilence, and war; 
Vanish! before this vernal sun of fame; 
Effulgent sweetness ! beaming Ufe and joy. 

How the heart listen'd while he, pleading, 
spoke ! • _ . 

While on the enlighten'd mind, with winning art, 
His gentle reason so persuasive stole, . 
, That the charm'd hearer thought it was his own. 
Ah! when, ye studious of the laws, again 
Shall such enchanting lessons bless your ear? 
When shall again the darkest truths, perplex'd, 
Be set in ample day 1 when shall the harsh 
And arduous open into smiling ease? 
The solid mix with elegant delight? 
His was the talent with the purest light 
At once to pour conviction on the soul. 
And warm with lawful flame, the indpassion'd 

heart. 
That dangerous gift with him was safely lodged 
By Heaven — He, sacred to his country's cause, 
To trampled want and worth, to suffering right, 
To the lone widow's and her orphan's woes. 
Reserved the mighty charm. With equal brow, 
Despising then the smiles or frowns of power, 
He all that noblest eloquence effused. 
Which generous passion, taught by reason, 

breathes: ^ . ■ 

Then spoke the man; andj over barren. art, 
PrevaiI'd abundant nature. Freedoin then 
His client was, humanity and truth. 

Placed on the seat of justice, there he reign'd, 
In a superior sphere of cloudless day," 
A pure intelligence. No tmnult there. 
No dark emotion, no intemperate heat. 
No passion e'er disturbed the clear, serene 
That around him spread. A zeal for right alone, 
The love of justice, like the steady sun, 
Its equal ardour lent; and sometimes raised 
Against the sons of violence, of pride. 
And bold deceit, his indignation gleam'd, 
Yet still by sober dignity restrain'd. 
As intuition quick, he snatched the truth, 
Yet with progressive patience, step by step. 
Self-diffident, or to the slower kind. 
He through the maze of falsehood traced it on, 
Till, at the last, evolved, it full appear'd, 
Aiid e'en the loser own'd the just decree. 

But when, in sienates, he, to freedom firm, 
K 



Enlighten'd Freedom, plann'd salul)rious laws, 
His various learning, his wide:knowledge, then, 
His insight deep into Britannia's weal. 
Spontaneous eecm'd from simple sense to flow. 
And the plain patriot smootli'd the brow of law 
No specious swell, no frothy pomp of words 
Fell on the cheated ear; no studied maze 
Of declaration, to perplex the right. 
He darkening threw around: safe in itself,' 
In its own force, dl powerful Reason spoke ; 
While on the great the ruling point, at once,. 
He stream'd decisive day, and show'd it vain 
To lengthen further out the clear debate. 
Conviction breathes conviction ; to the heart, 
Pour'd ardent forth in eloquence unbid. 
The heart attends : for let the venal try 
Their every hardening stiipifying art. 
Truth must prevail, zeal will enkindle zeal, 
And Nature, skilful touch'd, is honest still. . 

Behold him in the councils of his prince. 
What faithful light he lends! How rare,_ in 

courts, .. ■ (" , . 

Such wisdom! such abilities! and join'd 
To virtue so determined, public zeal. 
And honour of such adamantine proof, 
As e'en corruption, hopeless, and o'eraw'd, 
Durst not have tempted I yet of manners mild, 
Apd winning every heart, he knew to please, 
Nobly to please ; while equally he scorn'd 
Or adulation to receive, or give. 
Happy the state, where wakes a ruling eye 
Of such inspection keen, and general caret 
Beneath a guard so vigilant," so pure, 
Toil may resign his careless head to rest, 
And ever jealous freedom sleep in peace. 
Ah ! lost imtimely ! lost in downward days !' 
And many a patriot-counsel with him lost ! 
Counsels, that might have hmmbled Britain's foe. 
Her native foe, from eldest time by f^te 
Appointed, as did once a Talbot's arms. 

Let learning, arts, let universal worth, 
Lament a patron lost, a friend and judge, 
Uidike the sons of vanity, that veil'd 
Beneath the patron's prostituted name, 
Dare sacrifice a worthy man to pride, 
And flush confusion o'er an honest cheek. 
When he conferr'd a grace, it seem'd a debt 
Which he to merit, to the public, paid. 
And to the great all-bounteous Source of good ! 
His sympathizing heart itself received 
The generous obligation he bestow'd. 
This, this indeed, is patronizing worth. 
Their kind protector him the Muses own. 
But scorn with noble pride the boasted air 
Of tasteless vanity's insulting hand. 
The gracious stream, that cheers the letter'd world. 
Is not the noisy.gift of summer's noon, 
Whose sudden current, from the naked root. 
Washes the little soil which yet remaui'dj 



110 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



And only more dejects the Mushing flowers: 
No, 'tis the soft-dcsccndLng dews at eve, 
The silent treasures of the vernal year, 
Indulging deep tlicir stores, the still night long; . 
Till, with returning mom, the freshen'd world, 
Is fragrance all, all beauty, joy, and song. 

Still let me ^^cw liim in the pleasing light 
Of private life, where pomp forgets to glare, 
And where the plain unguarded soul is seen. 
There, with that truest greatness he appear'd, 
"Which thinks not of appearing; kindly veil'd 
In the soft graces of the friendly scene, , 
Inspiring social confidence and ease. 
As free the converse of the wise and good, 
As joyous, disentangling every power. 
And breathing mix'd improvement with delight, 
As when amid the various-blossom'd spring, 
Or gentle beaming autumn's pensive shade, 
The phik)sophic mind with nature talks. 
Say ye, his sons, his dear remains, with whom ' 
The father laid superfluous state aside. 
Yet raised your fiUal duty thence the more, 
With friendship raised it, with esteem, with love, 
Beyond the ties of love, oh ! speak the joy, 
The piu:e serene, the cheerful wisdom mild. 
The virtuous spirit, wliich his vacant hours, 
In semblance of amusement, through the breast 
Infused. And thou, O Rundle !* lend thy strain. 
Thou darling friend ! thou brother of his soul ! 
In whom the head and heart their straes unite : 
Wliatever fancy paints, invention pours. 
Judgment digests, the well tuned bosom feelsj 
Truth natural, moral* or divine, has taught. 
The virtues dictate, or the Muses sing. 
Lend me the plaint, which, to the lonely main, 
With memory conversing, you will pour, 
As on the pebbled shore you^ pensive, stray, 
Where Derry's mountains a bleak crescent form, 
And mid their ample round receive the waves, 
That from the frozen pole, resounding, rush. 
Impetuous. Though from native sunshine driven. 
Driven from your friends, the sunshine of the soul. 
By slanderous zeal, and poUtics infirm. 
Jealous of worth ; yet will you bless your lot, 
Yet will you triumph in your glorious fate. 
Whence Talbot's friendship glows to future times. 
Intrepid, warm; of kindred tempers born; 
Nursed, by experience, into slow esteem, 
Calm confidence unbbtanxled, love not bUnd, 
And the sweet light from mingled mihds disclosed, 
From mingled chymic oils as bursts the fire. - 

I too remember well that cheerful bowl, • 
Wliich round his table flow'd. The serious there 
Mix'd with the sportive, with the leain'd the 

plain ; - ^ ' ' f 

Mirth soften'd wisdom, candout temper'd mirth ; 
And wit its honey lent, witlibut the sting. 

■ I»r. Ilumllc, BJehop of Dcrry in Ireland. See the Memoir. 



Not simple nature's unafTccted sons. 

The blameless Indians, round their forest-cheer,. 

In sunny lawn or shac\y covert set. 

Hold more unspotted converse ; nor, of old, 

Rome's awful consuls, her dictator swains. 

As on the product of their Sabine farms- 

They fared, with stricter virtue fed the soul: 

Nor yet in Athens, at an Attic meal. 

Where Socrates presided, fairer truth, 

More elegant humanity, more grace, 

Wit more refined, or deeper science reign'd. 

But far beyond the httle vulgar bounds 
Of family,, or friends, or native land, 
By just degrees, and with proportion'd flame, 
Extended his benevolence : a friend 
To humankind, to parent nature's works. 
Of free access, and of engaging grace, 
Such as a brother to a brother owes. 
He kept an open judging ear for all, . 
And spread an open countenance, where smiled 
The fair eflfulgence of an open heart; 
While on the rich, the poor, the high, the low, 
With equal ray, his ready goodness shone : 
For nothing human foreign was to him. . 

Thus to a dread inheritance, my Lord, . ' 
And hard to be supported, you succeed; 
But, kept by virtue, as by virtue gain'd. 
It will, through latest time, enrich your race. 
When grosser wealth shall moulder into dust, 
And with their authors in obhvion sunk 
Vain titles he, the servile badges oft 
Of meail submission, not the meed of worth. 
True genuine honour its large patent holds 
Of all mankind, tlirough every land and age. 
Of uiuveral reason's vaiious sons. 
And e'en of God himself, sole perfect Judge! 
Yet know these noblest honours of the mind 
On rigid terms descend : the high-placed heirj 
Scanri'd by the pubhc eye, that, .with keen gaze, 
Malignant seeks out faults,, can not through life 
Amid the nameless insects of a court. 
Unheeded steal ; but, with his sire compared. 
He must be glorious, or he must be scorn'd. 
This truth to you, who merit well to bear 
A name to Britons dear, the officious Muse 
May safely sing, and sing without reserve. 

Vain were the plaint, and ignorant the tear 
That should a Talbot mourn. Ourselves, indeed,. 
Our country robb'd of her delight and strength, 
We may lament. Yet let us, grateful, joy 
That we such virtues knew, such virtue's felt, 
And feel them still, teaching our view^s to rise 
Through ever brightening scenes bf futtirc worlds 
Be dmnb, ye worst of zealots ! ye that, prone 
To thoughtless dust, renounce that generous hope, 
Whence every joy below its spirit draws, 
And every pain its balm : a Talbot's light, 
A Talbot's virtues claim another source, 
Than the blind maze of undesigning blood; 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Ill 



Nor when that vital fountain plays no more, 
Can they be quench'd amid the gelid stream. 

Methinks I see his mounting spirit, freed 
From tangling earth, regain tlie realms of day, 
Its native country : whence to bless mankind, 
Eternal goodness on this darksome spot 
Had ray'd it douTi a while. Behold ! approved 
By the tremendous Judge of heaven and earth 
And to the Almighty Father's presence join'd. 
He 'takes his rank, in glory, and in bliss. 
Amid the human worthies. Glad around 
Crowd his compatriot shades, and point him out. 
With joyful pride, Britannia's blameless boast. 
Ah ! who is he, that with a fonder eye 
Meets thine enraptm-edl — 'Tis the best of sons ! 

The best of friends ! Too soon is realized 

That hope, which once forbad thy tears to flow ! 

Meanwhile the kindred souls of every land, 

(Howe'er divided in the fretful days 

Of prejudice and error) mingled now, 

In one selected never jarring state. 

Where God himself their only monarch reigns. 

Partake the joy : yet, such the sense that still 

Remains of earthly woes, for us below. 

And for our loss, they drop a pitying tear.' 

But cease, presmnptuous Muse, nor vainly strive 

To quit tliis cloudy sphere, that binds thee down r 

'Tis not for mortal hands to trace these scenes — 

Scenes, that our gross ideas groveling cast 

Behind, and strike our boldest language dumb. 

Forgive, unnjortal shade ! if aught fi-om earth, 
From dust low warbled, to those groves can rise, 
Where flows celestial harmony, forgive 
This fond superfluous verse. With deep-felt voice, 
On every heart impress'd, thy deeds themselves 
Attest thy praise. Thy praise the widow's sighs, 
And orphan's tears embalm. The good, the bad,' 
The sons of justice and the sons of strifei, 
All who or freedom or who interest prize, 
A deep-divided nation's parties all, 
Conspire to swell thy spotless praise to Heaven. 
Glad Heaven receives it, and seraphic lyres 
With songs of triumph thy arrival hail. 
How vain this tribute then ! this lowly lay ! 
Yet nought is vain that gratitude inspires. 
The Muse, besides, her duty thus approves 
To virtue, to her country, to mankind. 
To ruling nature, that, in glorious charge. 
As to her priestess, gives it her to hymn 
Whatever good and excellent she forms. 



TO THE 

MEMORY OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON, 

Inscribed to the Right Hon. Sir Robert Walpole. 

Shall the great soul of Newton quit this earth, 
To mingle with his stars ; and every Muse. 
36 



Astonish'd into silence, shun the weight 

Of honours due to his illustrious name*? 

But what can man 1 — E'en now the sons of light, 

In strains high warbled to seraphic lyre, 

Hail his arrival on the coast of bliss. 

Yet am not I detcrrVi, though high the theme, 

And sung to harps of angels, for with you, 

Ethereal flames ! ambitious, I aspire 

In Nature's general symphony to join. 

And what ne^v wonders can ye show your guest ! 
Who, while on this dim spot, where mortals toil 
Clouded in dust, from Motion's simple laws. 
Could trace the secret hand of Providence, 
Wide-working through this universal frame. 

Have ye not listcn'd while he bound the Suns 
And Planets, to their spheres! the unequal task 
Of humankind till then. Oft had they roU'd 
O'er erring man the year, and oft disgraced 
The pride of schools, before their course was known 
Full in its causes and eflects to him, 
All-piercing sage ! Who sat not down and dream'd 
Romantic schemes, defended by the din 
Of specious words, and tyranny of names ; 
But, bidding his amazing mind attend. 
And with heroic patience years on years 
Deep-searclung, saw at last the system dawn, 
And shine, of all his race, on him alone. 

What were his raptures then ! how pure ! how 
strong! 
And what the triumphs of old Greece and Rome, 
By his diminish'd, but the pride of boys 
In some small fray victorious ! when instead 
Of shatter'd parcels of this earth usurp'd 
By violence unmanly, and sore deeds 
Of cruelty and blood, Nature herself 
Stood all subdued by him, and open laid 
Her every latent glonj to Ms view. 

All intellectual eye, our solar round 
First gazing through, he by the blended power 
Of Gravitation and Projection saw 
The whole in silent harmony revolve. 
From unassisted vision hid, the moons 
To cheer remoter planets numerous form'd, 
By him in all their mingled tracts were seen. 
He also fix'd our wandering GLueen of Night, 
Whether she wanes into a scanty orb, 
Or, waxing broad, with her pale shadowy light. 
In a soft deluge overflows the sky. 
Her every motion clear-discerning. He 
Adjusted to the mutual Main, and taught 
Why now the mighty mass of water swells 
Resistless, heaving on the broken rpcks, 
And the full river turning : till again 
The tide revertive, unattracted, leaves 
A yellow waste of idle sands behind. 

Then breaking hence, he took his ardent flight 
Through the blue infinite ; and every star. 
Which the clear concave of a winter's night 
Pours on the eye, or astronomic tube, 



112 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Far stretching, snatclics from the dark abyss ; . 

Or such as furtlicr in successive skies 

To fancy sliine alone, at his approach 

Blazed into suns, the living centre each 

Of an hannonious system : all comhincd, 

And ruled unening by that single power, 

Which draws the stone projected to the ground. 

O unprofuse magnificence divine ! 

O wisdom truly perfect ! thus to call 

From a few causes such a scheme of things, 

Effects so various, beautiful, and great, 

A universe complete ! And O, beloved 

Of Heaven ! whose well purged penetrative eye 

The mystic veil transpiercing, inly scann'd 

The rising, moving, wide-establish'd frame. 

He, first of men, with awful wing pursued 
The Comet through the long eliptic curve, 
As round innumcrous worlds he wound his way ; 
Till, to the forehead of our evening sky 
Return'd, the blazing wonder glares anew, 
And o'er the trcmbhng nations shakes dismay. 

The heavens arc all his own ; from the wild rule 
Of wlurling Vortices, and circling Spheres, 
To their first great simplicity restored. 
The schools astoiush'd stood ; but found it vain 
To combat still with demonstration strong. 
And, unawakcn'd dream beneath the blaze 
Of truth. At once their pleasing visions fled. 
With the gay shadows of the morning mix'd. 
When Newton rose, our philosophic sun ! 

The aerial flow of Sound was known to him, 
From whence it first in wavy circles breaks. 
Till thetouch'd organ takes the message in. 
Nor could the darting beam of Speed immense 
Escape his swift pursuit and measuring eye. 
E'en Light itself, which every thing displays, 
Shone undiscover'd, till Ms brighter mind 
Untwisted all the shining robe of day ; 
And, from the whitening undistinguish'd blaze, 
Collecting every ray into his kind. 
To the charm'd eye educed the gorgeous train 
Of parent colours. First the flaming Red 
Sprung vivid forth; the tawny Orange next; 
And next delicious Yellow ; by whose side 
Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing Green. 
Then the pure Blue, that swells autumnal skies, 
Ethereal play'd ; and then, of sadder hue. 
Emerged the dcepen'd Indico, as when 
The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost. 
While the last gleamings of refracted light 
Dyed in the fainting violet away. 
These, when the clouds distil the rosy shower. 
Shine out distinct adown the watery bow ; 
While o'er our heads the dewy vision bends 
Delightful, melting on the fields beneath. 
Myriads of minghng dyes from these result, 
And myriads still remain ; infinite source 
Of beauty, ever blushing, ever new. 
Did ever poet ijnage ought so fair, 



Dreaming in whispering groves, by the hoarse 

brook ! 

Or prophet, to whose rapture heaven descends 1 
E'en now the setting sun and shifting clouds. 
Seen, Greenwich, from thy lovely heights, declare 
How just, how beauteous the refractive law. 

The noiseless tide of Time, all bearing down 
To vast eternity's unbounded sea, 
Where the green islands of the happy shine, 
He stemm'd alone; and to the source (involved 
Deep in primeval gloom) ascending, raised 
His lights at equal distances, to guide 
Historian, wilder'd on his darksome way. 

But who can number up liis labours'? who 
His high discoveries sing 1 when but a few 
Of the deep-studying race can stretch their minds 
To what he knew : in fancy's lighter thought, 
How shall the muse then grasp the mighty theme 1 

What wonder thence that liis devotion swell'd 
Responsive to his knowledge 1 For could he, 
Whose piercing mental eye diffusive saw 
The finish'd university of things. 
In all its order, magnitude, and parts. 
Forbear incessant to adore that power 
Who fills, sustains, and actuates the whole 'I 

Say, ye who best can tell, ye happy few, 
Who saw him in the softest lights of life, 
All unvnthheld, indulging to his friends 
The vast unborrow'd treasures of his mind, 
Oh, speak the wondrous man! how mild, how 

calm. 
How greatly humble, how divinely good 
How firm established on eternal truth ; 
Fervent in doing well, with every nerve 
Still pressing on, forgetful of the past, 
And panting for perfection : far above 
Those little cares, and visionary joys. 
That so perplex the fond impassion'd heart 
Of ever cheated, ever trusting man, 

And you, ye hopeless gloomy-minded tribfe, 
You who, unconscious of those nobler flights 
That reach impatient at immortal hfe, 
Against the prime endearing privilege 
Of Being dare contend, — say, can a soul 
Of such extensive, deep, tremendous powers, 
Enlarging still, be but a finer breath 
Of spirits dancing through their tubes awhile. 
And then for ever lost in vacant air 1 

But hark ! methinks I hear a warning voice, 
Solemn as when some awful change is come, 
Sound through the world — ' 'Tis done ! — The 

measure's full ; 
And I resign my charge.'^- Ye mouldering stones, 
That build the towering pyramid, the proud 
Triumphal arch, the monmnent effaced 
By rutliless ruin, and whatever supports 
The worship'd name of hoar antiquity, 
Down to the dust ! what grandeur can ye boast 
Wliile Newton lifts his column to the skies, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



113 



Beyond the waste of time. Lot no weak drop 

Be shed for him. The virgin in her bloom 

Cut off, the joyous youth, and darling child. 

These are the tombs that claim the tender tear, 

And elegiac song. But Newton calls 

For other notes of gratulation high, 

That now he wanders through those endless 

worlds. 
He here so well descried, and wondering talks. 
And hymns their author with his glad compeers. 
O Britain's boast !■ whether with angels thou 
Sittest in dread discourse, or fcllow-bless'd, 
Who joy to see thfe honour of their kind; 
Or whether, mounted on cherubic wing. 
Thy swift career is with the wliirling orbs. 
Comparing things with things, in rapture lost, 
And grateful adoration, for that light 
So plenteous ray'd into thy mind below, 
From light himself; Oh, look with pity down 
On humankind, a frail erroneous race ! 
Exalt the spirit of a downward world ! 
O'er thy dejected Country chief preside, 
And be her Genius call'd ! her studies raise, 
Correct her manners, and inspire her youth. 
For, though depraved and sunk, she brought thee 

forth. 
And glories in thy name ; She points thee out 
To all her sons, and bids them eye thy star: 
While in expectance of the second life. 
When time shall be no more, thy sacred dust 
Sleeps with her kings, and dignifies the scene. 



ON THE DEATH OF MR. AIKMAN.* 

Oh, could I draw, my friend, thy genuine mind, 
Just as the living forms by thee design'd ; 
Of Raphael's figures none should fairer shine, 
Nor Titian's colour longer last than mine. 
A mind in wisdom old, in lenience young. 
From fervent truth where every virtue sprung; 
Where all was real, modest, plain, sincere; 
Worth above show, and goodness unsevere : 
View'd round and round, as lucid diamonds throw 
Still as you turn them a revolving glow, 
So did his mind reflect with secret ray, 
In various virtues. Heaven's internal day; 
Whether in high discourse it soar'd sublime 
And sprung impatient o'er the bounds of Time, 
Or wandering nature through with raptured eye. 
Adored the hand that turn'd yon azure sky: 



■" Mr. Aikman was bom in Scotland, and was designed for 
the profession of the law ; but went to Italy, and returned a 
painter. He was patronized in Scotland by the Duke of Ar- 
gyle, and afterwards met witli encouragement to settle in 
London ; but falling into a long and languishing disease, he 
died at his house in Leicester Fields, June 1731, aged 50. 
Boyse wrote a panrgyric upon him, and Mallet an epitaph. 
See Walpole's Anecdotes, vol. iv. p. 14. 



Whether to social life ho bent his thought. 
And thc.right poise of mingling passions sought, 
Gay converse blcss'd ; or in the thoughtful grove 
Bid the heart open every source of love: 
New varying lights still set before your eyes 
The just, the good, the social, or the wise. 
For such a death who can, who would refuse 
The friend a tear, a verse the mournful mtisel 
Yet pay wc just acknowledgment to heaven. 
Though .snatch'd so soon, that Aikman e'er was 

given. 
A friend, when dead, is but removed from sight, • 
Hid in the lustre of eternal light : 
Oft with the mind he wonted Converse keeps 
In the lone walk, or when the body sleeps 
Lets in a wandering ray, and all elate 
Wings and attracts her to another state ; 
And, when the parting -storms of life are o'er, 
May yet rejoin him in a happier shore. 
As those we love decay, we die in part, 
String after string is sever'd from the heart; 
Till loosen'd life at last — but breathing clay. 
Without one pang, is glad to fall away. 
Unhappy he who latest feels the blow, 
Whose eyes have wept o'er every friend laid low, 
Dragg'd lingering on from partial death to death; 
And dying, all he can resign is breath. 



EPITAPH ON MISS STANLEY,* 

IN HOLYRO0D CHURCH, SOUTHAMPTON. 

E. S. 

Once a lively image of human nature. 

Such as God made it 

When he pronounced every work of his to be good. 

To the ipemory of Elizabeth Stanley, 

Daughter of George and Sarah Stanley ; 

. Who to all the beauty, modesty, 

And gentleness of nature, 

That ever adorned the most amiable woman. 

Joined all the fortitude, elevation 

And vigour of mind, 

That ever exalted the most heroical man; 

Who having lived the pride and delight of her 

parents. 

The joy, the consolation, and pattern of her friends, 

A mistress not only of the EngUsh and French, 

But in a high degree of the Greek and Roman 

learning. 

Without vanity or pedantry, 

At the age of eighteen. 

After a tedious, painful, desperate illness. 

Which, with a Roman spirit, . 

And a Christian resignation. 

She endured so calmly, that she seemed insensible 



' See an allusion to this Lady in "Summer," p. 18. 



114 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



To all pain and suffering, except that of her friends, 

Gave up her innocent soul to her Creator, 

And left to her mother, who erected this monument, 

The memory of her virtues for her greatest support; 

Virtues which, in her sex and station of life, 

Were all that could be practised, 

And more than will be beUeved, 

Except by those who know what this inscription 

relates. 

Here, Stanley, rest ! escaped this mortal strife, 
Above the joys, beyond the woes of life. 
Fierce pangs no more thy Uvely beauties stain, 
And sternly try thee with a year of pain ; 
No more sweet patience, feigning oft relief, 
Lights thy sick eye, to cheat a parent's grief: 
With tender art to save her anxious groan, 
JNo more thy bosom presses down its own : 
Now well eam'd peace is thine, and bliss sincere : 
Ours be the lenient, not unpleasing tear ! 

O born to bloom then sink beneath the storm; 
To show us virtue in her fairest form ; 
To show us artless reason's moral reign. 
What boastful science arrogates in vain ; 
The obedient passions knowing each their part ; 
Calm Ught the head, and harmony the heart! 

Yes, we must follow soon, will glad obey; 
When a few suns have roU'd their cares away. 
Tired with vain life, will close the willing eye : 
'Tis the great birthright of mankind to die. 
Bless'd be the bark ! that wafts us to the shore. 
Where death-divided friends shall part no more: 
To join thee there, here with thy dust repose. 
Is ail the hope thy hapless mother knows 



ON THE DEATH OF HIS MOTHER.* 

Ye fabled Muses, I your aid disclaim. 
Your airy raptures, and your fancied flame' : 
True genuine wo my throbbing breast inspires, 
Love prompts my lays, and filial duty fires; 
My soul springs instant at the warm design. 
And the heart dictates every flowing line. 
See ! where the Jrindest, best of mothers lies, 
And death has closed her ever watching eyes ; 
Has lodged at last hi peace her weary breast. 
And lull'd her many piercing cares to rest, 
No more the orphan train around her stands. 
While her full heart upbraids her needy hands ! 
No more the widow's lonely fate she feels. 
The shock severe that modest want conceals. 
The oppressor's scourge, the scorn of wealthy 

pride. 
And poverty's unnumber'd ills beside. 
For see ! attended by the angelic throng. 
Through yonder worlds of light she glides along, 



* See the Memoir. 



And 'claims the well eam'd raptures of the sky: 
Yet fond concern recalls the mother's eye ; 
She seeks the helpless orphans left behind; 
So hardly left ! so bitterly resign'd ! 
Still, still ! is she my soul's diurnal theme, 
The waking vision, and the wailing dream : 
Amid the ruddy sun's enlivening blaze 
O'er my dark eyes her devry image plays, 
And in the dread dominion of the night 
Shines out again the sadly pleasing sight. 
Triumphant virtue all around .her darts. 
And more than volumes every look imparts — 
Looks, soft, yet awful ; melting, yet serene ; 
Where both the mother and the saint are seen. 
But ah ! that night — that torturing night remains; 
May darkness dye it with the deepest stains, 
May jay on it forsake her rosy bowers. 
And streaming soitovv blast its baleful hours, 
When on the margin of the briny flood', 
Chill'd Vfith a sad presaging damp I stood. 
Took the last look, ne'er to behold her more. 
And mix'd our murmurs with the wavy roar; 
Heard the last words fall from her pious tongue. 
Then, wild into the bulging vessel flung, 
Which soon, too soon, convey'd me from her sight 
Dearer than life, and liberty, and light ! 
Why was I then, ye powers, -reserved for this"? 
Nor sunk that moment in the vast abyss 1 
Devour'd at once by the relentless wave, • 
And whchn'd for ever in a watery grave 1 — 
Down, ye wild wishes of unruly wo ! — 
I see her with immortal beauty glow; 
The early wrinkle, care-contracted, gone. 
Her tears all wiped, and all her sorrows flown; 
The exalting voice of Heaven I hear her breathe, 
To soothe her soul in agonies of death. 
I see her through the mansions blest above. 
And now she meets her dear expecting Love. 
Heart-cheering sight ! but yet, alas ! o'erspread 
By the dark gloom of Grief's uncheerfial shade. 
Come then, of reason the reflecting hour. 
And let me trust the kind o'erruling Power, 
Who from the right commands the shining day. 
The poor man's portion, and the orphan's stay. 



THE HAPPY MAN. 

He's not the happy man. to whom is ^ven 
A plenteous fortune by indulgent Heaven ; 
Whose gilded roofs on shining columns rise, 
And painted walls enchant the gazer's eyes: 
Whose table flows vrith hospitable cheer. 
And all the various bounty of the year ; 
Whose valleys smile, whose gardens breathe the 

spring, 
Whose carved mountains bleat, and forests sing; 
For whom the cooling shade in summer twines. 
While his full cellars give their generous wines ; 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



115 



From whose wide fields unbounded autumn pours 
A golden tide into his swelling stores : 
Whose winter laughs ; for whom the liberal gales 
Stretch the big sheet, and toiling commerce sails ; 
When yielding crowds attend, and pleasure serves; 
While youth, and health, and vigour string his 

nerves. 
E'en not all these, in one rich lot combined, • 
Can make the happy man, without the mind ; 
Where judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys 
The chain of reason with unerring gaze ; 
Where fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes, 
His fairer, scenes, and bolder figures rise; 
Where social love exerts her soft command. 
And lays the passions with a tender hand. 
Whence every virtue flows, in rival strife, 
And all the moral harmony of hfe. 

Nor canst thou, Dodington, this truth decline, 
Thine is the fortune, and the mind is thine. 



A PARAPHRASE 

ON THE LATTER PART OF THE SIXTH CHAPTER OP 
ST. MATTHEW. 

When my breast labours with oppressive care. 
And o'er my cheek descends the falling tear; 
While all my warring passions are at strife, 
O, let me listen to the words of life! 
Raptures deep-felt His doctrine did impart, 
And thus He raised from earth the drooping heart. 

' Think not, when all, your scanty stores afibrd; 
Is spread at once upon the sparing board ; 
Think not, when worn the homely robe appears. 
While, on the roof, the howling tempest bears ; 
What further shall this feeble life sustain. 
And what shall clothe these shivering limbs again! 
Say, does not life its nourishment exceed 1 
And the fair body its investing weed'? 

' Behold ! and look away your low despair — 
See the light tenants of the barren air : 
To them, nor stores, nor granaries belong, 
Nought, but the woodland, and the pleasing song; 
Yet, your kind heavenly Father bends his eye 
On the least wing that flits along the sky. 
To him they sing, when Spring renews the plain. 
To him they cry in Winter's pinching reign; 
Nor is their music, nor their plaint in vain: 
He hears the gay and the distressful call, ' 
And with unsparing bounty fills them all. 

' Observe the rising lily's snowy grace, 
Observe the various vegetable race; 
They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow, 
Yet see how warm they blush, how bright they 

glow! 
What regal vestments can with them compare! 
What king so shining, or what queen so fair! 
If ceaseless thus the fowls of Heaven he feeds, 
•If o'er the fields such lucid robes he spreads: 



Will he not care for you, ye faithless, say? 
Is he unwise 1 or are ye less than theyl 



ON BOLUS'S HARP 

Ethereal race, inhabitants of air, 
Who hymn your God amid the secret grove; 

Ye unseen beings, to my harp repair, 

And raise majestic strains, or melt in love. 

Those tender notes, how kindly they upbraid, 
With what soft wo they thrill the lover's heart! 

Sure from the hand of some unhappy maid, 
Who died for love, those sweet complainings part. 

But hark ! that strain was of a graver tone, 
On the deep strings his hand' some hermit throws; 

Or he, the sacred Bard,* who sat alone 
In the drear waste, and wept his people's woes. 

Such was the song whicn Zion's children sung, 
• When by Euphrates' stream they made their 

plaint; 
And to such sadly solemn notes are Strung 
Angelic harps to sooth a dying saint. 

Metliinks I hear the full celestial choir. 

Through Heaven's high dome their awful an- 
them raise ; 

Now chanting clear, and now they all conspire 
Tq swell the lofty hymn from praise to praise. 

Let me, ye wandering spirits of the wind, 

Who, as wild fancy prompts.you, touch the string, 

Smit with your theme, be in your chorus join'd, 
For, till you cease, my Muse forgets to sing. 



HYMN ON SOLITUDE. 

Hail, mildly pleasing Solitude, 
Companion of the wise and good; 
But from whose holy piercing eye, 
The herd of fools, and villains fly. 

Oh ! how I love with thee to walk, 
And listen to thy whisper'd talk. 
Which innocence and truth imparts, 
And melts the most obdurate hearts. 

A thousand shapes you wear with ease, 
And still in every shape you please. 
Now wrapt in some mysterious dream, 
A lone philosopher you seem; 
Now quick from hill to vale you fly. 
And now you sweep the vaulted sky; 



Jeremiah. 



116 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



A shepherd next, you haunt the plain, 
And warble forth your oaten strain. 
A lover now, with all the grace 
Of that sweet passion in yoiu: face : 
Then calm'd to friendship, you assume 
The gentle looking Hertford's bloom, 
As, with her Musidora, she 
(Her Musidora fond of thee) 
Amid the long-withdrawing vale, 
Awakes the rival'd nightingale. 

Thine is the balmy breath of mom, 
Just as the dew-bent rose is born; 
And while meridian fervors beat. 
Thine is the woodland dumb retreat ; 
But cllief, when evening scenes decay, 
And the faint landscape swims away, 
Thine is the doubtful soft decline. 
And that best hour of musing thine. 

Descending angels bless thy train, 
The virtues of the sage and swain; 
. Plain Iimocence in white array'd 
Before thee lifts her fearless head ; ' 
ReUgion's beams around thee shine, 
And cheer thy glooms with light divine: 
About thee sports sweet Liberty: 
And wrapt Urania sings to thee. 

Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell ! 
And in thy deep recesses dwell; 
Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill, 
When meditation haS her fill, 
I just may cast my careless eyes, 
Where London's spiry turrets rise, 
Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain, 
Then shield me in the woods again. 



TO SERAPHINA. 

The wanton's charms, however bright, 
Are Uke the false illusive light. 
Whose flattering unauspicious blaze 
To precipices oft betrays: 
But that sweet ray your beauties dart. 
Which clears the mind, and cleans the heart. 
Is like the sacred queen of night. 
Who pours a lovely gentle light 
Wide o'er the dark, by wanderers blest, 
Conducting them to peace and rest. 
A vicious love depraves the mind, 
'Tis anguish, guilt, and folly join'd; 
But Seraphina's eyes dispense 
A mild and gracious influence; 
Such as in visions angels shed 
Around the heaven-illumined head. 
To love thee, Seraphina, sure 
Is to be tender, happy, pure ; 



'Tis from low passions to escape. 
And woo bright virtife's fairest shape ; 
'Tis ecstasy with wisdom join'd; 
And heaven infused into the mind. 



VERSES ADDRESSED TO AMANDA.* 

Ah, ui'ged too late ! from beauty's bondage free, 

Why did I trust my liberty with thee 1 

And thou, why didst thou, with inhuman art. 

If not resolved to take, seduce my heart! 

Yes, yes, you said, for lovers' eyes speak true; 

You must have seen how fast my passion grew: 

And, when your glances chanced on me to shine, 

How my fond soul ecstatic sprung to thine ! 

But mark me, fair one — what I now declare 

Thy deep attention claims and serious care: 

It is no conmion passion fires my breast; 

I must be wretehed, or. I must be blest! 

My woes all other remedy deny; 

Or, pitying, give me hope, or bid me die! 



TO THE SAME, 

WITH A copy OF THE " SEASONS." 

Accept, loved Nymph, this tribute due 
To tender friendship, love, and you :t 
But with it takfi what breathed the whole, 
O take to thine the poet's soul. 
If Fancy here her power displays, 
And if a heart exalts these lays — 
You, fairest, in that fancy shine, 
And all that heart is fondly thine. 



SONGS. 

A NUPTIAL SONG. 

Come, gentle Venus ! and assuage 
A warring world, a bleeding age. 
For nature lives beneath thy ray. 
The wintry tempests haste away, 
A lucid calm invests the sea. 
Thy native deep is full of thee : 
The flowering earth where'er you fly, 
Is all o'er spring, all sun the sky. 
A genial spirit warms the breeze ; 
Unseen among the blooming trees, 
The feather'd lovers tune their throat. 
The desert growls a soften'd note, 



* Amanda, as is stated in the Memoir, was a Misa Young, 
who married Vice Admiral Campbell. 
T In anotlier MS. the two fii-st lines read : 

Accept, dear Nymph ! a tribute due 

To sacred friendship and to you. 



^. .Ac 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



117 



Glad o'er the meads the cattle bound, 
And love and harmony go round. 

But chief into the human heart 
You strike the dear delicious dart ; 
You teach us pkasing pangs to know, 
To languish in luxurious wo, 
To feel the generous passions rise, 
Grow good by gazing, mild by sighs ; 
Each happy moment to improve,^ 
And fill the perfect year with love. 

Come, thou delight of heaven and earth 
To whom all creatmes owe their birth : 
Oh, come, sweet smiling! tender, come! 
And yet prevent our final doom. 
For long the furious god of war 
Has crush'd us with his iron car, 
Has raged along our ruin'd plains, 
Has foil'd them vnth his cruel stains, 
Has sunk our youth in endless sleep, 
And made the widow'd virgin weep. 
Now let him feel thy wonted charms. 
Oh, take him to thy twining arms ! 
And, while thy bosom heaves on his, 
While deep he prints the humid kiss. 
Ah, then ! his stormy heart control, 
And sigh thyself into his souL 



TO AMANDA.* 

Come, dear Amanda, quit the town. 

And to the rural hamlets fly; 
Behold! the wintry storms are gone: 

A gentle radiance glads the sky. 

The birds awake, the flowers appear. 
Earth spreads a verdant couch for thee; 

'Tis joy and music all we hear, 
'Tis love and beauty all we see. 

Come, let us mark the gradual spring, 
How peeps the bud, the blossom blows; 

Till Philomel begins to sing, 

And perfect May to swell the rose. 

E'en so thy rising charms improve. 

As life's warm season grows more bright; 

And opening to the sighs of love. 
Thy beauties glow with fiill delight. 



TO AMANDA. 

Unless with my Amanda bless'd, 
In vain I twine the woodbine bower; 



' This song waa obligingly contributed to this edition by 
William Henry, present Lord Lyttelton, from a copy in 
Thomson's own hand, and is printed for the first time. 



Unless to dock her sweeter breast. 
In vain I rear the breathing flower. 

Awaken'd by the genial year, 
In vain the birds around me sing ; 

In vain the freshening fields appear :— 
Without my love there is no Spring. 



TO FORTUNE. 

For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove. 
An unrelenting foe to love, 
And when we meet a mutual heart, 
Come in between, and bid us part : 

Bid us sigh on from day to day 
And wdsh, and wish the soul away ; 
Till youth and genial years are flown, 
And all the love of life is gone? 

But busy, busy still art thou, ' 
To bind the loveless joyless vow, 
The heart from pleasure to delude. 
And join the gentle to the rude. 

For pomp, and noise, and senseless show, 
To make us Nature's joys forego. 
Beneath a gay dominion groan. 
And put the golden fetter on 1 

For once, O Fortune, hear my prayer, 
And -I absolve thy future care ; 
All other blessings I resign. 
Make but the dear Amanda mine. 



COME, GENTLE GOD. 

Come, gentle God of soft; desire, 
Come and possess my happy breast. 

Not fury-like in flames and fire. 
Or frantic folly's wildness drest ;♦ 

But come in friendsliip's angel-guise; 

Yet dearer thou t^h'an friendship art, 
More tender spirit in thy eyes, 

More sweet emotions at thy heart. 

O, come with goodness in thy train, 
With peace and pleasure void of storm, 

And wouldst thou me for ever gain. 
Put on Amanda's winning form. 



* A MS. copy of this song has the following variations ; 

In raptm'e, rage, and nonsense- drest. 

These are the vain disguise of love, 
And, or bespeak dissembled pains ; 
Or else a fleeting fever prove. 
The frantic passion of the veins. 



118 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



TO HER I LOVE. 

Tell me, thou soul of her I love, 
Ah ! tell me whither art thou fled j 

To what delightful world above, 
Appointed for the happy dead 1 

Or dost thdu, free, at pleasure, roam, 
And sometimes share thy lover's wo ; 

Where, void of thee, his cheerless home 
Can now, alas ! no comfort know"? 

Oh ! if thou hover'st round my walk. 
While, under every well known tree, 

I to thy fancied shadow talk. 
And every tear is full of thee: 

Should then the weary eye of grief. 
Beside some sympathetic stream, 

In slumber find a short relief. 
Oh, visit thou my soothing dream ! 



TO THE GOD OP FOND DESIRE. 

One day the God of fond desire, 
On mischief bent, to Damon said, 

'Why not disclose your tender fire. 
Not own it to the lovely maid V 

The shepherd mark'd his treacherous art, 
And, softly sighing, thus replied : 

* Tis true, you have subdued my heart. 
But shall not triumph o'er my pride. 

' The slave, in private only hears • 
Your bondage, who his love conceals ; 

But when his passion he declares. 
You drag him at your chariot-wheels.' 



THE LOVER'S FATE. 

Hard is the fate of him who loves. 
Yet dares not tell his trembling pain, 

But to the sympathetic groves. 
But to the lonely listening plain. 

Oh! when she blesses next your shade, 
Oh ! when her footsteps next are seen 

In flowery tracts along the mead. 
In fresher mazes o'er the green : 

Ye gentle spirits of the vale, 

To whom the tears of love are dear. 
From dying lilies wafl; a gale, 

And sigh my sorrows in her ear. 



Oh ! tell h"er what she can not blame, 
Though fear my tongue must ever hind; 

Oh, tell her, that my virtuous flame 
Is, as her spotless soul, refined. 

Not her own guardian-angel eyes 
With chaster tenderness his care. 

Not purer her own wishes rise, 
Not holier her dwn sighs in prayer. 

But if, at first, her virgin fear 

Should start at love's suspected name. 
With that of friendship sooth her ear — 

True love and friendship are the same. 



TO THE NIGHTINGALE, 

O Nightingale, best poet of the grove, 

That plaintive strain can ne'er belong to thee, 
Bless'd in the full possession of thy love : 

lend that strain, sweet Nightingale, to me ! 

'Tis mine, alas ! to moum.Tdy wretched fate : 

1 love a maid who all ray bosom charms. 
Yet lose my days without this lovely mate ; 

Inhuman fortune keeps her from my arms. 

You, happy birds ! by nature's simple laws 
Lead your soft lives, sustain'd by nature's fare; 

You dwell wherever roving far^cy draws, 
And love and song is all your pleasing care : 

But we, vain slaves of interest and of pride. 
Dare not be bless'd, lest envious tongues should 
blame : 

And hence, in vain, I languish for my bride ! 
O mourn with me, gweet bird, my hapless flame. 



TO MYRA. . 

THOU, whose tender serious eyes 
Expressive speak the mind I love ; 

The gentle azure of the skies, 
The pensive shadows of the grove ; 

O mix thy beauteous beams with mine 
And let us interchange our hearts; 

Let all their sweetness on me shine, ' 
Pour'd through my soul be all their darts. 

Ah! 'tis too much! I can not bear 

At once so soft, so keen a ray: 
In pity, then, my lovely fair, 

O turn those killing eyes away ! 

But what avails it to conceal 
One charm, where nought but charms I see*? 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



119 



Their lustre then again reveal, 
And let me, Myra, die of thee ! 



SONGS. IN THE MASQUE OF 'ALFRED." • 

TO PEACE. 

O Peace! the fairest child of Heaven, 
To whom the sylvan reign was given, 
The vale, the fountain, and the grove. 
With every softer scene of love: 

Return, sweet Peace! and cheer the weeping swain ! 

Return, with Ease and Pleasure in thy train. 



TO ALFRED. 

FIRST SPIRIT. 

Hear, Alfred, father of the state, 

Thy genius Heaven's high will declare ! 

What proves the hero truly great, ' , 

Is never, never to despair: 
Is never to despair. 

SECOND SPIRIT. 

Thy hope awake, thy heart expand, 
With all its vigour, all its fires. 

Arise ! and save a sinking land ! 

Thy country calls, and Heaven inspires, 

BOTH SPIRITS. 

Earth calls, and Heaven inspires. 



■ "SWEET VALLEY, SAY." 

Sweet valley, say, where pensive lying, 
For me, our children, England sigliing, 
. The best of mortals leans his head, 
Ye fountains, dimpled by my sorrow. 
Ye brooks that my complainings borrow, 
O lead me to his lonely bed: 
Or if my lover. 
Deep woods, you cover, 
Ah, whisper where yom* shadows o'er -him spread. 

'Tis not the loss of pomp and pleasure, 
Of empire or of tinsel treasure, 

That drops this tear, that swells this groan: 
No: from a nobler cause proceeding, 
A heart with love and fondness bleeding, 
I breathe my sadly pleasing moan. 
With other anguish, 
I scorn to languish. 
For love will feel no sorrows but his own. 



* The Masque of Alfred was the joint composition of Thom- 
son and Mallet ; hence the autlwrship of tlie following songs 
is somewhat doubtful. 



' FROM THOSE ETERNAL REGIONS." 

Prom those eternal regions bright, 
Where PHns that never set in night, 

Diii'use the golden day: 
Where Spring, unfading, pours aromid, 
O'er all the dcw-impearled ground, 
FIcr thousand colours gay : 
whether on the mountain's flowery side, 
Whence living waters ghde, 
Or in the fragrant grove. 
Whose shade embosoms peace and love, 
New pleasures all our hours employ. 
And ravish every sense with every joy! 
Great heirs of empire ! yet unborn^ 
Who shall this island late adorn; 
A monarch's drooping thought to cheer, 
Appear! appear! appear! 



CONTENTMENT. 

If those who live in shepherd's bower, 
Press not the rich and stately bed : 

The new-mown hay and breathing flower 
A softer couch beneath them spread. 

If those who sit at shepherd's board, 
Sooth not their taste by wanton art; 

They take what Nature's gift afford. 
And take it with a cheerful heart. 

If those who drain the shepherd's bowl, 
No high and sparkUng wines can boast, 

With wholesome cups they cheer the soul. 
And crown them wiih the village toast. 

If those who join in shepherd's sport, . 

Gay dancing on the daisied ground, 
Have not the splendour of a court; 

Yet love adorns the merry round. 



RULE, BRITANNIA! 

WITH VARIATIONS. 

When Britain first, at Heaven's command, 

Arose from out the azure main, 
This waslhe charter of the land. 
And guardian angels sung this strain: 
' Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; 
Britons never will be slaves.' 

The nations, not so bless'd as thee, 
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall; 

While thou shalt flourish great and free, 
The dread and emy of them all. 
' Rule,' «&c. 



120 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Still more majestic shalt thou rise, 
More dreadful from each foreign stroke; 

As the loud blast that tears the skies 
Serves but to root thy native oak. 
' Rule,' &c. 

The haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame: 
All their attempts to bend thee down 

Will but rouse thy generous flame, 
But work their wo, and thy renown. 
' Rule,' &£. 

To thee belongs the rural reign ; 

Thy cities shall with commerce shine: 
All thine shall be the subject main: 

And every shore it circles thine. 
' Rule,' &c. 

The Muses, still with freedom found, 

Shall to thy happy coast repair: 
Bless'd isle ! with matchless beauty crown'd, 
And manly hearts to guard the fair: 
' Rule, Britannia, rule the waves, 
Britons never will be slaves,' 



TO THE REV. PATRICK MURDOCK, 

RECTOR OP STRADISHALL, IN SUFFOLK. 1738. 

Thus safely low, my friend, thou canst not fall : 
Here reigns a deep traiiquillity o'er all ; 
No noise, no care, no vanity, no strife; 
Men, woods, and fields, all breathe untroubled life, 
Then keep each passion down, however dear: 
Trust me, the tender are the most severe. 
Guard, while 'tis thine, thy philosophic ease. 
And ask no joy but that of virtuous peace ; 
That bids defiance to the storms of fate ; 
High bliss is only -for a higher state! 



TO HIS 
ROYAL fflGHNESSTHE PRINCE OF WALES; 

While secret-leaguing nations frown- around. 
Ready to pour the long-expected storm; 

While she, who wont the restless Gaul to bound, 
Britannia, drooping, grows an empty form; 

While on our vitals selfish parties prey. 

And deep corruption eats our soul away : 

Yet in the Goddess of the Main appears 
A gleam of joy, gay-flushing every grace, 

As she the cordial voice of millions hears. 
Rejoicing, zealous, o'er thy rising race : 

Straight her rekindUng eyes resume their fire, 

The Virtues smile, the Muses tune the lyre. 



But more enchanting tlian the Muse's song. 
United Britons thy dear oflspring hail: 

The city triumphs through her glowing throng, 
The shepherd tells his transports to the dale; 

The sons of roughest toil forget their pain, • 

And the glad sailor cheers the midnight main. 

Can aught from fair Augusta's gentle blood, 
And thine, thou friend of liberty ! be born : 

Can aught save what is lovely, generous, good; 
What will, at once, defend us, and adorn 1 

From thence prophetic joy new Edwards eyes, 

New Henries, Annas, and Elizas rise. 

May fate my fond devoted days extend, 

To sing the promised glories of thy reigri! 
What though, by years depress'd, my Muse might 
bend; 
My heart will teach her still a bolder strain: 
How, with recover'd Britain, will she soar. 
When France insults, and Spain shall rob no 
more. 



TO DR. DE LA COUR, IN IRELAND. 

ON HIS " PROSPECT OP POETRY." 

Hail gently warbling De la Cour, whose fame, 

Spurning Hibernia's solitary coast. 

Where small rewards attend the tuneful throng, 

Pervades Britannia's well discerning isle: 

In spite of all the gloomy-minded tiibe 

That woxdd eclipse thy fame, still shall the muse, 

High soaring o'er the tall Parnassian mount 

With spreading puiions — sing thy wondrous 

' praise. 
In strains attuned to the seraphic lyre. 
Sing unappall'd, though mighty be the theme ! 
O ! could she in thy own harmonious strain, 
Where softest numbers smoothly flowing glide 
In trickUng cadence ; where the milky maze 
Devolves in silence; by the harsher sound 
Of hoarser periods s'till unruffled, could 
Her lines but like thine own Euphrates flow-r- 
Then might she sing in numbers worthy thee. 
But what can language do, when fancy finds 
Herself unequal to the lovely task "? 
Can feeble words thy vivid colours paint. 
Or show the sweets which inexhaustive flow 1 
Hearken, ye woods, and long-resounding groves; 
Listen, ye streams, soft purling through the meads; 
And hymning horrid, all ye tempests, roar. 
Awake, ye woodlands ! sing, ye warbhng, larks. 
In wildly luscious notes ! But most of all. 
Attend, ye grateful fan-, attend the youth 
Who sweetly sings of nature and of you : 
From you alone liis conscious breast expects 
Its soft rewards, by sordid love of gain 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



121 



Unbias'd, undcbased ; to meaner minds 
Belong such narrow views ; his nobler soul, 
Transported with a generous thirst of fame, 
SubUrnely rises with expanded wings, ■ 
And through the lucid empyrean soars. ■ 
So the young eagle wings its rapid way 
Through heaven's broad azure ; sometimes springs 

aloft, 
Now drops, now cleaves with even-waving wings 
The yielding air, nor seas nor mountains stop 
Its flight impetuous, gazing at the sun 
With irretorted eye, wliilst he pervades 
A trackless void, and unexplored before. 
Long had the curious traveller strove to find 
The ruins of aspiring Babylon — 
In vain — for nought the nicest eye could trace 
Save one wide, watery, undistinguish'd waste: 
But you with more than magic art have raised 
Semiramis's city from its grave; 
You have reversed the scripture curse, which said, 
Dragons shall here inhabit ; in your page 
"We view the rising spires; the hurried eye 
Distracted wanders through the verdant maze; 
In middle air the pendant gardens hang, 
Tremendous ceiUng ! — wliilst no solar beam 
Falls on the lengthen'd gloom beneath; the woods 
Project above a steep-alluring shade; 
The finish'd garden opens to the view 
Wide stretching vistas, while the wMspering wind 
Dimples along the breezy-ruffled lake. 
Now every tree irregiolar and bush 
Are prodigal of harmony : the birds 
Frequent the aerial wood, and nature blushes, 
Ashamed to find herself outdone by art: 
These and a thousand beauties could I smg, 
Collecting hke the ever-toUing bee 
From yonder mingled wilderness of flowers 
The aromatic sweets; while you, great youth I 
O'er tliy decaying country chief preside ; 
Be thou her genius call'd, inspire her youth 
With noble emulation to arrive 
At Hehcon's fair font, wliichfew, alas! 
Save you, have tasted of Hibernian youth. 
Thy country, though corrupted, brought thee 

forth, . 
■ And deem'd her greatest ornament ; and now 
Regards thee as her brightest northern star. 
Long may you reign as such; and should grim 

Time, 
With iron teeth, deprive us of our Pope, 
Then we'll transplant thy blooming laurels fresh 
From your bleak shore to Albion's happier coast. 



HYMN TO GOD'S POWER. 

Hail ! Power Divine, who by thy sole Command, 
From the dark empty space, 



Made the broad sea and solid land 
Smile with a heavenly gracp. 

Made the high mountain and the firm rock, 

Where bleating cattle stray ; 
And the strong, stately, spreading oak, 

That intercepts the day. 

The rolling planets thou madest move. 

By thy eflfective will ; 
And the revolving globes above 

Their destined course fiilfil. 

His' mighty powers, ye thunders, praise, 
As tlu'ough the heavens ye roll ; 

And his great name, ye lightnings, blaze. 
Unto the distant pole. 

Ye seas, in your eternal roar, 

His sacred praise proclaim ; 
While the inactive sluggish shore 

Re-echoes to the same. 

Ye howling winds, howl out his praise. 

And make the forests bow ; 
While through the air, the earth, and seas, 

His solemn praise ye blow. 

O yon high harmonious, spheres. 

Your powerftd mover sing ; 
To him your circling course that steers, 

Your tuneful praises bring. 

Ungrateful mortals, catch the sound. 

And in your numeroui lays. 
To all the listening world around, 

The God of nature praise. 



A POETICAL EPISTLE 

TO SIR WILLIAM BENNET, BART. OF GRUBBAT.* 

My trembling muse your honour does address, 
That it's a bold attempt most hiunbly I confess ; 
If you'll encourage her young fagging flight, 
She'll upwards soar and mount Parnassus' height. 
If httle things with great may be compared, 
In Rome it so with the divine Virgil fared; 
The tuneful bard Augustus did inspire, 
Made his great genius flash poetic fire; 
But if upon my flight your honour frowns. 
The muse folds up her wings, and dying — justice 
ovms. 



' This was written at a very early period of Thomsori's life, 
probably. before he was sixteen; and the reason for inserting 
it is, that the first productions of genius are objects of rational 
curiosity. 



123 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



ON MRS. MENDEZ' BIRTHDAY, 

WHO WAS BORN ON VALENTINE's DAY. 

Thine is the gentle day of love, 

When youths and virgins try their fate; 

When, deep retiring to the grove, 
Each feather'd songster weds his mate. 

With temper'd beams the skies are bright, 
Earth decks in smiles her pleasing face; 

Such is the day that gave thee light, 
And speaks as such thy every grace. 



AN ELEGY UPON JAMES THERBERN. 

1 IN CHATTO. 

Now, Chatto, you're a dreary place, 
Pale sorrow broods on ilka face; 
Therburn has run his race. 
And now, and now, ah me, alas ! 

. The carl lies dead. 

Having his paternoster said. 
He took a dram and went to bed ; 
He fell asleep, and death was glad 

That he had catch'd him; 
For Therburn was e'en ill bested. 

That none did watch him. 

For had the carl but beert aware, 

.That meagre death, who none does spare, 

T' attempt sic things should ever dare. 

As stop his pipe ; 
He might have come to flee or skare ; 

The greedy gipe. 

How he'd had but a gill or twae, 
Death would nae got the victory sae, 
Nor put poor Therburn a'er the brae, 
Into the grave; 



The fumbling fellow, some folks say. 
Should be jobb'd on baith night and day ; 
She had without'en better play. 

Remained still, 
Barren for ever and for aye, 

Do what he will. 

Therefore they say he got some help 
In getting of the little whelp : 
But passing that it makes me yelp, 

But whatremeaai 
Death lent him such a cursed skelp. 

That now he's dead. 



* The MS. is imperfect in this place. 



Therburn, for ever inore farewell. 
And be thy grave both dry and deep; 
And rest thy carcass soft and well. 

Free from . . , 
no night 

Disturb ... 



ON THE REPORT THAT A WOODEN 

BRIDGE WAS TO BE BUILT- AT WESTMINSTER. 

By Rufus hall, where Thames polluted flows, 
Provoked; the Genius of the river rose. 
And thus exclaim'd : ' Have I, ye British swains, 
Have I for ages laved your fertile plains'? 
Given herds, and flocks, and villages increase, 
And fed a richer than a golden fleece 1 
Have I, ye merchants, with each swelling tide, 
Pour'd Afric's treasures in, and India's pride "? 
Lent you the fruit of every nation's toil 1 
Made every climate yours, and every soil 1 
Yet, pilfer'd from the poor, by gaming base 
Yet must a wooden bridge my waves disgrace 1 
Tell not to foreign streams the shameful tale, 
And be it publish'd in no Gallic vale.' 
He said ; and plunging to his crystal dome. 
While o'er his head the circling waters foam. 



THE INCOMPARABLE SOPORIFIC 
DOCTOR.* 

Sweet, sleeky Doctor ! dear pacific soul I 
Lay at the beef, and suck the vital bowl ! 
Still let the involving smoke around thee fly, 
And broad-look'd dullness settle in thine eye. 
Ah ! soft; in down these dainty limbs repose, 
And in the very lap of slumber doze; 
But chiefly on the lazy day of grace. 
Call forth the lambent glories of thy face ; 
If aught the thoughts of dinner can prevail, 
And sure the Sunday's dinner can not fail. 
To the thin church, in sleepy pomp proceed, 
And lean on the lethargic book thy head. 
These eyes wipe often with the hallow'd lawn, 
Profoundly nod, immeasurably yav^n. 
Slow let the prayers by thy meek hps be sung. 
Now let thy thoughts be distanced by thy tongue; 
If ere the Ungerers are within a call. 
Or if on prayers thou deign'st to think at all. 
Yet — only yet — the svnmming head we bend; 
But when serene, the pulpit you ascend. 
Through every joint a gentle horror creeps. 
And round you the consenting audience sleeps. 
So when an ass with sluggish front appears. 
The horses start, and prick their quivering ears ; 
But soon as e'er the sage is heard to bray. 
The fields all thunder, and they bound away. 



* Dr, Patrick Murdoch. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



123 



• LIST'S PARTING WITH HER CAT. 

The dreadful hour with leaden pace approach'd, 
Lash'd fiercely on by unrelenting fate, 
When Lisy and her bosom Cat must part; 
For now, to school and pensive needle doom'd. 
She's banish'd from her childhood's undash'd joy, 
And all the pleasing intercourse she kept 
With her gray comrade, which has often soothed 
Her tender moments, while the world around 
Glow'd with ambition, business, and vice, 
Or lay dissolved in sleep's delicious arms ; 
And from their dewy orbs the conscious stars 
Shed on their friendly influence benign. 

But see where mournful Puss, advancing, stood 
With outstretoh'd tail, casts looks of anxious wo 
On melting Lisy, in whose eye the tear 
Stood tremulous, and thus would fain have said, 
If nature had not tied her struggling tongue : 
' Unkind, O ! who shall now with fattening milk, 
With flesh, with bread, and fish belo.ved, and meat. 
Regale my taste 1 and at the- cheerful fire, 
Ah, who shall bask me in their downy lap 1 
Who shall invite me to the bed, and throw 
The bedclothes o'er me in the winter night. 
When Eurus roars ? Beneath whose soothing hand 
Soft shall I purr 1 But now, when Lisy's gone, 
What is the dull officious world to me 1 
I loathe the thoughts of life :' thus plain'd the Cat, 
While Lisy felt, by sympathetic touch, , 
These anxious thoughts that in her mind revolved. 
And casting on her a desponding look. 
She snatch'd her in her arms with eager grief, 
And mewing, thus began : — O Cat beloved ! 
Thou dear companion of my tender years ! 
Joy of my youth ! that oft has lick'd my hands 
With velvet tongue ne'er stain'd by mouse's blood. 
Oh, gentle Cat ! how shall I part with thee 1 
How dead and heavy will the moments pass 
When you are not in my delighted eye, 
With Cubi playing, or your flying tail. 
How harshly will the softest mushn feel, 
And all the silk of schools, while I no more 
Have your sleek skin to sooth my soften'dsense 1 
How shall I eat while you are not beside 
To share the bit 1 How shall, I ever sleep 
While I no more your lulling murmurs hear^ 
Yet we must part — so rigid fate decrees — 
But never shall your loved idea, dear, 
Part from my soul, and when I first can mark 
The embroider'd figure on the snowy lawn, 
Your image shall my needle keen employ .- 
Hark ! now I'm call'd away ! O direful sound ! 
I come — I come, but first I charge you all — 
You — you — ahd you, particularly you, 
O Mary, Mary, feed her with the best, 
Repose her nightly in the warmest couch, 
And be a Lisy to her !' — Having said, 



She sat her down, and with her head across, 
Rush'd to the evil which she could not shun, 
While a sad mew went knelling to her heart ! 



ON THE HOOP. 

The hoop, the darling justly of the fair, 

Of every generous swain deserves the care. 

It is unmanly to desert the weak, 

'Twould urge a stone, if possible, to speak; 

To hear stanch hypocrites bawl out, and cry, 

' This hoop 's a whorish garb, fie! ladies, fie !' 

cruel and audacious men, to blast 

The fame of ladies more than vestals chaste; 

Should you go search the globe throughout, 

You'll find none so pious and devout ; 

So modest, chaste, so handsome, and so fair, 

As our dear Caledonian ladies are. 

When awful beauty puts on all her charms. 

Nought gives our sex such terrible alarms, 

As when the hoop and tartan both combine 

To make a virgin like a goddess shine. 

Let quakers cut their clothes unto the quick. 

And with severities themselves afflict ; 

But may the hoop adorn Edina's street, 

TUl the south pole shall with the northern meet. 



STANZAS.' 

Written by Thomson on the blank leaf of a copy 
of his ' Seasons' sent by him to Mr. Lyttelton, 
soon after the death of his wife. 

Go, little book, and find our Friend, 
Who nature and the Muses loves. 

Whose cares the pubUc virtues blend 
With all the softness of the groves, 

A fitter time thou canst not choose, 
His fostering friendship to repay; 

Go then, and try, my rural muse. 
To steal his widow'd hours away. 



ON MAY. 

Among the changing months. May stands confest 
The sweetest, and in fairest colours drest ! 
"Soft as the breeze that fans the smiling field ; 
Sweet as the breath that opening roses yield; 
Fair as the colour lavish Nature paints 
On Virgin flowers free from unodorous taints ! — 
To rural. scenes thou tempt'st the busy crowd, 
Who, in each grove, thy praises sing aloud ! 
The blooming belles and shallow beaux, strange 

sight, 
Turn nymphs and swains, and in their sports de- 
light. 



lU 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



THE MORNING IN THE COUNTRY. 

When from the opening chambers of the east 
The morning springs, in thousand liveries drest, 
The early larks their morning tribute pay, 
And, in shrill notes, salute the blooming day. 
Refreshed fields with pearly dew do shine. 
And tender blades therewith their tops incline. 
Their painted leaves the unblown flowers expand. 
And with their odorous breath perfume the land. 
The crowing cock and chattering hen awakes 
Dull sleepy clowns, who know the morning breaks. 
The herd his plaid around his shoulders throws. 
Grasps his dear crook, calls on his dog, and goes 
Around the fold: he walks with careful pace, 
And fallen clods sets in their wonted place ; 
Then opes the door,, unfolds his fleecy care, 
And gladly sees tliem crop their morning fare! 
Dovm upon easy moss he lays. 
And sings some charming shepherdess's praise. 



ON A COUNTRY LIFE.* 

I HATE the clamours of the smoky towns, 
But much admire the bliss of rural clowns ; 
Where some remains of innocence appear. 
Where no rude noise insults the listening ear; 
Nought but soft zephyrs wliispering through the 

trees. 
Or the still humming of the painftil bees; 
The gentle murmurs of a purling rill. 
Or the unwearied chirpifig of the drill ; 
The charming harmony of warbUng birds,- 
Or hollow- lowings of the grazing herds ; 
The murmuring stockdoves melancholy coo, 
When they their loved mates lament or woo; 
The pleasing bleatings of the tender lambs, 
Or the indistinct mum'ling of their dams; 
The musical discord of cliiding hounds, 
Whereto the echoing hill or jock resounds ; 
The rural mournful songs of lovesick swains. 
Whereby they soothe their raging amorous pains ; 
The whistling music of the lagging plough. 
Which docs the strength of di'ooping beasts renew. 

And as the country rings with pleasant sounds. 
So with delightful prospects it abounds: 
Through every season of the sliding year, 
Unto the ravish'd sight new scenes appear. 

In the sweet spring the sun's prolific ray 
Does painted flowers to the mild air display; 
Then opening buds, then tender herbs are seen, 
And the bare fields are all array'd in green. 



* This, and the (wo foUowiiii; poems, were wi-itlcn by Thorn. 
Bon, when at lUe UniversUy, and were published in llje Edin 
burgh Miscellany, 12ino 1720. 



In ripening summer, the full laden vales 
Gives prospect of employment for the flails; 
Each breath of wind the bearded groves makes 

bend. 
Which seems the fatal sickle to portend. 

In Autumn, that repays the labourer's pains, 
Reapers sweep down the honours of the plains. 

Anon black Winter, from the frozen north, 
Its treasuries of snow and hail pours forth ; 
Then stormy winds blow through the hazy sky, 
In desolation nature seems to lie; 
The unstain'd snow from the flail clouds descends. 
Whose sparkling lustre open eyes offends. 
In maiden white the glittering fields do shine; 
Then bleating flocks for want of food repine. 
With wither'd eyes they see all snow around, 
And with their fore feet paw and scrape the 

ground : 

They cheerfully do crop the insipid grass, 
The shepherds sighing, cry, Alas! alas!. 
Then pinching want the wildest beast does tame; 
Then huntsmen on the snow do trace their game; 
Keen frost then turns the liquid lakes to glass, 
Arrests the dancing rivulets as they pass. 

How sweet and innocent are country sports, 
And, as men's tempers, various are their sorts. 

You, on the banks of soft meandering Tweed, 
May in your toils ensnare the watery breed. 
And nicely lead the artificial flee,*- 
Which, when the nimble, watchful trout does see, 
He at the bearded hook will briskly spring; 
Then in that instant twieth your hairy string 
And, when he's hook'd, you, with a constant hand, 
May draw him struggling to the fatal land. 

Then at fit seasons you may clothe your ho6k, 
With a sweet bait, dress'd l)y a faithless cook; 
The greedy pike darts to't with eager haste, 
And being struck, in vain he flies at last; 
He rages, storms, and flounces through the Stream, 
But all, alas ! his hfe can not redeem. 

At other times you may pursue the chase, 
And hunt the nimble hare from place to place. 
See, when the dog is just upon the grip. 
Out at a side she'll make a handsome skip. 
And ere he can divert his furious course, 
She, far before him, scours with all her force : 
She'll shift, and many times run the same groimd; 
At last, outwearied by the stronger hound, 
She falls a sacrifice unto his hate. 
And with sad piteous screams laments her fate. 

See how the hawk doth take his towering flight, 
And in his course outflies our very sight. 
Bears down the fluttering fowl with all his might. 

Sec how the wary gunner casts about, 
Watching the fittest posture when to shoot: 
CLuick as the fatal lightning blasts thb oak, 
He gives the springing fowl a sudden stroke; 



' AngUce, fly. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



135 



He pours upon't a shower of mortal lead, 
And ere the noise is heard the fowl is dead. 

Sometimes he spreads his hidden subtle snare, 
Of which the entangled fowl was not aware; 
Through pathless wastes he doth pursue his sport, 
Where nought but moor-fowl and wild beasts re- 
sort. 

When the noon sun directly darts his beams 
Upon 3^our giddy heads, with fiery gleams. 
Then you may bathe yourself in cooUng streams; 
Or to the sweet adjoining grove retire, 
Where trees with interwoven boughs conspire 
To form a grateful shade ; — there rural- swains 
Do tune their oaten reeds to rural strains; 
The silent birds sit listening on the sprays, 
And in soft charming notes do imitate their lays. 
There you may stretch yourself upon the grass. 
And, lull'd with music, to kind slumbers pass : 
No meagre cares your fancy will distract. 
And on that scene no tragic fears will act ; 
Save the dear image of a charming she. 
Nought will the object of your vision be. 

Away the vicious pleasures of the town ; 
Let empty partial fortune on me frown; ■ 
But grant, ye powers, that it may be my lot 
To live in peace from noisy towns remote. 



ON HAPPINESS. 

W.4Rm'd by the summer sun's meridian ray. 
As underneath a spreading oak I lay 
Contemplating the mighty load of wo, 
In search of bliss that mortals undergo, 
Who, while they think they happiness enjoy, 
Embrace a curse wrapt in delusive joy, 
I reason'd thus: Since the Creator, God, 
Who in eternal love makes his abode. 
Hath blended with the essence of the soul 
An appetite as fixed as the pole. 
That's always eager in pursuit of bliss. 
And always veering till it points to this. 
There is some object adequate to fill 
This boundless wish of our extended will. 
Now, while my thought round nature's circle runs 
(A bolder journey than the furious smi's) 
Thif chief and satiating good to find 
The attracting centre of the human mind, 
My ears they deafen'd, to my swimming eyes 
His magic wand the drowsy God applies. 
Bound all my senses in a silken sleep, 
While mimic fancy did her vigils keep; 
Yet still methinks some condescending power ■ 
Ranged the ideas in my mind that hour. 

Methought I wandering was, with thousands 
more, 
Beneath a high prodigious hill, before. 
Above the clouds whose towering summit rose. 
With utmost labour only gained by those 
L 



Who grovi^ling prejudices throw away, 
And with incessant .straining climb'd their way; 
Where all who stood their failing breath to gain, 
With headlong ruin tumbled down the main. 
This mountain is through every nation famed, 
And, as I learned. Contemplation named. 
O happy me ! when I had reach'd its top 
Unto my sight a boundless scene did ope. ' 

First, sadly I survey'd with downward eye, 
Of restless men below the busy fry. 
Who hunted triOas in an endless maze. 
Like fooUsh boys, on sunny summer days, 
Pursuing butterflies with all their might. 
Who can't their troubles, in the chase requite. 
The painted insect, he who most admires. 
Grieves most when it in his rude hand expires ; 
Or should it live, with endless fears is toss'd. 
Lest it take wing and be for ever. lost. 

Some men I saw their utmost art employ 
How to attain a false deceitful joy. 
Which from afar conspicuously did blaze, 
And at a distance fixed their ravish'd gaze, 
But nigh at hand it mock'd their fond embrace. 
When lo ! again it flashed in their eyes. 
But still, as they drew near, the fond illusion dies. 
Just so I've seen a water-dog pursue 
An unflown duck within his greedy view, 
When he has, panting, at his prey arrived, 
The coxcomb fooling — suddenly it dived ; 
He, gripping, is almost with water choked. 
And grieves that all his towering hopes are mock'd. 
Then it emerges, he renews his toil, 
And o'er and o'er again he gets the foil. 
Yea, all the joys beneath the conscious sun, 
And softer ones that his inspection shun. 
Much of their pleasures in fruition fade. 
Enjoyment o'er them throws a sullen shade. 
The reason is, we promise vaster things 
And sweeter joys than from their nature springs: 
When they are lost, we weep the apparent bliss, 
And not what really in Fruition is ; 
So that our griefs are greater than our joys, 
And real pain springs from fantastic toys. 

Though all terrene delights of men below 
Are almost nothing but a glaring show; 
Yet if there always were a virgin joy 
When t'other fades to sooth the wanton boy, 
He somewhat might excuse his heedless course, 
Some show of reason for the same enforce : 
But frugal nature wisely does deny 
To mankind such profuse variety ; 
Has what is needful only to us given, 
To feed and cheer us in the way to Heaven; 
And more would but the traveller delay, 
Inipede and clog him in his upward way. 

I from the mount all mortal pleasures saw 
Themselves within a narrow compass draw: 
The libertine a nauseous circle run. 
And dully acted what he'd often done. 



126 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Just so when Luna darts her silver ray, 
And pours on silent earth a paler day : 
From Stygian caves the flitting fairies scud, 
And on the margcnt of some limpid flood, 
Which by reflected moonlight darts a glance, 
In midnight circles range themselves and dance. 

To-morrow, cries he, will us entertain : 
Pray what's to-morrow but to-day again"? 
Deluded youth, no more the chase pursue, 
So oft deceived, no more the toil renew. 
But in a constant and a fix'd design 
Of acting well there is a lasting mine 
Of solid satisfaction, purest joy. 
For virtue's pleasures never, never cloy: 
Then hither come, cUmb up the steep ascent, 
Your painful labour you will ne'er repent, 
From Heaven itself here you're but one remove, 
Here's the praBludium of the joys above. 
Here you'll behold the awful Godhead shine, 
And all perfections in the same combine ; 
You'll see that God, who, by his powerful call, 
From empty nothing drew this spacious all, . 
Made beauteous order the rude mass control 
And every part subservient to the whole ; 
Here you'll behold upon the fatal tree 
The God of Nature bleed, expire, and die, 
For such as 'gainst his holy laws rebel. 
And such as bid defiance to his hell. 
Through the dark gulf here you may clearly pry 
'Twixt narrow Time and vast Eternity. 
Behold the Godhead just, as well as good. 
And vengeance pour'd on tramplers on his blood 
But all the tears wiped from his people's eyes, 
And, for their entrance, cleave the parting skies. 
Then sure you will with holy ardours burn, 
And to seraphic heats your passion turn ; 
Then in your eyes all mortal fair will fade. 
And leave of mortal beauties but the shade ; 
Yourself to him you'll solemnly devote. 
To him without whose providence you're not; 
You'll of his service relish the delight, 
And to his praises all your powers excite ; 
You'll celebrate his name in heavenly sound, 
WTiich well pleased skies in echoes will rebound : 
This is the greatest happiness that can 
Possessed be in this short hfe by man. 

But darkly here the Godhead we survey, 
Confined and cramped in tliis cage of clay. 
What cruel band is this to earth that ties 
Our souls from soaring to their native skies 1 
Upon the bright eternal face to gaze. 
And there drink in the beatific rays: 
There to behold the good one and the fair, 
A ray from whom all mortal beauties are 7 
In beauteous nature all the harmony 
Is but the echo of the Deity, 
Of all perfection who the centre is, 
And boundless ocean of untainted bUss; 



For ever open to the ravish'd view. 
And full enjoyment of the radiant crew, 
Who live in raptures of eternal joy. 
Whose flaming love their tuneful harps employ 
In solemn hymns Jehovah's praise to sing. 
And make all heaven with hallelujahs ring. 

These realms of hght no further I'll explore, 
And in these'heights I will no longer soar: 
Not like our grosser atmosphere beneath. 
The ether here's too thin for me to breathe. 
The region is unsufTerable bright. 
And flashes on me with too strong a light. 
Then from the mountain, lo ! I now descend, 
And to my vision put a hasty end. 



VERSES ON RECEIVING A FLOWER 
FROM HIS MISTRESS. 

Madam, the flower that I received from you, 
Ere it came home had lost its lovely hue : 
As flowers deprived of the genial day, 
Its sprightly bloom did wither and decay; 
Dear fading flower, I know full well, said I, 
The reason why you shed your sweets and die ; 
You want the influence of her enlivening eye. 
Your case is mine — Absence, that plague of love! 
With heavy pace makes every minute move : 
It of niy being is an empty blank. 
And hinders me myself with men to rank ; 
Your cheering presence quickcneth me again, 
And new-sprung life exults in every vein. 



PROLOGUE TO TANCRED AND SIGIS- 
MUNDA. 

Bold is the man! who, in this nicer age. 
Presumes to tread the chaste corrected stage. 
Now, with gay tinsel arts we can no more 
Conceal the want of Nature's sterling ore. 
Our spells are vanish'd, broke our magic wand, 
That used to waft you over sea and land. 
Before your light the fairy people fade. 
The demons fly — the ghost itself is laid. 
In vain of martial scenes the loud alarms. 
The mighty prompter thundering out to arms. 
The playhouse posse clattering from afar, « 
The close- wedged battle and the din of war.* 
Now, e'en the senate seldom we convene : 
The yawning fathers nod behind the scene. 
Your taste rejects the ghttering false sublime, 
To sigh in metaphor, and die in rhyme. 
High rant is tumbled from his gallery throne : 
Description dreams — ^^nay, sunilies are gone. 

What shall we then 1 to please you how devise 
Whose judgment sits not in your ears and eyes? 
Thrice happy! could we catch great Shakspeare's 

art. 
To trace the deep recesses of the heart; 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



127 



His simple plain sublime, to which is given 
To strike the soul with darted flame from heaven; 
Could we awake soft Otway's tender wo, 
The pomp of verse, and golden lines of Rowe. 

We to your hearts apply: let them attend; 
Before their silent candid bar we bend. 
If warm'd, they listen, 'tis our noblest praise ; 
If cold, they wither all the Muse's bays. 



EPILOGUE TO TANCRED AND SIGIS- 
MUNDA. ■ 

Ceamm'd to the throat with wholesome moral 

stuff, 
Alas! poor audience! you have ha^ 'enough. 
Was ever hapless heroine of a play 
In such a piteous phght as ours to-day"? 
Was ever woman so by love betray'd 1 
Match'd with two husbands, and yet — die a maid. 
But bless me I — ^hold. — What sounds are these I 

hear ! — • 
I see the Tragic Muse herself appear. 

The back scene opens,, and discover a romantic sylvan 
. landscape ; from which' Mrs. Gibber, in the character 
of the Tragic Muse, advances slowly to music, and 
speaks the foUowing Unes^ 

Hence with your flippant epilogue that tries 
To vwpe the virtuous tear from British eyes ; 
That dares my moral, tragic scene profane 
With strains — at best, unsuiting, light and vain. 
Hence from the pure unsullied beams that play 
In yon fair eyes where virtue shines — Away ! 

Britons, to you ftom chaste Castalian groves, 
. Where dwell the tender, oft unhappy loves ! 
Where shades' of heroes roam, each mighty name, 
And court, my aid to rise again to fame : 
To you I come, to Freedom's noblest seat, 
And in Britannia fix my last retreat. 

In Greece and Rome, I watch'd the public weal, 
The purple tyrant trembled at my steel : 
Nor did I less o'er private sorrows reign, 
And mend the melting heart with softer pain. 
On France and you then rose my brightening star, 
With social ray — The arts are ne'er at war. 
O, as your fire and genius stronger blaze, 
As yours are generous Freedom's bolder lays, 
Let not the Gallic taste leave yours behind. 
In decent manners and in hfe refined ; 
Banish the motley mode to tag low verse. 
The laughing ballad to the mournful hearse. 
When through five acts your hearts have learnt to 

glow, 
Touch'd with the sacred force of honest wo; 
O keep the dear impression on your breast, 
Nor idly loose it for a wretched jest. 

37 • 



EPILOGUE TO AGAMEMNON. 

Our bard, to modern epilogue a foe. 

Thinks such mean birth but deadens generous wo; 

Dispels in idle air the moral sigh. 

And wipes the tender tear from Pity's eye; 

No more with social v trmth the. bosom burns; 

But all the unfeeling man returns.* 

Thus he began: — And you approved the strain; 
Till the next couplet sunk to light and vain. 
You check'd him there. — To you, to reason just, 
He owns he triumph'd in your kind disgust. 
Chaim'd by your frown, by your displeasure 

graced. 
He hails the rising virtue of your taste. 
Wide will its influence spread as soon as known : 
Truth, to be loved, needs only to be shown. 
Confirm it, once, the fashion to be good: 
(Since fashion leads the fool, and awes the rude) 
No petulance shall wound the public ear ; 
No hand applaud what honour shuns to hear: 
No painful blush the modest cheek shall stain ; 
The worthy breast shall heave with no disdain. 
Chastised to decency, the British stage 
Shall oft invite the fair, invite the sage : 
Both shall attend well pleased, well pleased de- 
part; 
Or if they doom the verse, absolve the heart. 



PROLOGUE TO MALLET'S MUS- 
TAPHA. 

Since Athens first began to draw mankind, 
To picture life, and show the impassion'd mind ; 
The truly -wise have ever deem'd the stage 
The moral school of each enlighten'd age. 
There, in full pomp, the tragic Muse appears, ■' 
Q,ueen of soft sorrows, and of useful fears. 
Faint is the lesson reason's rules impart : 
She pours it strong, and instant through the heart. 
If virtue is her theme, we sudden glow 
With generous flame; and what we feel, we grow. 
If vice she paints, indignant passions rise ; 
The villain sees himself with loathing eyes. 
His soul starts, conscious, at another's groan, 
And the pale tyrant trembles on his throne. 

To-night, our meaning scene attempts to show 
What fell events from dark suspicion flow ; 
Chief when it .taints a lawless monarch's mind, 
To the false herd on flattering slaves confined. 



'Thomson observes, "Another epilogue was spoken after 
the first representation of the play, which began with the first 
six lines of this ; but the rest of that epilogue having been 
very justly disliked by the audience, this was substituted in 
its place." 



128 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



The soul sinks gradual to so dire a state ; 
E'en excellence but serves to feed its hate : 
To hate remorseless cruelty succeeds, 
And every worth, and every virtue bleeds. 
Behold, our author at your bar appears, 
His modest hopes depress'd by conscious fears. 
Faults he has many — but to balance those, 
His verse vpith heart-felt love of virtue glows : 
All slighter errors let indulgence spare, 
And be his equal trial full and fair. 
For this best British privilege we call, 
Then — as he merits, let him stand or fall. 



PSALM CIV. PARAPHRASED.* 

To praise thy Author, Soul, do not forget; 

Canst thou, in gratitude, deny the debtl 

Lord, thou art great, how great we can not know; 

Honour and majesty do round thee flow. 

The purest rays of primogenial hght 

Compose thy robes, and make them dazzling 

• bright; 

The heavens and all the wide spread orbs on high 
Thou like a curtain stretch'd of curious dye; ; 
On the devouring flood thy chambers are 
Establish'd; a lofty cloud's thy car; • . 

Which quick through the ethereal road doth fly, 
On swift wing'd winds, that shake the troubled 

sky. 
Of spiritual substance angels thou didst frame, 
Active and bright, piercing and quick as flame. 
Thou'st firmly founded this unwieldy earth; 
Stand fast for aye, thou saidst, at nature's birth. 
The swelling flood thou o'er the earth madest 

creep. 
And coveredst it with the vast hoary deep: 
Then hill and vales did no distinction know, 
But level'd nature lay oppress'd below. 
With speed they, at thy awful thunder's roar, 
Shrinked within the limits of their shore. 
Through secret tracts they up the mountains 

creep. 
And rocky caverns fruitful moisture weep. 
Which sweetly through the verdant vales doth 

glide, 
Till 'tis devoured by the greedy tide. 
The feeble sands thou'st made the ocean's movmds. 
Its foaming waves shall ne'er repass these bounds. 
Again to triumph over the dry grounds. 
Between the hills, grazed by the bleating kind, 
Soft warbling rills their mazy way do find ; 
By him appointed fully to supply. 
When the hot dogstar fires the realms on high. 
The raging thirst of every sickening beast, 
Of the wild ass that roams the dreary waste: 



'This was one of Thomson's earliest pieces. See the Me- 
moir, p. iv. and the .* ('fteuda. 



The feather'd nations, by their smiling sides, 
In lowly brambles, or in trees abide ; 
By nature taught, on them they rear their nests, 
That with inimitable art are drcss'd. 
They for the shade and safety of the wood 
With natural music cheer the neighbourhood. 
He doth the clouds with genial moisture fill, 
Which on the [shrjivel'd ground they bounteously 

distil. 
And nature's lap with various blessings crowd: 
The giver, God ! all creatures cry aloud. 
With freshest green he clothes the fragrant mead. 
Whereon the grazing herds wanton and feed. 
With vital juice he makes the plants abound. 
And herbs securely spring above the ground, 
That man may be sustain'd beneath the toil 
Of manuring the ill producing soil ; 
Which with a plenteous harvest does at last 
Cancel the memory of labours past; 
Yields him the product of the generous vine, 
And balmy oil that makes liis face to sliine ; 
Fills all his granaries with a loaden crop, 
Aga,inst the bare barren winter his great prop. 
The trees of God with kindly sap do swell, 
E'en cedars tall in Lebanon that dwell, . 
Upon whose lofty tops the birds erect ' 
Their nests, as careful nature does direct. 
The long neck'd storks unto the fir trees fly, 
And with their cackhng cries disturb the sky. 
To unfrequented hills wild goats. resort, . 
And on bleak rocks the nimble conies sport. 
The changing moon he clad with silver hght, 
To check the black dominion of the night : 
High through the skies in silent state she rides, 
And by her rounds the fleeting time divides. 
The circhng sim doth in due time dechne, 
And unto shades the murmuring world resign. 
Dark night thou makest succeed the cheerful day, 
Which forest beasts from their lone caveg survey : 
They rouse themselves, creep out, and search their 

prey. ' 

Young hungry lions from their dens come out, 
And, mad on blood, stalk fearfully about : 
They break night's silence with their hideous roar, 
And from kind heaven their nightly prey implore. 
Just as the lark begins to stretch her wing. 
And, flickering on her nest, makes short essays to 

sing, ^ . 

And the sweet dawn, with a faint glimmering 

light, 
Unveils the face of nature to the sight, 
To their dark dens they take their hasty flight. 
Not so the husbandman, — for with the sun 
He does his pleasant course of labours run: 
Home with content in the cool e'en returns, 
And his sweet toils until the morn adjourns. 
How many are thy wondrous works, O Lord ! 
They of thy wisdom solid proofs afford: 
Out of thy boundless goodness thou didst fill, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



129 



With riches and delights, both vale and hill : 
E'en the broad ocean, wherein do abide 
Monsters that flounce upon the boiling tide, 
And swarms of lesser beasts and fish beside : 
'Tis there that daring ships before the wind 
Do send amain, and make the port assign'd: 
'Tis there that Leviathan sports and plays, 
And spouts his water in the face of day; 
For food with gaping mouth they wait on thee, 
If thou withholdst, they pine, they faint, they die. 
Thou bountifully opest thy liberal hand. 
And scatter'st plenty both on sea and land. 
Thy vital spirit makes all things live below, 
The face of nature with new beauties glow. 
God's awful glory ne'er will have an end. 
To vast eternity it will extend. 
When he survej's liis works, at the wide sight 
He doth rejoice, and take divine delight. 
His looks the earth into its centre shakes; 
A touch of his to smoke the mountains makes, 
I'll to God's honour consecrate my lays, 
And when I cease to be I'll cease to praise. 
Upon the Lord, a sublime lofty theme, 
My meditations sweet, my joys supreme. 
Let daring sinners feel thy vengeful rod, 
May they no more be known by their abode. 
My goul and all my powers, -O bless the Lord, 
And the whole race of men with one accord. 



LINES ON MARLE FIELD, 

What is the task that to the muse belongs'? 
What but to deck in her hannonious songs 
The beauteous works of nature and of art, 
Rural retreats that cheer the heavy heart "? 
Then Marie Field begin, my muse, and sing; 
With Marie Field the hills and vales shall ring. 
O ! What dehght and pleasure 'tis to rove 
Through all the walks and allies of this grove, 
Where spreading trees a checker'd scene display, 
Partly admitting and excluding day ; 
Where cheerful green and odorous sweets con- 
spire 
The drooping soul with pleasure to inspire; 
Where little birds employ their narrow throats 
To sing its praises ui unlabour'd notes. 
To it adjoin'd a rising fabric stands. 
Which with its state our- silent awe commands. 
Its endless beauties mock the poet's pen; 
So to the garden I'll return again. 
Pomona makes the trees with fruits abound, 
And blushing Flora paints the enamel'd ground. 
Here lavish nature does her stores disclose. 
Flowers of all hue, their queen the bashfiil rose,. 
With their sweet breath the ambient air's per- 
fumed, ■ I. ' 
Nor is thereby their fragrant stores consumed. 



O'er the fair landscape sportive zephyrs scud, 
And by kind force display the infant bud. 
The vegetable kind here rear their head. 
By kindly showers and heaven's indulgence fed : 
Of fabled nymphs such were the sacred haunts, 
But real nymphs this charming dwelling vaunts. 
Now to the greenhouse let's awhile retire,- 
To shun the heat of Sol's infectious fire: 
Inunortal authors grace this cool retreat, 
Of ancient times, and of a modern date. 
Here would my praises and my fancy dwell; 
But it, alas, description does excel. 
O may this sweet, this beautiful abode 
Remain the charge of the eternal God. 



ON BEAUTY. 

Beauty deserves the homage of the muse: 
Shall mine, rebellious, the dear theme refuse 1 
No ; while my breast respires the vital air, 
Wholly I am devoted to the fair. 
Beauty I'll sing in my sublimest lays, 
I bufn to give her just immortal praise. 
The heavenly maid with transport I'll pursue 
To her abode, and all her graces view. 
This happy place with all delights abounds. 
And plenty broods upon the fertile grounds. 

Here verdant grass their waving 

And hills and vales in sweet confusion lie: 
The nibbling flock stray o'er the rising hills, 
And all around with bleating music fills: 
High on their fronts tall blooming forests nod. 
Of sylvan deities the blest abode : 
The feather'd minstrels hop from sprayto spray, 
And chant their gladsome carols all the day ; 
Till dusky night, advancing in her car, 
Malces with declining light successful war. 
Then Philomel her mournful lay repeats, 
And through her throat breathes melancholy 

sweets. 
Still higher yet wild rugged rocks arise, 
And strike beholders with a dread surprise. . 
This paradise these towering hills surround. 
That thither is one only passage found. 
Increasing brooks roll down the mountain's side, 
And as they pass the opposing pebbles chide 



But vernal showers refresh the blooming year 
Their only season is eternal spring, 
Which hovers o'er them with a downy wing: 
Blossoms and fruits at once the trees adorn 
With glowing blushes, like the rosy morn: 
The way that to this stately palace goes 
Of myrtle trees, lies 'twixt two even rows, 
Which, towering high, with outstretch'd arms 

display'd. 
Over our heads a living arch have made. 



130 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



To sing, my muse, th« bold attempt begin, 
Of awful beauties you behold within: 
The Goddess sat upon a throne of gold, 
Emboss'd with figures charming to behold; 
Here new made Eve stood in her early bloom, 
Not yet obscured with sin's sullen gloom ; 
Her naked beauties do the soul confound, 
From every part is given a fatal woimd ; 
There other beauties of a meaner fame 
Oblige the sight, whom here I shall not name. 
In her right hand she did a sceptre sway, 
O'er all mankind ambitious to obey : 
Her lovely forehead and her killing eye, 
Her blushing cheeks of a vermilion dye, 
Her lip's soft pulp, her heaving snowy breast, 
Her well turn'd arm, her handsome slender waist, 
And all below veil'd from the curious eye; 
Oh ! heavenly maid ! makes all beholders cry. 
Her dress was plain, not pompous as a bride. 
Which would her sweeter native beauties hide. 
One thing I mind, a spreading hoop she wore, 
Than nothing which adorns a lady more. 
With equal rage, could I its beauties sing, 
I'd with the hoop make all Parnassus ring. 
Around her shoulders, dangling on her throne, 
A bright Tartana carelessly was throwTi, 
Which has already won immortal praise. 
Most sweetly sung in Allan Ramsay's lays; 
The wanton Cupids did around her play, 
And smihng loves upon her bosom stray; 
With purple wings they round about her flew, 
And her sweet lips tinged with ambrosial dew: 
Her air was easy, graceful was her mien, 
Her presence banish'd the ungrateful spleen; 
In short, her divine influence refined 
Our corrupt hearts, and polished mankind. 
Of lovely nymphs she had a smiling train, 
Fairer than those e'er graced Arcadia's plain. 
The British ladies next to her took place, 
Who chiefly did the fair assembly grace. 
What blooming virgins can Britannia boast, 
Their praises would all eloquence exhaust. 
With ladies there my ravish'd eyes did meet, 
That oil I've seen grace fair Edina's street. 
With their broad noops cut through the willing 

air, 
Pleased to give place unto the lovely fair: 
Sure this is like those blissful seats above, 
Here is peace, transporting joy, and love. 
Should I be doom'd by cruel angry fjlte 
In some lone isle my lingering end to wait, 
Yet happy 1 1 still happy should I be. 
While bless'd with virtue and a charming she; 
With full content I'd fortune's pride despise. 
And die still gazing on her lovely eyes. 
May all the blessings mortals need below. 
May all the blessings heaven can bestow, 
May every thing that's pleasant, good, or rare. 
Be the eternal portion of the Fair. 



A COMPLAINT ON THE MISERIES OF 
LIFE. 

I LOATHE, O Lord, this life below. 
And all its fading fleeting joys; 
'Tis a short space that's fill'd with wo. 
Which all our bliss by far outweighs. 
When will the everlasting morn, 
With dawning light the, skies adorn'? 

Fitly this life's compared to night. 
When gloomy darkne'ss shades the sky; 
Just like the morn's our glimmering light 
Reflected from the Deity. 
When will celestial mom dispel 
These dark surrounding shades of hell'? 

I'm sick of this vexatious state, 
Where cares invade my peaceful horn's; 
Strike the last blow, courteous fate, 
I'll smiling fall like mowed flowers ; 
I'll gladly spurn this clogging clay, 
And, sweetly singing, soar away. 

What's money but refined dust "? 
What's honours but an empty name'? 
And what is soft enticing lust. 
But a consuming idle flame '? 
Yea, what is all beneath the sky 
•But emptiness and vanity'? 

With thousand ills our life's oppress'd. 
There's notliing- here worth living for; 
In the lone grave I long to rest. 
And be harassed here no more : 
Where joy's fantastic, grief's sincere,' 
And where there's nought for which I care. 

Thy word, O Lord, shall be my guide. 
Heaven, where' thou dwellest, is my goal; 
Through corrupt life grant I may glide 
With an untainted upward soul. 
Then may this life, this dreary night, 
Dispelled be by morning light. 



AN ELEGY ON PARTING. 

It was a sad, ay 'twas a sad farewell, 
I still afresh the pangs of parting feel; 
Against my breast my heart impatient beat. 
And in deep sighs bemoan'd its cruel fate; 
Thus with the object of my love to part. 
My Ufe ! my joy ! 'twould rend a rocky heart. 

Where'er I turn myself, where'er I go, 
I meet the image of my lovely foe ; 
With witching charms the phantom still appears. 
And with her wanton smiles insults my tears; 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



131 



Still haunts the places where we used tq walk, 
And where with raptures oft I heard her talk : 
Those scenes I now with deepest sorrow view, 
And sighing bid to all delight adieu. 

While I my head upon this turf recline, 
Officious sun, in vain on me you shine; 
In vain unto the smihng fields I hie ; 
In vain the flowery meads salute my eye ; 
In vain the cheerful birds and shepherds sing, 
And with their carols make the valleys ling; 
Yea, all the pleasure that the country yield 
Can't rne from sorrow for her absence shield ; 
With divine pleasure books which one inspire, 
Yea, books themselves I dp not now admire. 
But hark ! methinks some pitying power I hear, 
This welcome message whispering in my ear : 
' Forget thy groundless griefs, dejected swain, 
You and the nymph you love shall meet again; 
No more your muse shall sing such mournful lays. 
But bounteous heaven and your kind mistress 
praise.' 



SONG. 



When blooming spring 

Always the laughing fields in green, 
Then flowers in open air .are seen, 
And warbling birds are heard to sing. 
Almighty love 
Doth sweetly move 

All nature through; ' 
Then tell me Chloe, why iCre you 
Averse thereto ; 
When blooming charms 
Invite j'our lover's. circling arms? 
O be no longer coy . ' . 
To love and share of joy. 



A PASTORAL 

BETWIXT DAVID,- THIRSIS, AND THE ANGEL GA- 
BRIEL, UPON THE BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOUR. 



What means yon. apparition in the sky, 
Thirsis, that dazzles every shepherd's eye? 
I slumbering was when from yon glorious cloud 
Came ghding music heavenly, sweet and loud. 
With sacred raptures which my bosom fires, 
And with celestial joy my soul inspires; 
It sooths the native horrors of the night, 
And gladdens nature more than dawning light. 

THIRSTS. 

But hold, see hither through the yielding air 
An angel colnes: for mighty news prepare. 



ANGEL GABRIEL. 

Rejoice, ye swains, anticipate the morn 
With songs of praise; for lo, a Saviour's born. 
Witli joyful haste to Bethlehem repair. 
And you will find the 'almighty infant there; 
Wrapp'd in a swaddling band you'll find your king, 
And m a manger laid, to liim your praises bring. 

CHORUS OP ANGELS. 

The God who in the highest dwells, 

Immortal glory be ; 
Let peace be in the humble cells 

Of Adam's progeny. 



No more the year shall wintry horrors bring; 
Fix'd in the indulgence of eternal spring, 
Immortal green shall clothe the hills and vales, 
And odorous sweets shall load the balmy gales ; 
The silver brooks shall in soft murmurs tell 
The joy that shall' their oozy channels swell. 
Feed on, my flocks, and crop the tender grass, 
Let blooming joy appear on every face; 
For lo ! this blessed, this propitious morn. 
The Saviour of lost manMnd is born. 



Thou fairest morn that ever sprang from night, 
Or decked the opening skies with rosy light. 
Well mayest thou shine, with a distinguish'd ray, 
Since here Enmianuel condescends to stay. 
Our fears, our guilt, our- darkness' to dispel, 
And save us from the horrid jaws of hell. 
Who from his throne descanded, matchless love ! 
To guide poor mortals to btess'd seats above : 
But come without delay, let us be gone. 
Shepherd, let's go, and humbly kiss the Son. 



A PASTORAL 

BETWEEN THIRSTS AND CORYDON, UPON THE DEATH 

OP DAMON, BY WHOM IS MEANT MR. W. 

RIDDELL. 

Thir. Say, tell me true, what is the doleftd 
cause ; 

That Corydon Is not the man he was 1 
Your cheerful presence used to lighten cares, 
And from the plains to banish gloomy fears. 
Whene'er unto the circling swains you sung 
Our ravish'd souls upon the music hung ; 
The gazing, hstening flocks forgot their meat. 
While vocal grottos did your lays repeat : 
But now your gravity our mirth rebukes, 
And in your downcast and desponding looks 
Appears some fatal and impending wo; 
I'fear to ask, and yet desire to know. 



132 



THOMSON'S WORKS. 



Cor. The doleful news, how shall I, Thirsis, 
tell ! 
In blooming youth the hapless Damon fell: 
He's dead, he's dead, and with him all my joy ; 
The mournful thought does all gay forms destroy ; 
This is the cause of my unusual grief, • 
Which sullenly admits of no reUef. 

Thir. Begone all mirth! begone all sports and 
play, 
To a deluge of grief and tears give way. 
Damon the just, the generous, and the young. 
Must Damon's worth and merit be \msung 1 
No, Corydon, the wondrous youth you knew 
How as in years so he in virtue grew ; 
Embalm his fame in never djdng verse, 
As a just tribute to his doleful hearse. 

Cor. Assist me, mighty grief, my breast inspire 
With generous heats and with thy wildest fire, 
Wliile in a solemn aiid a mournful strain 
Of Damon gone for ever I complain. 
Ye muses, weep ; your mirth and songs forbear, 
And for him sigh and shed a friendly tear ; 
He was your favourite, and by your aid 
In charming' verse his witty thoughts array'd ; 
He had of knowledge, learning, wit, a store, 
To it denied he still pi'ess'd after more. 
He was a pious and a virtuous soul. 
And still press'd forward to the heavenly goal ; 
He was a faithful, true, and constant friend. 
Faithful, and true, and constant to the end. 
Ye flowers, hang down and droop your heads, 
No more around your grateful odours spread ; 
Ye leafy trees, your blooming honours shed, 
Damon for ever from your shade is fled ; 
Fled to the mansions of eternal light. 
Where endless wonders strike his happy sight. 
Ye birds, be mute, as through the trees you fly, 
Mute as the grave wherein my friend does lie. 
Ye winds, breathe sighs as through the air you 

rove, 
And in sad pomp the trembling branches move. 
Ye gliding brooks, O weep your channels dry, 
My flowing tears them fully shall supply; 
You in soft; murmurs may your grief express, 
And yours, you swains, in mournful songs com- 
press. 
I to some dark and gloomy shade will fly, 
Dark as the grave wherein my friend does lie ; 
And for his death to lonely rocks complain 
In mournftil accents and a dying strain, 
While pining echo answers me again. 



A PASTORAL ENTERTAINMENT. 

While in heroic numbers some relate- 
The amazing turns of wise eternal fate ; 
Exploits of heroes in the dusty field. 
That to their name immortal honour yield ; 



Grant mc, ye powers, ... by the limpid spring 
The harmless ... of the plain to sing, 
A wreath of flowers cull' d from the . . . . 
Is all the . . . my humble muse demands. 

Now bhthesome shepherds, by the early dawn, 
Their new shorn flocks drive to the dewy lawn ; 
While, in a bleating language, each salutes 
The welcome morning and their fellow brutes: 
Then all prepared for the rural feast. 
And in their finest Sunday habits drest ; 
Thecrystal brook supplied the mirror's place, 
. . . they bathed and viewed their cleanly, face, 

and nymphs resorted to the fields 

pomp the country yields. 

The place appointed was a spacious vale, 
Pann'd always by a cooling western gale. 
Which in sofl; breezes through the meadows sttay, 
And steals the ripened fragrancies away ; 
Here every shepherd might his flocks survey, 
Securely roam and take his harmless play ; 
And here were flowers each shepherdess to grace, 
On her fair bosom courting but a place. 

How in this vale, beneath a grateful shade, 
By twining boughs of spreading . . . made, 
On seats of homely turf themselves they place,. 
And cheerfully enjoy the rural feast. 
Consisting of the produce of the fields. 
And all the luxury the country yields. 
No maddening Uquors spoil'd their harmless mirth, 
But an untainted spring their thirst allayed. 
Which in meadows through the valley strayed. 
Thrice happy swains who spend your golden days 
In ... . pastime ; and when night displays 
Her sable shade, to peaceful huts retire; 
Can any man a sweeter bliss desire? 
In ancient times so pass'd the smiling hour. 
When our first parents lived in Eden's bower, 
E'er care andtrouble were pronounced. 
Or sin had blasted the creation .... 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF THOMSON. 

BY COLLINS. 

The scene on the Thames near Jlichmond. 

In yonder grave a Druid lies, 

Where slowly winds the stealing wave; 
The year's best sweets shaU duteous rise 

To deck its poet's sylvan grave. 

In yon deep bed of whispering reeds 

His airy harp* shall now be laid. 
That he, whose heart in sorrow bleeds. 

May love through life the soothing shade. 

Then maids and youths shall Unger here. 
And while its sounds at distance swell, 



' The iEolian harp. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



133 



Shall sadly seem in pity's ear 

To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell. 

Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore 
Where Thames in summer wreaths is drest, 

And oft suspend the dashing oar. 
To bid his gentle spirit rest ! 

And oft, as ease and health retire 

To breezy lawn, or forest deep, 
The friend shall view yon whitening* spire, 

And mid the varied landscape weep. 

But thou, who own'st that eartTiy bed, 

Ah ! what will every dirge avail ; 
Or tears, which love and pity shed, 

That mourn beneath the gliding sail! 

Yet lives there one, whose heedless eye 

Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimmering near? 

With him, sweet bard, may fancy die, 
And joy desert the blooming year. 

But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide 
No sedge-crovsm'd sisters now attend. 

Now waft me from the green hill's side. 
Whose cold tmf hides the buried friend ! 

And see, the fairy valleys fade, 

Dun liight has veil'd the solemn view: 

Yet once again, dear parted shade; 
Meek nature's child, again adieu ! • ' 

The genial meads, assign'd to bless 
Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom; 

Their hinds and shepherd-girls shall dress 
With simple hands thy rural tomb. 

Long, long, thy stone and pointed clay 
Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes: 



'Richmond Church, where Thomson lies buried in the 
north-west corner of it, below the christening pew, without a 
tablet or memorial to say— Here Thomson lies. 



O ! vales, and wild woods, shall he say. 
In yonder grave your Druid lies. 



ADDRESS TO THE SHADE OP 
THOMSON.* 

BY ROBERT BURNS. 

While virgin Spring, by Eden's flood 
Unfolds her tender mantle green ; 

Or pranks the sod in frolic mood. 
Or tunes the Eolian strains between; 

While Smnmer vnth a matron grace 
Retreats to Dryburgh's cooUng shade, 

Yet oft delighted stops to trace 
The progress of the spiky blade; 

While Autumn, benefactor kind. 

By Tweed erects her aged head, 
And sees, with self-approving mind, 

Each creature on her bounty fed ; 

While maniac Winter rages o'er 

The hills whence classic Yarrow flows, 

Rousing the turbid torrent's roar. 
Or sweeping wild a waste of snows ; 

So long, sweet poet of the year. 

Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won, 
While Scotia with exulting tear 

Proclaims that Thomson was her son. 



•This was written ai the request of Lord Buchan, and sent 
with the following modest remark : " Yom- lordship hints at 
an Ode for the occasion : but who would write after Collins ? 
I read over his Verses to the Memory of Thomson, and de- 
spaired. I attempted tlu-ee or four stanzas in the way of Ad- 
dress to the Shade of the Bard, on crowning his bust. I trou- 
ble your lordship with the enclosed copy of them, which I am 
afraid will be but too convincing a proof how unequal I am 
to the task you would obligingly assign me." 



THE END OF THOMSON'S WORKS. 



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